A review by henrymarlene
Exploded View by Carrie Tiffany

4.0

This book was very intense, violent, silent and still. 'Exploded View' was a short story with a very tragic underlay. It is very clear that this book alludes to some kind of domestic violence and abuse, however it is never in direct view. The book has movement through the repairing of cars by the narrator's 'father-man', the reading of the Holden engine manual, and a very long trip in the back of the family car; yet there is a certain stillness in every image captured by the author. The narrator, a young girl, is not named and when we meet her she has spents many days not speaking, with no explanation given. The writing is short and abrupt in some places, with a tense feeling at the back of the neck like something bad was always around the corner. It also conveyed an escape for the narrator, where she sometimes stepped outside of herself, like she was watching her own actions before her eyes. Her neighbourhood break-and-enters are sad and lonesome. Skipping school becomes a regularity, and her spot in that long car trip on the car floor was demeaning, like she did not exist. Her sneaking out of the locked fortress of a house to take cars out for a midnight drive or to sabotage the work father-man had done was calculated, and a way to escape. "The smallest part is often where the break occurs."