Holier Than Thou

by Laura Buzo

From the author of Good Oil, this extraordinary, bittersweet novel portrays a slice of Australian city life through an unforgettable girl named Holly who is navigating the nuances and complexities of being in her early 20s.

"What do you want, Hol?" Abby looks into my eyes. "I ... I want to know that I'm using my powers for good and-" "You want to make a dead man proud." "Whoa!" "You want to put bandages over severed arteries that really need to be sewn shut. You want the moral high ground."

Holly Yarkov has a boyfriend who is a gift from the universe. She has a job that fulfills her even as it wears her down. She has a core group of friends from high school. And she has a layer of steel around her heart that is beginning to tarnish. Just as she is reaching for a future she can't quite see, Holly is borne back into the past by memories of her beloved father, and of the boy-who-might-have-been...

Grief and longing run like veins of quicksilver through this beautiful novel, at once gloriously funny and achingly sad.

Genres: New Adult, Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Chick Lit

300 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2012

About the author

Laura Buzo was born and grew up in Sydney, middle of three daughters. Growing up she loved swimming, riding horses, tennis, netball, running, chocolate and above all, reading. After university, Laura worked as a social worker in various acute and community-based mental health settings in Sydney. In 2005 she took some time away from work to start writing her first novel, Good Oil. Laura is still working as a social worker and has a young daughter. She lives in Sydney.

Reviews

[Nataliya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does literature need to be the mirror of our own selves in order for us to enjoy it? This is what kept running through my mind during the few hours I spent curled up on my couch, having finished an unbelievably draining month of Inpatient Medicine, with this book as my celebratory companion.

"A nurse and a social worker took fifteen minutes out of their shitty thankless job in the roughest corner of town, sat on a couple of milk crates drinking coffee, flopped their real selves out of the cement and both liked what they saw."

It seems that the whole point of young adult literature now is writing a protagonist that the reader should be able to relate to. Actually, scratch that. It may be the point of most literature. As I look through reviews of so many books that I've read, I keep seeing the sentiments expressed over and over again - 'I SO could relate to the protagonist!', 'The heroine reminded me of myself during this time of my life!', and 'I could easily see myself in the character!'

Perhaps this is why young adult literature is becoming so increasingly popular. After all, almost all of us have been through high school, have met wonderful friends, have fallen in love feeling that this is "it", had our heart broken a few times, felt young and invincible and idealistic. So many of us got the round two of this experience in college - sheltering us for few more precious years from what is waiting 'out there'. These are the experiences most of us can easily look back on, remember, rehash, sometimes see through glasses rose-tinted by the distance of a few years or sometimes a few decades. The point is - most of us had these, and so most of us can RELATE. (*)

(*) (On this note, is this why so many YA heroines are the talentless idiots who magically turn into Mary Sues and are secretly the absolute BEST without even realizing that? Is that the only thing that the writers/publishers think we can relate to? Sadly, I think we readers may have been patronized and underestimated. But this is the conversation for another time and place).

Now, this book is what is apparently called the New Adult genre (as opposed to the *Young* Adult and not *Old* Adult, despite the unfortunate implications of this name). Apparently these kinds of books are for the new young college grads who have been removed from the safety of high school and college and now are expected to sort their lives out in the 'outside' world. And it can be big and scary and uncertain and hostile and overall not exactly what you hoped for. It's no longer sufficient to just have potential; it is time to live up to that potential now. That's the idea, from what I understand.



But from reading the reviews of this book before I even got my hands on it (Thanks, Catie!) I saw the pattern - the lack of relatability, so to say, for many readers. Apparently, Holly's experience is not universal. And what more, many of the people reading this book are not even at this stage of life yet. They lack the distance and rosy-tinted glasses of been-there-done-it-and-survived that allow you to read this book with the level of enjoyability that it can carry. If you haven't lived it yet, can you actually understand it and see its flaws and non-flaws? Maybe you need to be a slightly 'older' adult to enjoy it? It seems that Catie thought that, in the lovely review that made me want to read this book, and I think this, too, from the overwhelming life experience of my twenty-eight years of life (that was sarcastically tinged, by the way).

"I my fug I had walked right past a police cordon, erected because of a suicidal woman on the roof of the hospital. [...]
I generally kidded myself that so much separates me from these people. That's how I managed to come to work every day. But one of these fine days it could be me. These strong core muscles of mine, the shiny steel... it could all come crashing down."

What is this book about? Well, it's about the experiences of Holly Yarkov, an Australian brand-spankin'-new social worker who, like an adult she's supposed to be, has a real job (but also IMPORTANT AND IDEALISTIC!), an apartment of her own(crappy as it may be), a perfect live-in boyfriend, and a circle of high school and college friends.

"I had been calm, strong and compassionate for all the fractured souls and grieving families that were my daily bread at Elizabethtown. I could feel my compassion seeping out, my cynicism and hopelessness hardening, baking themselves onto the pan."

And then Holly gets to learn, like all of us eventually do, that even the most idealistic job can be a burden, that perfect boyfriend has very human flaws, that friends drift away, family may not need you to be their pillar of strength any longer, and that, basically, you are not as much of a center of the universe as you have been thinking. You may be the hero of YOUR story, but in the grand scheme of life you just may be a peripheral character, an extra, a face in the crowd. And how do you make your peace with it? How do you fit in this new mean world?

"There was no script to follow for a friend who had gone MIA. If you get dumped by a lover there is a script. You grieve intensely, you cry, you don't eat for a few weeks, you take a deep breath and you move on. But the whole left by an absent friend never really closes over. You never stop missing them or wondering what the fuck happened."

In terms of relating to Holly as a reason to like this book - I do a bit, actually - but not entirely. I stopped depending on my parents at a rather young age, I tasted real life before heading off to college and so post-college life was not a surprise. But on the other hand, having been to college and grad school for 8 years straight does give you a perpetual student mentality, a way to remain, at least partially, in a somewhat protective bubble.

And having gone to the medical school where I did, I was taught to absorb idealism and altruism with every fiber of my body, to be proud of the changes I can make in the world - but having experienced medicine now as an actual MD, in a busy county hospital, no less, I can easily see what Holly refers to when describing her less-than-glamorous moments of a life as a social worker for mental health services. The frustration, the understaffing, the underfunding, the lack of understanding, the long draining days - it's all there, all taking your idealistic view and desire to help others and turning it onto its head. It was making Holly lose her compassion. It was trying to turn me into a tired and callousy person. It was reminding me of trying to not break under pressure, to preserve a bit of self that you like. This much I can relate to. This was what made this book feel real for me.

"By then the paramedics were well and truly over it, and I didn't blame them. I'd had nothing to eat since the honey toast Tim had made for me at 7 a.m. and now it was 3 p.m. Neither had I peed in that time. (*)"

(*) Dear Holly, I will share a life-saving advice that I received from one of the surgeons on how to survive residency - 'Sleep whenever you can. Eat whenever you can. Pee whenever you can. Follow these three rules - and you're golden.' This has been my mantra since.

And this was also reminding me of what it was like being younger and less experienced and making mistakes and choices that may seem like too much compromises at the moment - because life demands that. It reminded me of how many of my friends have moved into their post-college careers that included things I could not bring myself to care about - all while I continued to keep trudging on the road to change the world, in my rosy-tinted view of the universe, while my friends were dismissing medicine saying that it's not where the money is any more and me looking at them incomprehensibly and going - 'what money? I don't care!' and feel at those moments - wait for it... wait for it... Holier than thou! I guess that was the relatability factor that I found in this book, and it worked for me, and did not work for others, and it's all okay since the New Adult experience does not have to be the same for everyone. Most things are not there for everyone to relate to, and that's quite alright.

This book is one of those that do not have a real ending. It's interrupted halfway through, and we are not sure exactly what are the decisions that Holly will make. And that's also was fine by me - after all, New Adults have quite a few choices to make once they figure out how to cope with this world, and Holly leaves this story with quite a few of them open to her, and I trust her to make the best choices for herself, or else fail and start over, because that is all a part of growing into the Old Adulthood, after all. 4 stars and recommend - especially if you are a bit closer to 30 than 20 and have been down some of these roads before.

——————
Recommended by: Catie

[Reynje · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Perhaps it’s stating the obvious but I think there’s a direct correlation between a reader’s engagement with Holier Than Thou and the reader’s own experiences of life in their early 20s.

Maybe I felt an affinity for this book because I was 22 when my mother first – gently, cautiously – suggested to me that I consider looking for another job because my current one was making me bitter, angry and generally distrustful of people. (It was.) Maybe I felt it because, while I am a bridge-burner to the point of pyromania, I am also a deeply nostalgic person, hoarding scraps of my past and the memory of long uncontacted friends, pulling them out in secret to inspect and mourn over privately. Maybe I felt it because I saw in Holly something of the rigid defences I had built up around myself, and the tendency to bristle under any perceived threat to the exacting system of belief by which I measured and judged myself. Maybe it was the way I found myself inured in apathy and a general malaise that was no longer counteracted by a sense of worth and accomplishment (or admittedly a sort of bitter self-righteousness) in what I was doing with my life.

Or perhaps it’s just because this novel makes me think of sticky pub carpet underfoot and sunburn and hot sand and long, idealistic conversations in which I naively gave away parts of myself to people I would eventually lose, intentionally or otherwise. It makes me think of a sense of abandon and recklessness I lost long ago, of an ability to throw myself - into situations, into ambitions, into rooms, behind ideals, at people. It makes me remember how all that gung-ho toughness I thought I had developed was actually barely even holding me together. That everything I kept compartmentalised inside was eventually going to reach critical mass and manifest in some messy and irrevocable fashion. That while I thought I had been keeping my chin up and soldiering on, I was actually absorbing all the emotional dross I had tried to ignore and eventually I would have to wring myself out and see what was left.

What I’m trying to say, is that while I don’t indentify with every aspect of Holly herself, I identify with this book’s portrayal of grief and longing and disillusionment so much it hurts. My personal and critical readings of this book are too closely intertwined for me to separate them and speak about one without referencing the other. And of course, that’s not how every reader will respond to it. Perhaps they’ll see something self-indulgent, or at least self-inflicted, in the gradual unravelling of Holly’s life. But the concept of a person holding themselves hostage to their personal system of beliefs is one that I can identify with, and part of the reason this book resonates with me.

Laura Buzo’s writing feels familiar and comfortable. While both Good Oil and Holier Than Thou are novels that spark something deeply nostalgic in me, there’s immediacy to her writing that prevent her stories and characters from stagnating with the passing of time. Rather, the way she writes brings back past events into sharp focus, all the awkwardness and yearning of adolescence and the blustering navigation of the 20s with startling clarity.

Holier Than Thou loops backward and forward through Holly’s life, interweaving the past with the present to contextualise the eventual breakdown of her system of internal order. In a way, her past informs her present, and the regret and grief she harbours, constantly presses down, will eventually work its way out to infiltrate and alter the life she has carefully built for herself.

Similarly, Holly’s relationships, both past, present and those that exist through both, in some way influence the path her life takes. And here is where Buzo really excels for me, in the authenticity of these characters and the richness of their interactions – not only in their banter and familiarity – but in the way they evolve. Buzo depicts the natural and forced changes in friendships, and the loss thereof, with a sort of biting poignancy. She captures the fact that not all relationships survive change intact, and that the ideals we hold about those we love will inevitably be challenged. In Holier Than Thou, Buzo articulately conveys the bereft sensation that accompanies this knowledge, and the longing and confusion of unresolved history.

The deconstruction of Holly’s stoicism and her “holier-than-thou” mentality is a thorny area to navigate, yet I think Buzo wrote this with empathy and insight. Sometimes, I feel that when someone doesn’t give the desired or expected response to a given situation, its possible to deny them of their right to their feelings. While Holly’s manner of dealing with loss and change may seem less relatable to some, or her tendency to batten down the emotional hatches may not endear her to others, is she less entitled to express her grief?

Further, the novel addresses the issue that change is not always as simple and clear cut as it may seem from the outside. That extricating oneself from a pattern of thought and years of suppressed emotion can be a painful and complicated process.

Which brings me to this idea:



While I agree with the theory and sentiment behind it, I don’t believe that this one size fits all solution works as smoothly for everyone. For some people it might be a matter of flipping a switch in their head. For others, it’s a horrible process of ripping out their internal fixtures and settings, sandbagging the gaping holes left behind.

For me, that’s what this novel is about. Acknowledging that Holly’s journey can’t be reduced to a series of aesthetically pleasing circles and arrows. That there’s mess and jagged edges and no easy solutions – but there is something beautiful and powerful in recognising that fact.

* * * * *

Until I get around to writing an actual review, I thought I'd knock together a Holier Than Thou playlist, comprised of songs/artists mentioned in the book and some other stuff that I just thought fit. It's a bit out of order and I might have missed someone in there..

(*) denotes an artist or song referenced in the book.

1. Mace Spray - The Jezabels
2. The Bucket - Kings of Leon*
3. Rabbit Heart - Florence + The Machine*
4. Evil - Interpol*
5. Jona Vark - Gypsy & The Cat
6. Run The Red Light - British India*
7. Somebody That I Used To Know - Elliott Smith*
8. Endless Summer - The Jezabels
9. Jungle - Emma Louise
10. These Days - Powderfinger
11. Straight Lines - Silverchair
12. The Submarine - Whitley
13. Falling Away - Big Scary ("an ocean of disappointment" is my favourite song lyric of all time)
14. Somersault - Decoder Ring
15. Beast of Love - Cloud Control
16. Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes*
17. I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ - Scissor Sisters*
18. Hearts A Mess - Gotye (For Trin!)
19. I Thought You Were God - Clare Bowditch*
20. Last Day On Earth - Kate Miller-Heidke
21. Blood - The Middle East
22. Into My Arms - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds*
23. Big Jet Plane - Angus & Julia Stone
24. Precious Things - Tori Amos*

Bonus Fact - if my memory does not deceive me, The Jezabels is the band that Frankie & co are going to see in The Piper's Son

[Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

So normally when I dislike a book that is obviously a well-written, unique and great book, I normally say something along the lines of “Oh well, this book obviously wasn’t written for me.’
I can’t really say that for this one, because… well, this book was written for me.
Well, not literally.
Ms Buzo didn’t sneakily e-mail me and say ‘HEY JO! I’ve written a book AND IT’S FOR YOU’. But I’m the same age as the heroine and this is kind of a big deal for me. There are tons of books written about children, there are even more books written about teenagers but then… there’s kind of a lull. And then we jump right ahead to the twenty seven year old business ladies who work in the city but have a LIFE CRISIS so they move to a rural farm where they fall in love with a gardener and/or an underwear model or something.
But where are the books about the people who have just left university? They’re expected to be grown-ups for the first time ever. Life is staring at them and saying: “Go on, it’s your move.”
Imagine the angst!
The last time I read a book where I was the same age as the heroine was Harry Potter. But that probably doesn’t count because SPOILER I am not a witch. But in Holier Than Thou, Holly is my age! Now! And she has problems and issues that I have! Right? We’re going to be the bestest of friends!
Well, in theory.
I’ve had bad experience with media about leaving university before. In the month or so after we handed our dissertation in and before we got kicked out of our student house, my best friend and I watched Post Grad. Now, I refuse to apologise because I was basically watching any film that wasn’t directed by Scorsese and Allen but… wow. That film was pretty much the worst film in the entire world to watch after you’ve just graduated.
Luckily, this book didn’t have the same effect on me as that film did (read: I don’t punch wildly at things when it’s mentioned) but I still didn’t enjoy it. I don’t know what it is about Ms Buzo but it seems that she has a great knack for writing great stories with characters I really dislike. I just really, really didn’t like Holly at all. I found her extremely negative and cynical and… well, kinda whingy. Now don’t get me wrong, it would have been just as bad if she’d been Mary Sunshine, happy happy, joy joy for the whole book, because no one is like that. But…I don’t even think she laughed once. Apart from when she was laughing bitterly at how her life was over before she was twenty five.

What follows is a conversation that I had with Flann about this book because it’s interesting and I think it will explain a bit better the problems I had with it than I could. Also, it will get me off the hook from actually writing a proper review.

Jo- I’m really struggling with Holier Than Thou, by the way.
Flann- Yeah? What don’t you like about it?
Jo-I don’t know. I don’t really like Holly.
Flann- No? I totally liked her.
Jo- I find her really aggressive, like she has this sense of entitlement about everything just because she doesn’t know what to do with her life. I’m not that far into it but, yeah… I’m not in love with it.
Flann-Hm. I’m trying to think about what you mean. She definitely has an attitude towards her friends because she think what she is doing is more worthy.
Jo- Yeah…just her whole outlook on life is just really difficult for me to understand.
Flann- Do you have a lot of friends doing business/finance jobs?
Jo- No, most of my friends are in retail or admin.
Flann- I think I could just relate to her a bit because after college, I was honestly digging through flooded houses and shit and building stuff and I'd visit my college friends and they'd just go to work in a skyscraper and then go get drunk every day after work and it was hard not to think what I was doing was more worthwhile. If that makes sense? So I can identify with the feelings Holly has towards her friends who aren’t doing anything that is blatantly helping others.
Jo-Yeah it does. Maybe it's because I'm kind of in her situation... but it’s very different. Like, I've graduated but because of the times, I’ve had to move home and except for like two of them, all my friends are doing jobs that have nothing to do with their degrees.
Flann- I think you are at an interesting point in your life right now. Like you aren't doing something that you love, but I think Holly's at that point, like a few years down the line (even if she is the same age) when people are settling into permanent jobs and it's like a crisis because this is it. Shit's scary
Jo- It’s weird because Holly reads a lot older than me. I'm not saying I'm immature (although I probably am) but hardly any of my friends have permanent 'real life' jobs. I feel like I'm kind of in limbo at the moment and even though it’s annoying and doing an admin job feels tedious to me, it’s exciting. Maybe it's because Holly has kind of written it off as 'this is it, nothing exciting will happen now'... but I (and my friends) are still, probably naively, thinking that our 'real life' hasn't begun yet. There's still stuff to be excited about.
I think I just quoted a Colin Hay song.
Flann- That’s exactly it.
Jo- But yeah, Holly doesn't read like a 23 year old to me, tbh. She takes herself very seriously and she’s so cynical. It’s just like…. Show us a smile, Holly!
Flann- I was thinking you'd like it because I wrongly assumed a bunch of your friends would be in but I wonder if you'll like it more a few years down the line
Jo- I think a couple of years ago, I would... but because of the recession and how difficult it is to get a job at the moment. Only one of my friends actually has a job that she would quite happily stay in for the rest of her life (primary school teacher)
Flann- I really liked it because it reminds me of early 20s me. Though I am still pretty lost.
Jo- But all my other friends have their passions (related to their degree) but they do it on the side and they don’t get paid for it. Like me with my writing/blogging, my friend doing amateur dramatics... etc etc. Do you understand what I'm saying though? I feel a bit lost trying to sort out my feelings with this one.
Flann- no, I totally get what you're saying about HTT. I think in a few years, many of your friends will give up their passions. That's the point when you would like the book more. (sad but true)

I realised I made a mistake in the above conversation. Holly is actually 24.
So that means I still have just over six months until I turn 24. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why I didn’t like this book because I don’t believe that I only have a year left of being passionate about things I love and looking forward to what’s next. I’m 23 and I don’t share that outlook that this is it.
Yeah, I’m not where I want to be in life, but unlike Holly I can add one more word onto that sentence. I’m not where I want to be in life…yet.
Call me naïve, but I don’t want to settle and I’m not going to stop believing.

And yes, I did just quote a Journey song.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is how you start a new genre. Holier Than Thou ushered in "New Adult" with a bang, and I'm going as far as to say that thus far, it's the Best Book of 2012.

I had mixed feelings about Laura Buzo's Good Oil , now titled Love and Other Perishable Items in the States, and nervously pre-ordered Holier Than Thou. I figured if I didn't like it, I could pass it on to the Fishpond fearful. Now? You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands! (Hello, random people who came to this page expecting to see Charlton Heston. Gotcha! Now read this book.)

My best friend just finished The Hunger Games and called me in a post-reading wondrous daze. "What is it about YA? What is it that appeals to so many people?" For me, I find in YA what I'm not getting in a lot of contemporary adult fiction -- a connection. Sure I'm technically an "adult", but I still think of myself as a girl and I'm still trying to carve out my niche professionally and personally. I don't care about weddings and babies and fertility issues. I'm sure I will in the future, but as of right now, those topics are irrelevant and unappealing. One element missing from YA that I find in adult lit is the career aspect. Laura Buzo examines all the elements I love about YA and the one I love about adult lit in Holier Than Thou.

Holier Than Thou is about Holly, a 24-year-old social worker. The book opens with Holly and her co-worker being called to a client's house. They arrive too late. Then we jump back to a year earlier when Holly and her boyfriend Tim sign the lease to an apartment and move into their very first place. This is where the story starts -- on an exciting and hopeful note. The first apartment without parents! We jump back a little further to Year Ten, when much of Holly's current social group was formed and the year that her father died. Rather than be confusing, I liked the structure and how we learned of the different people and events that influenced who Holly is now. Who is Holly now? She's most of the people I know.

"How did this become my job, my life? I can't remember what I was supposed to be doing . . . but surely this wasn't it."

Holly has a good but stressful job, a solid relationship with Tim, and lifelong bonds with her friends. She's "Wozza" to them, or "Woman of Steel", the girl who stoically handled her father's cancer and death even as her mother broke down. So what's the problem? This is where Buzo really shines. This is a new adult, someone who's just entered the work force, who has to decide whether to stay on the path she's started on because she'll be on that path for the next 40 years. She's someone who, after barreling through high school and college and post-grad, is finally examining her motivations. She's in a serious relationship but is this The One? There's the guy who got away -- who she talks about to the guy she works with.

Speaking of the guy she works it, she finds she's talking to him... a lot. While YA deals very well with losing friends and friends moving away, what it doesn't cover is how work affects those friendships you've had forever. While you're in school, you're pretty much on the same level as your friends. Being a student and studying is your career. Once you graduate though, that's when who you think you are is really tested. Your ideals don't always pay the bills. Or you find your dream job is more of a nightmare. Some friends flourish in their chosen field. Some friends end up stuck. Slowly, a separation begins to form -- nothing major, just little things like someone making more money. Instead of introducing your friend with who they hope to be ("This is my friend, Kim. She's pre-law."), it's now who they are ("This is Kim. She's a lawyer."). It's a subtle difference that can work its way into group dynamics. Work colleagues are suddenly the group you encounter most, and they're the ones who understand without explanation why you've had a rough day. It's telling that the title of the book refers to Holly's work nickname, "Hollier-than-thou", and not Wozza.

Holier Than Thou is an amalgam of the best of YA and the best of adult lit. I responded to it more than any book I've read this year and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Rating: 5/5 stars.

Favorite passage: "A nurse and social worker took fifteen minutes out of their shitty thankless job in the roughest corner of town, sat on a couple of milk crates drinking coffee, flopped their real selves out on the cement and both liked what they saw."

Recommended listening: Reynje created a fantastic playlist that was the perfect accompaniment to this book. In addition, I love Long Highway by The Jezabels.


This review appears on Young Adult Anonymous.

[Tatiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

As seen on The Readventurer

2.5 stars

If I am being honest, the most fun I had while reading Holier Than Thou was when I was contemplating if this new emerging genre of "New Adult" fiction would be for me. If you are not familiar with the idea of "New Adult" (as opposed to "Young Adult" or "Adult") fiction, this term seems to have been coined by the St. Martin's Press' publishing team back in 2009 when they announced a writing contest seeking fiction similar to YA that can be published and marketed as adult - a sort of an “older YA” or “new adult” with protagonists 18 or older, but 20s are preferred. Editing assistant at St. Martin's Press S. Jae-Jones clarified that New Adult is about young adulthood, when you are an adult but have not established your life as one (career, family, what-have-you)." "And Sarah LaPolla clarifies it even further, saying that such books would be about "the college experience, figuring out grad school, jobs, not living off your parents, etc."

I don't know if St. Martin's actually found and published any projects following this contest, but "New Adult" term appears to have stuck. There have been a few titles that could be categorized as "New Adult" that I adored - Melina Marchetta's The Piper's Son, Gayle Forman's Where She Went and Buzo's own Good Oil. I can't say I felt the same way about Holier Than Thou, which is positively a "New Adult" title.

23-year old Holly is fresh out of college, with a new job, a new serious boyfriend and a new very own apartment. She is happy and liberated, that is until she isn't anymore. The job is exhausting psychologically, the boyfriend is not as shiny any more and old school friends are distant and busy. Suddenly this adulthood seems too difficult to Holly...

In spite of my high hopes (after all, Good Oil was one of my top favorite books of last year), reading Holier Than Thou wasn't a riveting or even pleasant experience for me.

For one, my general attitude towards "New Adult" set of issues is pretty dismissive. Sarah LaPolla put a great name to what bothers me the most about "New Adult" lit - it is its emphasis on and exploration of "extended adolescence." Funny that watching HBO's new show Girls was what cemented my thoughts on "New Adult" themes - "New Adult" experiences, to me, are more often than not colored by pretentiousness, immaturity, self-entitlement and moochery. I am not quite sure why I am so negative towards these issues, being barely out of "New Adult" years myself. Maybe because my own "New Adult" experience was never as depressing as Holly's seems to be. I finished school, I didn't have neither opportunity nor desire to live off my parents' monetary support any longer, I started my adult life in a different country, with a different set of acquaintances and a new culture, and it was exciting, difficult too, with crappy jobs and financial strain, but it was exciting most of all. It is not interesting or compelling to me to observe people who make big deals out of issues that are not crucial, like Holly. If you don't like your job - get another one, if you are attracted to a man other than the one you are committed to - sit for a minute and examine which relationship you want to pursue, if your former friends are now distant and have new interests - that's just natural, people grow up and grow apart. None of Holly's experiences struck me as life-altering or worthy of the amount of ennui presented in this novel.

But mainly I think I just didn't connect with Holly and her friends on a personal level. With vibrant characters I can get into pretty much any story, but as told in Holly's words, it was pretty dull, colorless, sad and uninteresting to me. Holier Than Thou reminded me of a few pretentious books about college students - Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot or Donna Tartt's The Secret History which center on students having sex and obsessing with finding meaning of life, but not finding it most likely because of the life of privilege they've led, and a couple of sad, full of adult angst novels like Anna Quindlen's One True Thing or Jennifer Weiner's In Her Shoes. Essentially, Holier Than Thou turned out to be for me nothing more than another piece of depressing women's fiction, made even more unsatisfying by the completely open, ambiguous ending.

Maybe I simply don't have that college years' nostalgia that would have helped me connect with Holly's issues? Or maybe I didn't have the luxury of time to lament, at length, my disappearing careless (did I have it?) youth and the decline of partying and loss of friends and thus have no patience for people who dramatize these events in their lives? (It's easier for me to be understanding of teens making stupid mistakes, but not of people who are supposed to be adults and in control of their lives.) Either way, Holier Than Thou made very little impact on me.

[Emily May · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well... this is disappointing. I was so certain I would love Holier Than Thou after enjoying Buzo's first novel, but I found myself thinking it was neither as funny or as sad as the blurb would have you think. It's basically the story of a young woman's day-to-day life, from moving into a new home, to being in love, to dealing with her father's death. When you write the kind of book that is about a normal person with a fairly normal life, I just need to see a little drama, some humour, a touch of sadness, something to stir things up a bit. Holier Than Thou - its story, characters, etc. - they all seemed to massively lack charisma.

Buzo's debut - Good Oil - is a fantastic book, both heartwarming and sad. There's a bittersweetness to it, and that's long been something I can't resist, bittersweetness can break my heart so much more easily than tragedy when it's done right - I'm just like that. Plus, it would be hard to find someone who can't relate to Good Oil, and perhaps this is my ultimate problem with Holier Than Thou. Buzo's first book is about a teenage girl who develops a huge crush on her older co-worker, and honestly, how many ladies here don't know how this painful story goes?

In Good Oil, I was Amelia, I had been her before so many times, I'd obsessed over a number of Chris-like characters, and her story was my life a few years ago. I think this is the book's strength, that relatability which takes you back to all those fond but slightly cringy memories. Holier Than Thou isn't my life, the protagonist is unfamiliar and boring to me. I thought I would be ready for this "New Adult" genre, being twenty years old and hitting the top end of "Young Adult", but perhaps I am actually a little too young for Holly's story. I am not yet dealing with a "proper" job, or considering settling down with a long-term partner, or thinking about babies - I'm still just hoping I get at least a 2:1 in my degree. Would this story have spoken to me if it had been more familiar? Shirley's review and Catie's status make me think that it might have done.

I think Buzo might have a talent for writing stories that bring back the readers' memories, that remind them of first crushes, first jobs, first homes... she certainly did in Good Oil. This book fell a little short of the mark for me - whether that's because of my age or because of the story itself, it's hard to tell. But this just didn't give me those warm and slightly sad fuzzies that Buzo's first work did.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm afraid I could never write a review that would do this book any sort of justice. To me, it's perfect. (Hands up if you thought of that sweet guy from Love, Actually. I would totally hold that sign up for Laura Buzo*). And, to be blunt, I don't particularly want to write one. This book has a special place in my heart and it doesn't feel right to break it down into "I liked this because" or whatever.

BUT.

I do want to post a quote by author Kristan Hoffman about the new adult genre. Which is exactly what Holier Than Thou is.

“The Transition from child to adult doesn’t happen overnight--just ask as anyone who is or has been (or is a parent to) a teenager. But the transition from teen to adult doesn’t happen overnight either. There’s a period of time where adulthood feels like a new pair of shoes. The expectations of independence and self-sufficiency are still new, still being broken in. New Adults are the people who have just begun to walk in those shoes; New Adult fiction is about their blisters and aches.”

YES. Yes, yes, yes!

We need more books like this one.


*creep alert
_______________
I feel ALL THE THINGS.

[L A i N E Y (will be back) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everything about this book feels super patchy too me: patchy pacing, patchy emotions and Holly’s voice, which was the one thing that kept me reading, was even patchy throughout.

And is it ‘normal’ for your ‘core friends’ to keep calling you “Hollier-than-thou” and actually mean it?? It’s hurtful, no?? I don’t know I found that extraordinarily weird.

But the Timbo romance was well done! Not Tim himself though, his character wasn’t explore nearly enough. I don’t even remember what sort of work he has and I just finished it!

It struck me how it must be disheartening and exhausting to be Holly, like she keeps finding herself physically attracted to guys when she actually have perfectly sweet boyfriend, who, I might add, she’s already also really attracted to...?! I just don’t get it. Instead of swooning it’s all just sounds too tiring for me.


rating: ★★½

[ALPHAreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

All roads lead back to Jindarra Street . . . or at least, they do for Holly Yarkov.

Holly is a social worker in the toughest town of Sydney, Elizabethtown (affectionately called ‘Befftown’). She works closely with registered nurse, Nick (affectionately called ‘Nicholarse’), and together they work the town’s toughest hood, Jindarra Street.

After Holly and Nick make a gruesome discovery at the home of one of their clients, Holly starts backtracking through her life leading up to a potential crossroads that lies before her. . .

Holly’s story is sliced between ‘now’ and ‘then’, and focuses on four important men who continue to exert their influence in her life, even though some of them are dead and gone.

There’s her beloved boyfriend Tim (‘Timbo’), who Holly has just moved into an apartment with. Nick is her co-worker; a bong-addicted nurse who is 26 to Holly’s 24, he attends circus school in his days off and Holly is becoming increasingly wary of their relationship, while also enamoured of their effortless friendship. Liam was Holly’s bus-friend at school, a year above her and apart of the ‘cool’ crowd; Holly harboured a secret crush on him for years before he became an official member of her uni gang . . . but the story of Liam’s absence in Holly’s life now is a slow and painful explanation, and needs time to be told. And then there’s Holly’s dead father – an out-spoken Left-winger who used to crop up in the newspapers all the time (and incited the Liberal fury of a few of Holly’s classmates’ parents). Her father died when Holly was in Year Ten, and she never quite recovered from the loss.

Events in Holly’s life, from job dissatisfaction to inconvenient thoughts about her dreadlocked co-worker, have Holly questioning her life and the path she is on (and how she got here in the first place). As Holly backtracks through the relationships and death that helped define her, she battles losing touch with the very people in the present who once defined her past.

‘Holier Than Thou’ is the new Australian young adult novel from Laura Buzo.

Last year I read Laura Buzo’s ‘Good Oil’, and found a new favourite Australian author. In ‘Good Oil’, Buzo told a deceptively simple story of first-time-love and heartbreak, which was so brutally honest that it was simply sublime. However, I was somewhat disheartened by the wide-open ending of ‘Good Oil’, and asked Ms Buzo in a Q&A if she had plans for a sequel. At the time she replied with an infuriating ‘possibly’ – and mentioned that her next novel seemed to be taking up a ‘bigger canvas’, and was unrelated to ‘Good Oil’. Now having read ‘Holier Than Thou’ I feel I should say that ‘bigger canvas’ was an understatement. I should also say that, as someone who had my fingers crossed for a ‘Good Oil’ sequel, I feel that ‘Holier Than Thou’ is a logical sort-of extension of Buzo’s first book, and I am actually glad that I read this book before any sort of sequel to Amelia and Chris’s story.

‘Holier Than Thou’ is a prime example of why I love Aussie YA so darn much. Buzo’s book is exactly what I was talking about back in November 2011 when I tried to explain my affinity for the YA literature of my homeland; ‘It's about holding a mirror up, finding a spark and a connection, recognizing a little of yourself in the stories and setting. It's that 'aha!' moment, when you're sure the author is writing about you and yours, the possibility that this story could be set in your hometown and you recognize a character from your own friendship group.’ ‘Holier Than Thou’ is that spark, connection and ‘aha’ moment – it is, simply, an incredible book.

The plot of ‘Holier Than Thou’ sounds complex – so much so that after reading the blurb, I really didn’t have a clue what kind of book I was getting into. The nuts and bolts of the plot are tangled and complicated. We begin in the present, and then backtrack to one year earlier and follow Holly’s life leading up to the explosive opening chapter. But as Holly begins re-examining her life, and friendships, she starts reminiscing about the past – and her core group of high school/uni friends who are slowly starting to drift away (and in one case, vanish to Canberra) in the present. Complicated? Yes. But this is a book about that strange age of mid-20’s, when everything is changing and the ties that bind start loosening. This is a book that explores the very tangled webs of friendships and buried hurts – it is meant to be complicated (such is life). The tangles make this a tantalizing read – and even though the back and forth time-shifts sound confusing, Buzo executes them beautifully. She writes Holly’s recounting of the past like trains of thought that she is following in the present – she leaves bread-crumbs in her real-time narrative about her father’s death and ‘the one that got away’, and as readers we happily (and hungrily) follow the trail. Tangled? Definitely? Worth the journey? Absolutely.

We meet Holly when she’s 24 and past the point of ‘newbie’ in her social worker job. She is now at the part when she knows her job is to put bandaids on bullet wounds – to work long hours for crappy pay and still be expected to meet Government targets and sit performance reviews. She is starting to wonder what got her to this point, and if she’s strong enough to stay in a job that seems determined to slowly suck the life out of her. Holly’s job is a real focal point of the book, and particularly fascinating. Laura Buzo actually is a social worker, and she writes her true-to-life struggles through Holly beautifully. From the healthcare system that doesn’t care about the ‘crazies’, to people’s misconceptions about what social workers do and the patients they treat.

Meanwhile, Holly has just moved out of home and into an apartment with her scrumptious boyfriend, Tim. For a little while there, Holly had the trifecta – her home life, love life and career in some sort of sync. But then it all starts going pear-shaped. Holly becomes more and more enamoured of her co-worker, Nick. She becomes despondent in her thankless job, and her home life degenerates into nights spent on the couch with Tim, watching telly and spying on her neighbours in the building across the way.

Holly becomes increasingly despairing of the way her life is changing, and the myriad of ways that her past is disconnecting from her present. Holly tries to organize catch-ups with her old high school/uni friends, with little success. Lara, Abigail and Daniel were her rocks in high school, particularly when her father died. But their jobs and commitments are pulling them all further and further apart. Abigail is training to be a doctor. Dan works for a corporation that deals in lay-offs, and Lara works for a law firm with dubious big-business clientele. Holly especially doesn’t want to lose these friends, since they are already one man down. Liam started as Holly’s bus-buddy in high school. Eventually, Liam slowly and thrillingly progressed into their social group – and pretty soon they were an inseparable fivesome; Dan, Lara, Abigail, Holly and Liam. But then it all went horribly wrong when Holly started to act on her long-standing crush on Liam.

Memories of Liam start creeping back into Holly’s thoughts when her casual work friendship with Nick takes on a new rhythm and connection. In Nick, Holly has an intellectual and visceral bond – much like she once did with Liam. Nick and Holly do have an enviously syncing connection – they motivate one another with ‘Gallipoli’ quotes (“What are your legs?” / “Steel springs!”) and their banter is enviably witty and warm. He affectionately calls Holly ‘Holier-Than-Thou’, for her seeming unbending moral core. But Nick is proving to be a potentially dangerous temptation;

‘A nurse and a social worker took fifteen minutes out of their shitty thankless job in the roughest corner of town, sat on a couple of milk crates drinking coffee, flopped their real selves out on the cement and both liked what they saw.’
‘Nicholarse. That’s beautiful.’ I didn’t know where to look.
‘You get me through the days, Hollier-than-thou.’
‘Likewise.’ I drained my coffee cup and our moment was shattered by the shouting of one of Nick’s clients who had spied us in the alcove.

Dissatisfaction at work has Holly thinking about what led her to becoming a social worker. One of the old-timer social workers comments that it’s past hurt which equips social workers with more capacity for caring, and that’s true of Holly. Losing her father to cancer in Year Ten left a wound that Holly is only just starting to reopen and re-examine.

‘Holier Than Thou’ is definitely going to be a 2012 favourite. It feels like I read this book at the right time – like Holly, I am 24 going on 25 and relatively settled in my first ‘real’ job. I too am dealing with drifting friendships and changing relationships. I could even relate to Holly’s touchstones and young influences;

Finishing Year Twelve had been a blessed relief. Although, having read ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ several times since Year Eight, I was disappointed that Year Twelve did not bring me a handsome, salt-of-the-earth boyfriend and ultimate emancipation from all that ailed my teenage soul.

Funny that Buzo references Melina Marchetta, because ‘Holier Than Thou’ did remind me of ‘The Piper’s Son’. Like Marchetta’s ‘Saving Francesca’ follow-up, ‘Holier Than Thou’ is about that odd time in your life when you start growing and changing, leaving friends behind and trying to hold on tight to others. Buzo reminded me of Marchetta – they both favour gritty ‘real’ stories and they don’t shy away from teaching tough life lessons. Likewise, Buzo’s characters are like Marchetta’s in that they’re enviably quick-witted individuals who banter beautifully and make the reader wish they were real people that we could be friends with. These characters are also entirely fallible, and relatable for their imperfections. Holly makes mistakes in her friendship/relationship with Nick, not because she’s a mean person or doesn’t love Tim, but because her instant connection with Nick surprises her in its intensity, totally catching her off guard. Holly has very high ideals of how she’s supposed to be (partly to live up to her dead father’s standards). Holly reminded me of that Missy Higgin’s song, ‘The Special Two’; ‘And you make boundaries you'd never dream to cross’. Over the course of the book Holly also comes to slowly accept that she might have made mistakes in her friendship with Liam. Likewise, she is starting to realize that her friends, those people she relied on so much in her youth, are not necessarily the people she needs around her in the future. That’s a hard lesson to learn, when to cut ties and accept that the past is in the past.

‘Holier Than Thou’ is a story of tangled webs and grey areas. Protagonist Holly Yarkov is not perfect, but she is brilliant. You will wish Holly was a real person, so you could count her amongst your friends. She is caring, funny, equipped with ‘steel springs’ and an enviable backbone. Holly is an entirely relatable protagonist; she’s at that mid-way point in her 20’s when relationships start dropping off and life events begin changing us for better or worse. . . What was really incredible in this book was the beautiful melding of Holly’s past and present. We follow her memories as events in the present trigger thoughts of her dead father and Liam, her ‘one that got away’. And although we know the outcome of those memories, Buzo’s writing is so seamless and addictive that even Holly’s unfolding past-heartbreak with Liam keeps you on the edge of your seat, futilely rooting for a happy outcome, even though you know it cannot be.

Buzo has written another beautiful young adult novel that doesn’t pull punches, but tells a beautifully relatable tale of lost love, missed chances, growing up and growing apart. As good as ‘Good Oil’ and further proof (not that I needed it) that Buzo is fast becoming a powerful new voice in Australian YA.

[Jasprit · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is definitely something across the water in Australia, last year when I first discovered my love for Aussie authors, I felt like a little kid at Christmas getting my hands on an Aussie book. With Aussie books by greats such as Marchetta and Eagar so hard to come by, I’d save my pennies so that I could splurge on some beautiful Aussie books. I’m pleased to say my pennies were definitely worth it with Buzo’s latest gem Holier Than Thou.

Buzo manages to create such a realistic portrayal in the life of Holly. I felt as if I was right there following her through in her life full of heartache, beautiful friendships, what could have beens, frighteningly looking around the corner of what could be lingering and what could be left behind. Holly was such an incredible character that I could connect with, having experienced a similar situation of leaving university and going our separate ways, not knowing who we would be keeping in touch with and walking by ourselves into the big scary world of work. I too was like Holly always trying to re-connect with my friends, arranging meet ups and not wanting them to slip away between my fingers. So this honest depiction that Buzo created of Holly’s life was so heartfelt to watch. I was enthralled in seeing which way it would unravel.

Holly’s voice was so honest and raw, and just got under my skin. I didn’t want to part from her life, I’d become so tangled in it. I thoroughly wanted her to get the ending she truly deserved. I was put through a whirl wind of emotions, as I wished she would finally be able to re-connect the rest of the gang together and have her chance with the guy who slipped through her fingers. But the unexpected road blocks in the road I didn’t see coming. I didn’t see the tangled romance developing and I think this was because I didn’t want the story to move into that direction, don’t get me wrong he was such a nice guy, but I thought Holly’s relationship with Tim even though far from perfect I didn’t want to come to an end. I thought the book would go a certain way and hoped some things would be resolved, but the last couple of chapters and that ending! Haaaahh! completely threw me. It definitely left me wanting a lot more!

Overall I absolutely loved Holier Than Thou; it was a bittersweet and nostalgic read and just goes to show we need more of these Aussie greats being published over here!

[Keertana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4.5 Stars

If I'm to be perfectly honest, I still don't know what to say about this novel. While I didn't love it the way I did Buzo's debut, Good Oil (now published in America under the title Love and Other Perishable Items), I feel as if I've come out of this book with a new-found respect for Laura Buzo and a wiser, more contemplative, and almost whole feeling. In so many ways, Holier Than Thou completes me. It's hard to say why, but it just does.

Holier Than Thou is one of those novels that you either love or hate. It either resonates with you or simply falls flat for it is one of those stories that pulls at your heartstrings if you're able to truly connect with it. Although I'm not the targeted audience of this novel, being a couple years under the mid-twenties Holly Yarkov of this piece, I found that it moved me beyond words. In her world, Holly is labeled as a "Woman of Steel." In other words, a survivor. Not only has she gotten through the slow, dragging, and painful death of her father, but she has experienced a love that never culminated and ultimately got away. Now, Holly is undergoing the slap-in-your-face reality that her friends from high school are moving on without her, that her job is not quite what she thought it would be, and that living with your boyfriend in your own apartment doesn't necessarily mean you get to see him all that much.

Buzo's sophomore piece is a very slow-moving and character-driven tale. It takes awhile to get to the meat of the story for Holly is a character with plenty of barriers, yet incredibly endearing and like-able at the same time. Holly is an observer; she loves to watch the lives of those around her and gain simple pleasures from their happiness. Holly is a do-gooder; she's the glue that has somehow managed to keep her friends together for so long. Yet, Holly can't help but look back, help but try to observe and analyze and try to find where it all went wrong. It could have started with Liam, the boy Holly crushed on in high school, the boy who grew to become close friends with Holly, the boy who could have been Holly's Mr. Right, until he wasn't. It could have started with her father, with the fact that she was always her father's daughter and now, with him gone, she didn't quite have a place in the family anymore. Or did it start with Nick, the co-worker who somehow makes her laugh and smile despite her desolate days and whose relationship status in her life is become increasingly blurred?

Holier Than Thou is realistic. It's gutting, it transports you back in time and it makes you feel as if you yourself are Holly, going through her struggles, her job, her life. It is achingly bittersweet and it isn't an easy book to read at times, simply because everything feels so very real. I can't imagine not feeling like Holly herself during this novel and her journey as the story progresses, the mistakes she makes, the people she meets, the wrongs she has to right...it all seems so familiar somehow. Holier Than Thou is a novel that brings back memories, that triggers nostalgia, and makes you look to the future as well. I, personally, am at the stage in my life where I look at my friend circle and wonder which one of us will keep in touch, which one of us will move on, which one of us will even care in a few years. I am at the stage in my life where I can't fathom one career being wholly satisfactory, where I can see myself losing interest in any job I may pursue, and where I can see my future crumbling apart just as Holly's has.

Yet, the message of this novel isn't desolation. It's hope. For, you see, I never saw Holly as a Woman of Steel. Not for much of this novel. It is at the end of the story, when she is picking up all the broken pieces and still persevering on and doing what she thinks is right despite her mistakes and the mistakes of others, that Holly becomes a Woman of Steel. It is now that she has faced her past, her fears, her hopes, her dreams, and come to realize that life moves on no matter what, that she is strong.

I guess that's how I'd sum up Holier Than Thou. LIFE. Since really, that's all life is, right? A continuous train of gains and losses, happiness and sadness, excitement and nostalgia, THE ultimate dose of bittersweet...Yet, it's that ambiguous ending that truly takes my breath away when it comes to this novel. I know a lot of people keep saying it keeps you in the dark, but it DOESN'T. It's like Good Oil. Buzo builds these characters that are so real and tangible and palpable and it's like she's testing you at the end - how well do you really know them? Since, honestly, the pieces are all there - you just need to put them together. When you consider Holly, her actions, her personality, the ending no longer becomes AS ambiguous. It's all kind of stunning in its perfect puzzle-piece-like quality in fact.

I can't fully articulate why I loved this novel, but I did. Laura Buzo is one of those authors I can always trust to never let me down. If this is the New Adult genre, then yes, I want more. But, mostly, I just want Laura Buzo to keep writing such masterpieces; such beautiful pieces of literature that just take my breath away, make my heart stop, and make me laugh and cry at the same time, just like the bittersweet bundle they are themselves.

You can read this review and more on my blog, Ivy Book Bindings.

[Nomes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely my kind of brilliance. Loved this and then some. Please, Laura Buzo, write more books, I could read your stuff forever xo



So incredibly, crazily excited for this. It's my fave bracket to read in, as well, new adult.

[Brodie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having fallen in love with Laura's debut novel, Good Oil,  I've been eagerly anticipating word on another book (or sequel!!!). So when I first heard of Holier Than Thou, I was bouncing. in. delight. And I'm so excited to say, Laura once again does NOT disappoint! While our main character, Holly Yarkov, is a 24 year old social worker, Holier Than Thou can easily slip into the older YA market, while still firmly securing a spot amongst New Adult titles. I think older teens can relate to Holly because she's still trying to find where she fits into the vast jigsaw of life. She clings onto the past, onto the familiar, in fear of losing it. She's afraid of change, afraid of becoming something outside of her own firm idea of who she thinks she should be. But no matter how strong her grip, she can't keep things in perfect alignment. I think that's something we can all relate to, all struggle with at some point in our lives. It's hard to look at Holly and not find a part of yourself staring back at you. Whether it's her empathy, her humour, her strength or in the people and relationships she's encountered. Laura Buzo excels at crafting an amazingly flawed, lovable, believable protagonist.

Each turn of the page is a beautiful thing to witness, because the changes in Holly are so distinct as she evolves. She's growing up and so is everyone else around her. Her once inseparable group of High School friends are becoming increasingly more difficult to bring together, each branching off into a new direction. New jobs, new friends, new schedules. I think everyone over high school age can relate to that, and all those nearing that life-changing moment, fear it. As the past rears it's head, we see how the tragic death of Holly's father has shaped her into woman she is today and how the boy from her teens - who never was, who might have been, who could have been, who just disappeared from her life and never returned - still plays heavily on her mind and heart. Each thread of Holly's life is weaved, snipped and retied with such a caring hand, it's impossible to remain untouched by her journey.

More often that not, what I see explored in the books I read is the beginning of love, all bright and sparkly with new-couple shine. Holly's been with Tim for a few years now and some of that shine has faded. It's still strong with love and affection, but their life is settling into a monotony. They're not always as open with one another, nor are they sharing the same deep and exciting conversations. You see how it weighs on Holly, how it subconsciously pushes her to pay more attention to other areas in her life. Or other people. Nick. Funny, inspiring, charming Nick. Her constant companion at work, who understands the daily demands and emotional impact of their job. Nick, who may not be perfect, with his own messed up life hiding behind closed doors. Nick, who Holly is realising she'd be lost without. I loved how their relationship was so easy - the banter, the affection, how they knew what to say and when. You grow to suspect that Nick has feelings for her, but she's either oblivious or just not willing to acknowledge them at first. What they have is a strong friendship and it was both beautiful and heartbreaking to see potential for something more, given everything that stands between them. Realisations are made, as are choices, some frustratingly stupid, others more admirable, but each I felt to be a true reflection of the characters.

Holier Than Thou is a messy web of beautiful chaos. It's life. Perfect in it's ability to frustrate the hell out of you, make you smile, make you cry and twist your heart in pain and pleasure. Life is a constant state of motion, nobody has a 'happily ever after' because tomorrow is never certain, only in it's promise of eternal change. That's why I love how Laura ends this book. Was I left shaking my head in denial? Yes. Was I left frantically checking to see if my copy was missing pages? YES. But it felt real, it left me wondering. There is never a final dot point in life, not until you die, and I thought this was demonstrated really well. Even if I do still feel an ache in my heart, a desperate need to know MORE.

Holier Than Thou is a hilarious, poignant, inspiring snapshot of life, written by a rising Australian talent that everyone ought to clear a space for in their bookshelves!

[Arlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Aussie Hit! Are you surprised? =]

My first experience with Laura Buzo’s writing was when I read her debut novel Good Oil. I fell hard for that book, so I was all sorts of excited when I heard she was coming out with another contemporary.

When I was done reading Holier Than Thou what I was left with was a ton of notes written down that included scattered thoughts, music choices, character details and all sorts of musings. It’s something I find I do quite often for books that have an impact on me. The notes are all over the place, but one thing is for certain… it was nothing short of a profound and fulfilling journey having traveled with these characters for a small moment of time.

There were parts of the narration that I struggled with a bit because it would jump from time frame to time frame, and I’d be left not knowing where I was to go next with Holly. However, I soon realized that was the whole point. She was a bit lost herself and had so much on her mind and in her heart to share through her narration that the only way she could achieve telling her story with the truest sense of honesty was to give the reader a VIP pass into her organized chaos in the most revealing way possible.

I find that’s a signature move with Aussie contemporaries. The characters hold nothing back and you learn about every aspect of their lives and to not feel a connection or some sort of sympathy is to miss the magic of these stories.

Nicholarse and Holier Than Thou left me with a small pang regret, and there was a part of me that wanted these characters to achieve their own sort of happy ending, but in the end… Holly did the right thing. She made a choice that spoke volumes to her integrity, and she earned a ton of respect from me as a character.

Holly was fierce, strong and worthy of her title Woman of Steel. She goes down in my book as a character I won’t soon forget and would drop my afternoon responsibilities for a chat and cup of tea with her. She shared her struggle and pain of losing her father and later her fear of losing her close friendships as they grow older and have to deal with real life. This story felt honest and oh so very real.

It was very character driven with constant shifts in time frames, which made it hard at times to gain my bearings, but in the end it’s earned a spot in my heart for its realism and impact. Overall, another Aussie contemporary that shouldn’t be missed.

Song Choice: With Me - Sum 41

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[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so, so, so good. Though, I kind of felt depressed when I finished reading it, which is the same reaction I had after I finished Good Oil. Buzo is brilliant with dialog and I love that so, so much. It's interesting, though, that in both of her books, the male characters are tremendously flawed and kind of stunted. I'd actually love to read more about Holly (which is the same reaction I had after reading Good Oil--notice the theme here?), because her story feels like it's just begun.

Overall, highly recommended.

[Bree T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holly Yarkov is at life-changing stage. She’s moving in with her amazing boyfriend Tim, who is like a gift from the Universe. She’s graduated from university, she has scored herself a job working in mental health, which she finds fulfilling even as she’s finding it draining. They’re the story of every government department – underfunded and understaffed. She also has a crazy appealing co-worker who supports her in every way possible, both at work and out of it.

But even though she is moving forward with her life, the events of the past still haunt her, such as the death of her father when she was a teenager in high school and the amazing friendship-turned-crush-turned-something she had with a boy, now a man, who has slowly withdrawn from their group of friends until he cut off all contact, moving away to a new job. Holly can’t let it go, she tries to find new ways to contact him, even though he has made it clear that he has moved on. And even though she has the wonderful Tim, she finds her thoughts are with this other person quite often.

Holier Than Thou is a book dealing with adults who are on the cusp of ‘real’ adulthood – they’re in their mid 20s, so they���ve graduated and got themselves proper, full time jobs. They’ve moving out of home, into apartments, and in Holly’s case, cohabiting with a partner for the first time. It’s a time of constant change, uncertainty and self-doubt. The novel is set in the inner-west of Sydney, Holly and her boyfriend Tim have just moved to Dulwich Hill and her co-worker Nick lives in nearby Marrickville. Both Holly and Nick work in the made-up suburb of Elizabethtown, known affectionately by the locals as “Befftown”, in government mental health. They have a string of regulars, patients that they visit to keep an eye on, see that they’re ok, taking their medication (and in some cases, administering it) and this novel opens with a punch, Holly and Nick dropping by one of these patients only to discover something horrific when they walk in the door.

Holly is also struggling with the concept of keeping her core group of friends together at a time where they are transitioning into new people. They’ve gone through primary school together, through high school and through university but now out in the big wide world, some of them are changing. Her idealist friend, who was always the one campaigning in school, has joined a big corporate firm where his job is to recommend companies fire hundreds of people. It’s such a far cry from the person Holly knows him to be that she wonders what has happened to him, what will happen to them all. It’s a position easy to sympathise with because I’m older than Holly and I’ve been through the stage she is going through, that stage post-university when everyone is moving away, doing different things, moving at different paces. I’ve been the one struggling to keep a friendship together when one of you now lives in a different state, when one of you is married with kids and the other is still drinking and partying like a high schooler just discovering alcohol. It’s a time that can make you feel like nothing is tethering you anymore and that if you look away for even a minute, these people who have been so important for so long, will be just gone.

I love the relationships and friendships in this novel, like Good Oil before it I feel that Buzo nails social interactions. Holly and Nick have such a fabulous working relationship and a very interesting personal relationship, there’s an attraction there, on both sides, not sure how long it has been in play with Nick but it seems to spring up out of nowhere for Holly and she’s bewildered by it. I think that it is definitely normal to be attracted to other people, on different levels, even when you’re in a relationship – after all, you’re not dead, just not actively looking. But it’s how the individual chooses to handle it that makes a big difference.

Holly is a character full of such depth, she was forced to grow up far too quickly when her father was diagnosed with a terminal illness when she was in her teens and helped care for him. Everyone told her that she was such a strength to her mother, she didn’t get those years to just relax and be a teenager that most people get. She’s never really dealt with her father’s death either, perhaps the effort of being so strong has too much for her to just relax and be able to grieve. She has likewise not dealt with the withdrawal from her life of Liam, who has chosen to cut off all contact with her. She still thinks of him constantly, she still tries to get in touch with him even though he’s made it clear he does not want that. She knows that her boyfriend Tim is a “gift from the universe” but at times she seems to take him a bit for granted.

I was shattered at the end of Good Oil, which finished a bit up-in-the-air and I was hoping for a sequel but after reading this book I think that just be how Buzo likes to end her novels. Leaving some things up to the reader to decide, even though that drives me nuts! I’m the sort of person that has to know everything! But even so, this book was utterly fabulous. Buzo writes with sensitivity and understanding of life issues and what it is to be trying to find yourself and keep everything together at the same time.

[Carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

holy fucking shit was that amazing. HOLY SHIT. I want to chow down on the pages or actually shove it in my face. soooooooo good.

[oliviasbooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read in December 2018
Re-read from July 1 to July 2 2013. Loved it as much as a month earlier. A pretty perfect book in my eyes. Honest, real, raw, tender, funny, sad, well-articulated and open-ended on a hopeful note. I want to quote it to pieces and I want a physical copy to keep. Affordable, international edition, where art thou?

[Lenni · Rating 5 out of 5]

So unbelievably real. And wonderful. So so wonderful.

______________________________________


Holier than thou is one of those books.
You know the ones, the books that change you in some way.
One of those books that linger's and makes you contemplate your life and all the choices you've made.
One of those books that makes you laugh and cry and everything in between.
One of those books that you feel depicts your culture with utter perfection.
One of those books with character's that you just want to pull right out of the pages and make them your best friends.
One of those books that makes you stare at your chocked full 'favourites' shelf and forces you to relocate another book just so it has room on that shelf that you've so carefully selected.
Yeah, one of those books.

This book was beautiful. I don't think I'm going to be able to put into words what I felt for this book, but there are some absolutely stunning reviews here on goodreads, that have been written by people much more skilled at this than I, so I wholeheartedly recommend you take a look through all the reviews and read for yourselves just how lovely it is.
And I more than wholeheartedly recommend you read this book.
Please just do it.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5.

Holly suppresses every feeling. Despite having recently dealt with losing her first true love/best male friend and less-recently, the death of her father after a long and painful illness, Holly hasn't allowed herself the opportunity to grieve, to get angry, to feel anything about either situation. It's through her time living with new boyfriend Tim and her time bonding with her charming co-worker Nick that Holly beings to see and understand how important it is to not only open up to other people, but to open up to herself.

Buzo's writing moves fluidly from the present to the past -- the present being Holly in her early 20s and her past starting in her mid-teens forward -- but because Holly is so disconnected from herself and the events that have brought her to this place, I had a very hard time connecting to her. She's so far removed from herself that I found my reading experience feeling like she was herself telling me a story of herself, rather than telling me about herself without the safety of a story. It wasn't raw or painful but somewhat dull and, at least for me, easy to dismiss. It was sad, no doubt, but that was about all I could press into it.

That said, there's something effective in this writing style because it gets directly to the heart of who and what Holly is. She IS this removed and distanced from her past. We get this immediately and we follow it through to the end when she has the realization that her mother, who she always felt she needed to guide through loss, was actually handling loss and grief very healthfully and effectively. This was further amplified through the relationships Holly made in her post-loss life: her romance with Tim is very quiet and not really explored in the story and she keeps Nick at an arm's distance until the very end. It is, of course, Nick who ends up helping Holly tap into those unexplored feelings.

Of all the characters, Nick was my favorite. He was quirky and charming but also level-headed and offered an ear before he offered a mouth to Holly. In other words, he was a real and honest friend, and I loved when Holly had that moment of realization. It was about this point -- maybe 2/3 of the way through the story -- where I finally figured Holly out and was eager to see her get through this.

This would be a neat book to pair with CK Kelly Martin's COME SEE ABOUT ME since they tackle grief and figuring out what lies ahead for those who are young but not teenagers. I didn't think Buzo's book was as strong, but it was still enjoyable.

*Thanks to Catie for passing this one along to me!

[Isamlq · Rating 4 out of 5]

HOLIER THAN THOU. I don’t think I could handle being a Holly Yarkov, looking at things the way she did, seeing what needs be doing and what could be done. All the things she asked of herself and of others, BIG. Was I ever her though, and have the day in and day out of my life pushed all questions like hers aside? The way things were going it felt like she was almost here with me, where it’s just the day in- day out, minus the questions.

Almost. But not quite as a lot of this is a real look at the life of a person in that stage of life where things are brand new, when things there are *exciting*. Except it’s also bout how that shine’s begun to dull with each real world encounter and with each moment of her expectations not quite happening.

One thing that tugged at me: the closeness she’s got with her people. How she’d had all these notions of what they’d be and how they’d be later in the when. And that? That’s so me.

But then, there’s real life and it’s not quite what you expect so couple her notions of Friends and Seinfeld, with early memories of heartbreak, feeling like she’s no place where she should as well as the little (then the big) let downs from people unexpected… well, was it empathy overdose, what she said? And Holly, she makes sense, in this real authentic way… of the not too perfect, but wants it to be perfect nonetheless kind of way. Hell, every single one in this is perfectly real in how imperfect they were. Where some are more imperfect than others, of course.

[Trisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sensitive, insightful, funny, clever, poetic but also authentic language of young people. These are just the first words that come to mind about 'Holier Than Thou'. But there are so many more.

Almost the best book I have read all year. (Apparently that doesn't mean much. People say that I claim that about every book I read. *shrug* whatever).

More words, specifically about Holly, who is an excellent character. She is alive and real. Full of longing and grief and wanting and loving. She fairly crackles off the page.

The structure of the book is sophisticated and random, yet so truthful. Holly's memories and missteps are so captured so vividly, I just wanted to keep reading.

Clearly, I heart TB (this book).

[Limonessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fishpond, wary of my threats involving sushi knives just shipped this to me! Can't wait!

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't normally write reviews on here, but I had to write something for this one because it affected me so much. What an amazing book. I enjoyed 'Good Oil' by Laura Buzo, so I knew this one would be just as good. But 'Holier Than Thou' wasn't just as good - it was BETTER. Hence why I've given it five stars.

I won't lie - I bawled my eyes out. A lot. It was towards the ending that I just couldn't stop crying, I'm not even sure what possessed me. In fact, just writing this is making me upset!!! I even DREAMT about the characters last night (after I finished it), so that tells you something about how this book connected with me. I'm a young adult myself (23) and Australian, so I could occasionally relate to the characters and their situations.

Holly is 24, a mental health social worker, who lives with her boyfriend Tim in Dulwich Hill, Sydney. Whilst on the job with a co-worker, they visit a client in his fibro home in a poor suburb and find he has hung himself. Holly then delves into her past that leads up to this moment: through her high school years and her father's ailing health and eventual death; her loyal friends (Daniel, Abigail, Lara), and in particular one special friend who is no longer in her life (Liam)... The text intermingles her past with her current situation, working in the Mental Health Department of the fictional Elizabethtown Hospital; moving in with her boyfriend Tim and watching the lives of their neighbours (and the beautiful eucalypt tree she loves); and connecting on a deeper level with her co-worker Nick, who is addicted to marijuana but is one of the most genuine people Holly knows.

I won't spoil anything for you, but the book was incredibly bittersweet, and as the blurb states, 'achingly sad' - very accurate. There is a song I had in my head whilst reading this book. "Thirteen" by aKido. If you listen to this song and then read this book, you might bawl just like I did. You have been warned! Thank you Laura Buzo, for this highly realistic portrayal of life as a young adult, venturing into the real world and all it's craziness, and coming to terms with certain relationships with her friends, family, lovers and work colleagues, and most importantly - her future, and moving forward with her life.

[Penni Russon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating in terms of genre alone, this is a YA novel with a distinctly YA arc about twenty-somethings who are all done with uni and are now out in the big bad world, but it's not everything they hoped it would be. I think it's really hard to write novels about twenty year olds because they don't have the same imposed restrictions on them as teenagers which makes them a little less interesting and it's a bit harder to end on a note of hope and optimism about the future, because the future is really "more this but hopefully betterer". However, I think Buzo has captured the "quarter-life crisis" perfectly. Something I'd love to see her do in the next book is characterise her "adult" adults (parents, colleagues) a little more distinctively (something I think Melina Marchetta does really well).

Will be interesting to see if and how this book finds a wider readership, as it falls into an awkward place in terms of marketing niches.

[kb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you, Laura Buzo, for portraying the uncertainty of being in between quite perfectly.

[Cass · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

My, oh my, was this review difficult to write! Holier Than Thou is a new adult title and written by Aussie author Laura Buzo, and for that alone I should have breezed through this novel without a problem. However, the topics explored in Holier Than Thou felt even more substantial than those in Good Oil (author’s debut). Which made it sometimes difficult to read, and even harder to organise my thoughts. It actually took weeks for me to finally solidify exactly how I feel for this book – I read this book in May! – but I can firmly say that I deeply recommend this book.

Holly Yarkov is a social worker, 24 years old, with problems of her own. She’s ticked off all the boxes for the transition into adulthood: an apartment, a job, a live-in boyfriend . . . independence. But the past is haunting her. Her once good friend and almost lover, Liam. Her beloved father, who Holly had always felt most connected to in the family, died by the hands of the Big C. Holly, who has always held herself in higher esteem than others, who is perceptive and insightful, and will do no wrong . . . working in mental health is emotionally draining; her only reprieve is the ridiculously appealing RN in dreadlocks, Nick. But she’s with Tim.

Relationships are such an integral part of a young adult’s life, I think Buzo explores the struggles in that transition from adolescence to adulthood really well. During high school and uni Holly had a close-knit group of friends who spent every day together. Now that graduation has rolled past, and so have the years, it’s hard to stick together. Especially when every other aspect of your life is changing. The flashbacks that Holly divulges to us felt so familiar to me. The bittersweet feeling never truly goes away, and this book is full of those feelings.

Then there is the huge mess that is Holly’s love life. I can’t even begin to summarise what went on in Holly’s head since it seems that she couldn’t even figure it out. All you need to know at this point is that there are three guys: Liam who haunts her past, Nick who she cannot deny her growing lust for, and her serious boyfriend Tim who she has doubts about.

Then there’s family. The presence of Holly’s father pervades the narrative, and its plain to see how deeply affected by his death Holly is. We also see how her mother was affected, and how in comparison Holly has always had to be the strong one. Flashbacks with her dad got really emotional at times and even though I don’t have a similar experience to draw true empathy from, I felt it. The trauma that Holly went through – not only in trying not to lose it herself, but also in trying to keep her whole family apart in her father’s physical absence – was palpable.

As for Holly’s character, while I admired her characteristics (kind of) and was able to get into her head most of the time, she didn’t completely connect with me. She’s intelligent and has her own set of morals that she holds herself and all others to; she’s sarcastic and witty; she thinks a lot and is perceptive about the world around her and of her settlement into adulthood but … I just didn’t find her that likeable a character.

Another point of address is the ending. IT IS PACKED. Holly finally comes to terms with a lot of the issues she has been mulling over, but there’s this open-endedness that just left me unsatisfied and wanting more. I feel like her story isn’t over yet, which is EXACTLY how I felt with Amelia in Good Oil. If you normally like your stories with complete closure, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I think the cover is perfect for this book. It's kind of plain, but the simplicity of it speaks louder than any special effects could. I do believe this is crossover, and is marketable as such. And yes, this story is so darned bittersweet.

Laura Buzo has gone straight up to my favourite authors list. The thing about her books, for me, is that I don’t enjoy them. Her books play like sad songs, beautiful and melancholy songs that lift you up by the ears and throw you headfirst into pouring rain. Holier Than Thou is life. It will make you think, if will make you laugh, it will make you cry.

[Shaheen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holier Than Thou explores our early twenties: a unique time in our lives where we're just out of high school and tertiary education, working the first job, living out of home, perhaps for the first time,  maybe exploring our first 'serious' relationships. It's about Holly, who has ticked all those boxes, but is rapidly finding out the idealism we learn in high school and uni just doesn't apply in the real world.

What happens when you have everything you have ever wanted, but still find yourself unhappy, wanting something new, something extra? Holly has created an identity for herself as the girl who always does right - she's taken the high moral ground and is prone to judging others for not doing the same - her work-mate Nick gives her the apt nickname Holier Than Thou. She could have easily come across as selfish, perhaps even aloof, but she, and the rest of the cast, are astonishingly realistic and relatable. Of her friends, I really liked Nick, and possibly could have loved Liam if it wasn't for the way he left. I didn't like Tim, I thought it was clear he was taking Holly for granted, and with the exception of Dan, the rest of Holly's friends weren't as supportive as I would have wanted to be. But this is the point of the book - a realisation that close friends will not always remain so.

The blurb made it sound as though Holly hadn't been plagued by the death of her father and absence of a close friend for a while, but from the very first page it's clear that she has been dealing with these issues non-stop for years. She's obviously never gotten over Liam, the best friend who left for mysterious reasons, and understandably has a complicated emotional history when it comes to the death of her father. Her past is filled out for us slowly, flashbacks interleaved cleverly with the present action of the life she envisioned for herself gradually falling apart. Holly's close friends expand their social circles, her thankless job as a social worker is sucking the joy out of her and she works long, hard hours without pay and under constant threat of being fired, her relationship with Tim is changing now that they live together and both work full-time, and Nick keeps entering her thoughts in inappropriate ways.

I have to note that I do not like the ending. Holier Than Thou ends abruptly, without really concluding the story arc and leaving me perplexed. I understand the author is probably tying to make a statement about the uncertainty of life, and how Holly has many years ahead of her to figure everything out, but it's very unsatisfying as a reader.

Holier than Thou will make you laugh, and will possibly have you reaching for tissues! It's a perfect story about the expectations we have of living as adults in the 'real world', with an Australian tang, and will resonate with readers who, like me, are at this special place in their lives.

You can read more of my reviews at Speculating on SpecFic .

[Steve lovell · Rating 4 out of 5]

If she noticed me she gave no indication, but I certainly espied her as our paths crossed in the main street of my home town. She was the love of my life for about twelve months when I was in Year 11. Then a voluptuous, dark eyed raven haired beauty, in those few seconds three score and something years on, as she passed, it seemed that life had weighed heavily on her. After so many years we all lose our sheen, but to me, in those fleeting moments, it seemed more than that – but undeniably the beauty was still there – it wouldn’t take much for the olive skinned vibrancy of her youth to re-emerge. An attack of the ‘what-ifs’ then duly flows, but only temporarily, as life is blissful these days. Way back when, of course, I blew it. Being the callow teenster that I was, after my love moved away to another city the following year we sputtered on for a while, but eventually I decided that another attractive young lady closer to home was interested in me. She wasn’t, but by then I’d burnt my bridges.
Reading certain YA novels does that to you – makes you cast your mind back to another time, another place, and the ‘world seemed so much simpler then’ in the golden hue of reminiscence. Laura Buzo follows up on her charming debut effort ‘Good Oil’ with a sophomore tome that lives up to its back cover praise. Perhaps aimed at a slightly older demographic than her previous work – I can imagine many a savvy bookseller shelver ruminating on where to place it – Buzo, after a tad clunky start, soon gets into the groove of tracing Holier-than-thou’s course through life. The Holly Yarkov story dances back and forth between her twenty-something years in an unrelentingly draining job as a social worker, to her upper-secondary school escapades. In the former her depressing duties are lightened by her growing closeness to quirky, dreadlocked co-worker Nick, who obviously has lost his heart to her. She is tempted, but then there’s her partner Tim back in the flat with the gum tree. Tim is underdone as a character, deliberately so I suspect to keep our sympathies with the alluring Nick. Parallel to this are Holly’s earlier relationships at school, and part of her still yearns for the ‘boy who never was’, Liam.
Like Nick, we are drawn into the main protagonist’s life and grow to care for her and the decision she has to make. Buzo’s love of her leading hand is clearly palpable, but the book’s ending is deeply unsatisfactory – and a spoiler may follow. This is not at all down to any ineptitude on the author’s part. It is just, as with ‘Good Oil’ this reader wanted the journey to continue. These guys are so young I needed to know how life would continue to pan out for them. Does Holly succumb to safe Tim and travel, does she reconnect with Nick, or perhaps even Liam down the track? Any chance of a sequel Ms Buzo? What a bugger it is to be left so unfulfilled – in itself a sign of writerly excellence!

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars

I am so conflicted about how to rate this book. I gave Laura Buzo's first book, Love and Other Perishable Items, 4 stars, but I liked Holier Than Thou so much more, even though I don't think it's quite a 5-star read for me.

Holier Than Thou was completely not what I expected, in fact I don't know if I've ever read a book like this before. It was messy and screwed up and painful, but it's so much like real life it was almost eery. My guess is that this might be a book that's difficult for some people. The main character is 24-ish years old and she's really in the midst of figuring her life out. As a 28-year-old I've gone through (ok, am still going through) that period and I feel like anyone who's in high school or college and hasn't reached that point might not realize what it's like (or just be scared shitless by this book). On the other side, if someone's too far past that point, or was lucky enough to miss that stage, it might be hard to relate to, too.

The story is written between chapters alternating between the past and the past. That sounds weird, but the story starts with a disturbing (Holly is a social worker and she's out on a tough call) chapter and then switches to a year prior when Holly moves in with her boyfriend Tim. The story than has chapters from when Holly was in high school and university and in the year since she's lived with Tim.

I absolutely loved Holly and pretty much everything about her. Her relationship with Tim was just so early-20's typical and honestly kind of boring (but in a really good, relatable way). Holly works as a social worker in a bad neighborhood and, although I've never been a social worker, her boss and coworkers (from the good ones to the bad ones to her work spouse, Nick) just rang so true. Holly's flashbacks to high school and dealing with her dad dying of cancer (which seemed incredibly accurate, my grandfather's death was so similar it was weird) and a crush on the cute popular boy were also so just normal. Even small things like Holly needing to listen to music on her commute, but then sometimes not listening to music because she feels so disconnected just rang so true to me.

To me this is what "new adult" should be. A normal girl in a normal relationship with normal friends just trying to figure out her relationship with her boyfriend, her relationship with her family, her relationship with her friends and coworkers, and what she wants to do with the rest of her life. I loved this story and I really wish someone would buy the rights and publish it in the US so more people could read it.