Gracehopper

by Mandy Hager

Born in the middle of Taiwan’s 1999 Jiji earthquake, 18-year-old Grace’s whole life has been impacted by its fallout. Now, as she faces an internal quake that’s potentially even more devastating, her ex-best friend Charlie suddenly reappears. Can all her questions finally be answered? Or is everything she thought she knew about to implode? It is a story about love and loss, friendship, countering differences, the search for a unique identity and the many faces of resilience.

Genres: Family

316 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 7, 2025

About the author

Mandy Hager is a multi-award winning writer of fiction, most often for young adults. She has won the LIANZA Book Awards for Young Adult fiction 3 times (‘Smashed’ 2008, ‘The Nature of Ash’ 2013, ‘Dear Vincent’ 2014), the NZ Post Children’s Book Awards for YA fiction (‘The Crossing’ 2010), an Honour Award in the 1996 AIM Children’s Book Awards (‘Tom’s Story’), Golden Wings Excellence Award (‘Juno Lucina,’ 2002), Golden Wings Award (‘Run For The Trees’, 2003) and Five Notable Book Awards.
She has also been awarded the 2012 Beatson Fellowship, the 2014 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship and the 2015 Waikato University Writer in Residence.
In 2015 her novel ‘Singing Home the Whale’ was awarded the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award, and the Best Young Adult fiction Award from the NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. It has also been named a 2016 IBBY Honour Book, an international award. Her historical novel for adults, titled ‘Heloise’, was long-listed for the Ockham Book Awards.
She is a trained teacher, with an Advanced Diploma in Fine Arts (Whitireia) and an MA in Creative Writing for Victoria University. She also writes adult fiction, short stories, non-fiction, educational resources, blogs and articles, and currently tutors the Novel Course for Whitireia’s Creative Writing Programme.

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grace has had to navigate life around her mother’s fragile mental health, while also dealing with her best friend, Charlie, moving away, and lingering questions about her own origins and who her father is. When Grace’s grandmother’s health takes a turn for the worst, and Charlie returns to her life, she has to find a way to balance her own needs with being there for her mother.

An excellent YA novel about friendship, self-discovery, empathy, found-family, and the lessons of Jeet Kune Do. I really liked the chemistry and nerdy quote-swapping between Grace and Charlie, and how they weren’t afraid to call each other out.

Probably more suitable for older teens due to discussion of attempted suicide.

[Amanda Vaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a high school English teacher I’m always looking for contemporary NZ texts I could teach. I probably wouldn’t teach this as mental health always opens a huge can of worms, but I enjoyed it as a reader despite the age of the protagonists. Lots of vivid characters and well paced to keep me invested in the mystery of Grace’s identity.

[Rochelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a good choice for a personal response for English.