Our Magic Hour

by Jennifer Down

All night Audrey woke again and again, and every so often Nick would be awake, too, and their bodies would shift into newshapes, and once Nick reached for her as if in a panic, and once Audrey thumped to the kitchen half-awake and stuck her head under the tap to drink, and once she turned over to face Nick, who was open-eyed, and they began to kiss in a dream, bodies just coming to, and she saw the dull shadows from the streetlights pass over his face as he came, and he covered her body with his and she felt his breath in her hair, and they held each other, and the whole time they never said a thing.

Audrey, Katy and Adam have been friends since high school—a decade of sneaky cigarettes, drunken misadventures on Melbourne backstreets, heart-to-hearts, in-jokes.

But now Katy has gone. And without her, Audrey is thrown off balance: everything she thought she knew, everything she believed was true, is bent out of shape.

Audrey’s family—her neurotic mother, her wayward teenage brother, her uptight suburban sister—are likely to fall apart. Her boyfriend, Nick, tries to hold their relationship together. And Audrey, caught in the middle, needs to find a reason to keep going when everything around her suddenly seems wrong.

Evocative and exquisitely written, Our Magic Hour is a story of love, loss and discovery. Jennifer Down’s remarkable debut novel captures that moment when being young and invincible gives way to being open and vulnerable, when one terrible act changes a life forever.

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Contemporary, Book Club, Young Adult, Mental Health, Grief

304 pages, Paperback

First published February 24, 2016

About the author

Jennifer Down is a writer and editor from Melbourne. Her work has appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Saturday Paper, the Lifted Brow and Overland. Her first novel, Our Magic Hour will be published in 2016. ‘Aokigahara’ won the 2014 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Award.

Reviews

[Michael Livingston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a stunner. It deals with grief and trauma and figuring out how to live when everything feels like it's slowly falling apart. But there's so much warmth and love in here as well - my heart is full.

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't really say I "enjoyed" this book exactly because it's not really the kind of story you 'enjoy', but it was very engaging, and I'd definitely recommend it. I connected with many of the characters—Audrey, especially—and I could absolutely understand the depression that takes hold following the loss of a very good friend.

Mental illness was rampant in Audrey's family. Her parents and siblings all had issues but, despite this seeming to be the major thread of the story, it wasn't explored too deeply and was just kind of dropped. I had thought it was an important issue to expand on,🤔 but the story took a slightly different turn and ended on a fairly happy note, which was good.

Much of the book has a somewhat sombre atmosphere, so I'd suggest that—if you're feeling blue😟—you might want to put the book aside until you're feeling better. Or just read the synopsis and, if you're interested, give it a read! It's a very good debut from Australian author, Jennifer Down. Her second book Bodies of Light was published just last month, and I've already got my e-copy!

Four "put-on-a-happy-face" stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Jaclyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is tender and sad and heart-breaking and hopeful and honest. The writing is gorgeously restrained and thoughtful. I loved the words put on the page; I loved the words left off. This is first-rate contemporary Australian fiction and I'm excited. It would take a lot to knock this from my best books of the year list (boldly saying that in February).

[Anna Spargo-Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gradual and gentle insight into grief. The writing is deliberate and restrained, and the characters are well drawn but not bombastic.

The minutiae of Melbourne punctuates the story so exquisitely that it somehow made me homesick for my own town (which isn't Melbourne!).

I'd have liked to know more about Sylvie and her history, but that's probably another story for another time.

Beautifully rendered.

[madi griff]

For a debut novel, Our Magic Hour's prose is lean and controlled, but character-wise it fails to escape the self-indulgence trap entirely. The traumas that beset the central character Audrey were so many and varied that they became tiresome; childhood physical abuse, death of a parent, loss of the other parent to BMD, indifferent older sibling, self-destructive younger sibling, a career in one of the toughest and most unforgiving sectors of the DHS (child protection) - and, centrally, the unexpected suicide of a best friend. As Audrey's kind-of-ex Nick states, "It's hard being in love with the saddest person in the world." And speaking of Nick - in the novel's first act, Audrey and Nick negotiate so many fraught exchanges by eventually just having sex that it began to feel like a convenient scene closer. But these are reasonably finicky complaints; it's an undeniably strong debut.

[kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dammit. Another bad reading choice when it comes to doing uni work! I almost didn’t read this because I had it pegged as young adult fiction, and me and young adult fiction are somewhat estranged these days. But I loved it! I found Audrey a fairly sympathetic character even though she probably could come across as cold (“contained”), and we had somewhat similar backgrounds. The abuse she suffered was worse, but on the flip side of that her family also shared happy times, and her parents did seem to love each other. Horribly though I think that could create a lot of cognitive dissonance for a kid, in trying to reconcile their failings as human beings and parents with the kind gestures they meted out. (“They weren’t bad people”, I think Audrey says at one point in defence of them.) Audrey still tries to be a dutiful daughter to her remaining parent even though her mother never protected her from her father, and I think this was explored really well.

Decamping to Sydney seemed like a kind of bonkers move even though the logic behind it is understandable: escape, and reinvention maybe. But in doing so Audrey leaves behind her valuable support network and falls into what Adam calls “risk-taking behaviour”. Even her relationship with Julian seems like it’s about debasement; letting yourself get torn down so you can be remade as something else. Audrey tries to explain this to Nick at the end but he doesn’t get it; that made me wonder if it’s a gender thing, because I totally got it.

At one point I realised that Our Magic Hour reminded me of Monkey Grip, because of the characters and their easy interwoven rapport, but also because of the Melbourne setting and they way the two interacted. This made me think of something that was really on my mind a couple of years ago, which is that Sydney is never depicted as a character in novels in the way New York or London or even Melbourne is; it feels like there’s a whole volume of work where Melbourne is central to the narrative, and when Sydney is the setting for a novel then it may as well be set anywhere; you never get the same sense of place when it’s Sydney being written about. Why is that? Or am I just reading the wrong books? (I’m wondering if that’s the problem, because in Fiona Wright’s essay collection Small Acts of Disappearance, Essays on Hunger she examines Christina Stead’s For Love Alone, which sounds very Sydney-specific; for reference I found an online version of the essay here but I’m not sure it’s the same as the one which appears in the collection.) And when the narrative in Our Magic Hour moved to Sydney it didn’t seem to have the same sense of inclusion, of fondness, as that for Melbourne. Maybe this was a device, to further suggest Audrey’s isolation, but even the fun stuff – like riding bikes into Randwick, and swimming at the ocean baths – I kind of didn’t buy into. There never seems to be anything casual about riding bikes in Sydney (I say this as a commuting cyclist); every trip is white-knuckle, and the hills – oh, the hills. But maybe I’m doing it wrong; I’ll accept that. And the baths – I feel like the Sydney cliché is the beaches (Bondi, Manly, the rest), and if you’re here on a two year visa say then you probably do want to live in close proximity to the coast; this is why Bondi is full of backpackers. But my experience of Sydney is the grime and grit of the Inner West. I’m speaking comparatively; it’s no Tenderloin. But the beaches are a forty minute bus ride away and constitute another country. At one point Audrey and Julian drive up to the Central Coast to pick up a motorbike, to a place called Budgewoi. It’s this tiny little nothing of a place, on a river close by a lake and right near the sea. This really tickled me, because my parents live a couple of suburbs away and when people ask me what’s in the vicinity I can name a half-dozen towns all along the train line and relatively major, all of which they’ll never have heard of, but everyone – seriously, everyone – has a grandma with a holiday house at Budgewoi, or some dodgy uncle who goes fishing there, or something. So of course Audrey and Nick went to Budgewoi to pick up a motorbike! Of course they did.

The other thing is that the ending kind of scared me, even though it was quite hopeful, because I can’t stand the thought of Audrey and Nick destroying each other again. And it seemed kind of a shame that Audrey went through all that (Sydney, and the rest) only to come full circle again, more or less. I mean, I understand that experiences like that highlight what’s important. But I also subscribe to the idea that the past should stay the past, and if things fell apart to begin with (talking here about Nick) they likely will again. But then I’m a glass-is-half-empty kind of person.

[will e · Rating 2 out of 5]

Monkey Grip but for 19 year olds who have just found their local pub. Story was fine but writing was just too.. gay?

[KJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very 'Melbourne' book full of twenty-something angst, grief, heartbreak and growing up. A solid book, beautifully written. Even if you've never been to Melbourne, the locations are wonderfully described and you feel you are right there with the characters.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s grief-lit aplenty at the moment. Honestly, you can’t scan a bookshelf without YA novels about parents or best friends dying; memoirs about cancer battles; suicide stories; and generally just loss, loss and more loss. But if you only read one bit of grief-lit this year, make it Our Magic Hour by Jennifer Down.

Audrey, Katy and Adam have been friends since high school—a shared history of inside jokes, sneaky cigarettes, ‘D&Ms’ and looking out for each other –

Katy’s family ate dinner together every single night. Her parents umpired at weekend netball matches, took orange quarters for the girls in their pleated skirts. Audrey’s parents destroyed each other.

Now in their twenties, they juggle the pressures of adulthood – relationships, work, their families. When Katy takes her own life (within the first few pages), Audrey and Adam are left to deal with their grief. The story explores the ripple-effect of Katy’s death rather than the reasons why she took her own life.

What Down does so well in this story is show that grief is very different for each person, and that even then, it’s unpredictable – it’s savage, quiet, raw, all-pervasive, seemingly never-ending, there one minute and gone the next.

When the grief came, it was primitive and crippling. Audrey was kneecapped at the coin laundry; in her fluorescent-lit cubicle at work; sitting on the rooftop at the Labour in Vain, surrounded by friends. Minutes before, she’d been laughing so hard she thought she would vomit. Walking through the university after a conference, her head full of early intervention programs until suddenly it wasn’t….Tim Buckley on the radio and Audrey was unravelling.

Down’s writing is spare, the emotion captured in small details – ‘soft-serve summers’ and ‘alluvial deposits of anxiety’. And it’s these details that embroider every scene, creating an undercurrent of sadness that rips at Adam but in contrast, slowly pulls Audrey down.

This is also a story about families and the legacy of domestic violence and mental illness. Audrey’s troubled childhood contrasts with that of her boyfriend, Nick’s –

She envied his modest, happy childhood. She envied him his younger brother, who captained sports teams and did his homework and got clumsy-lucky with girls; his father, who had a Monty Python quote for every occasion.

Although not addressed directly, the question of why Katy had been deeply troubled and yet Audrey, who grew up in a violent household, was ‘okay’, is implied. As readers, we understand that it is not as simple as ’cause-and-effect’, so the backstory for each character provides context for their grief and allows Down to add depth to the story.

Lastly, Our Magic Hour is one of the best stories about Melbourne* that I’ve read. References to Ruckers Hill, the Dan O’Connell, the gridlock on Punt Road, and being day-drunk in Edinburgh Gardens, were exquisite. Equally, Audrey’s move to Sydney and the brief but evocative descriptions of beachside suburbs and the weather generated a subtle but important change of pace.

4/5 Gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, beautifully written.

[Tegan Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I've been this emotionally affected by a book. I had to take little breaks every few chapters and just wallow in the beauty and the sadness of it. I couldn't read it before heading out to be social because it would change my mood. This is a book that will make you want to be simultaneously alone and hugging all of your dear ones at the same time. I loved it.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ripple effect of a young persons death is difficult to write about, the pain, the loss and the whole harsh reality of it makes for a very troubled and unsettling novel. It was raw and sad, the characters all trying to deal with it in their own way. The characters interactions and conversations were ambiguous, it was hard to work out what they wanted to do and say to try and deal with their own agonising guilt. Their actions were often surprising and sometimes disturbing. It was a challenging read but it does make you think about how the impact of a young life lost and the questions it leaves for everyone to try and answer.

[Elizabeth McHugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very contemporary and fast moving. The reader travels through the lives of a number of young folks as they navigate life after the loss of a friend. It is set in Australia so some of the writers word choice is familiar to down under which makes it very interesting. The flawed a bit characters make it a good read.

[Kerenza · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

Audrey, Katy and Adam have been friends since forever, but who are they apart, and how will one act change the course of their lives?

An incredible debut novel. This book had me shell shocked, crying, then crying somemore. It was hauntingly beautiful. And shout out to Melbourne again. Melbourne represent. Grief comes in so many forms, each and every person deals with it different, and this was captured respectfully in this book.

Knowing the locations & being able to truly picture the locations made this story even more real, and having had similar experiences to Audrey as well really drove this story home. Jennifer captured the fallout of peoples actions with poise & honesty and I cannot wait to see what other writing she has in store.

A must read.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an exceptionally personal book for me to read and I applaud this new Australian writer for getting this 'coming of age book' so perfectly right. Set in Melbourne and Sydney it tells the story of 20 something year old Audrey who is struggling to put her life back together after an immensely personal grief while trying to be a social worker. While this is not my personal story it has been told so perfectly right that there were times I had to remind myself I was reading and not reliving. Social work is an immensely personal journey as well as a career and to do the job while experiencing anything personally is a full time life experience and the author has really recognised this. I was particularly confronted by the line
" Your religion is other people's happiness"
And when discussing one's ability to 'switch off from work' Audrey quotes her father
"You can put a screaming man behind a curtain, you can still hear him"
This book is at times laugh out loud funny, deeply sad and would be a great, warm read for anyone who has had to grow up and try and find their way amongst any big change or grief - so essentially all of us. The characters are fantastic and for anyone who has ever had too much to drink on a night out, to share a house with strangers, who fell in love, felt used, loved your family and friends you will relive the experience all over again it is so real. I loved this book. I want to re-read it already but I am not sure how much it will resonate with others however I suspect it will not just be a ' social work' thing. This is the authors first novel and I cannot wait to see where she goes next.

[Text Publishing · Rating 5 out of 5]

Debut novels like this don’t come along that often. Our Magic Hour has been described as:

‘A vivid portrait of our city and its inhabitants.’
Weekly Review

‘Striking, breathlessly written…An eloquent debut.’
WA Today

‘Intimate, raw and occasionally heartbreaking.’
Readings

‘Easily one of the best Australian debuts I’ve read in a long time.’
Lip Mag

‘A gritty, evocative story…Unconventional and intimate.’
Canberra Weekly

‘Surprising and captivating.’
Farrago

‘Down’s prose is sharp and intimate, the characters flawed and achingly familiar. For a book about mourning, it’s not overly sentimental or indulgent. Instead, the characters’ grief is ugly and bewildering. Our Magic Hour is a compelling, authentic portrayal of loss, dislocation and the unsteadiness of young adult life.’
Good Reading

What an incredible wrap for a young, debut novelist.

For more on Jennifer Down read an interview on the Text blog:
www.textpublishing.com.au/blog/jennif...

[Rosalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an astounding novel about contemporary young adult lives and deals with some very important social issues. The writing is strong with short sharp sentences and the dialogue flows naturally so it is an easy read. But the themes are harsh and genuine; suicide, child abuse, family violence, illegal drug use, child carers and mental health problems. Jennifer Down dissects the issue of suicide like an experienced surgeon. The why’s, the guilt, sadness, anger and all of the other emotions experienced by those who are left behind are so well pieced together it may be too emotionally difficult to read and absorb for anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide. The other social issues are not diminished but are relevant to the complex contemporary society depicted in the story.
No one can prepare for a sudden death and this successful first-time suicide devastates all of the friends and relatives who must accept their own survival in the empty aftermath. How they live, work, relate to each other and finally accept their friend’s death in the year that follows makes ‘Our Magic Hour’ a gratifying read.

[Karys McEwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is without a doubt one of the best books I have read this year, maybe longer. Surely the best local novel I have had the pleasure to stumble across. I related so strongly with almost everything on the pages, from the characters and their feelings, to the geography and the way the cities are traversed. Melbourne and Sydney are illustrated flawlessly. The portrayals of grief and vulnerability and loneliness were so real I could feel it in my gut. It is sad in parts, but I also found myself sobbing in other non-sad parts purely because it was SO DAMN GOOD. I'm not the most restrained reader at the best of times, but I was a serious emotional wreck during this. The writing is also insanely beautiful, and the plot is very well structured. Everything felt very true and insightful and genuine. I was truly and overwhelmingly affected by this incredible novel.

[Kaz Kershaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book over two days, put it down, ran a bath and had a little sob. Watching the main character process her grief by trying to hold together every part of her life and everyone in it was heartbreaking, and the writing really makes you feel like you are there seeing it happen, but from a slight distance. This is a book I'll read again.

[Lucia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt very lucky to read this as a 26yo who loves inner north Melbourne. Vulnerability + hope + geographical love letter.

[Daniela Moritz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audrey ist Mitte Zwanzig und lebt zusammen mit ihrem Freund Nick und ihren besten Freunden Katy und Adam in Melbourne. Als Katy eines Tages tot in ihrem Wagen aufgefunden wird, gerät Audreys ohnehin fragile Existenz immer mehr ins Wanken und unausgesprochene Ängste bahnen sich erneut den Weg an die Oberfläche. Bei ihrer Arbeit als Sozialarbeiterin im Kinderschutzdienst plagen sie Schuldgefühle und Versagensängste, da das Baby eines ihrer Klienten verstirbt. Obwohl sie von außen die Bestätigung bekommt, ihr Bestes gegeben zu haben, entscheidet sie sich für eine Auszeit und zieht für einen Job in der Kinderonkologie nach Sydney.

Zur gleichen Zeit zerbricht Audreys Beziehung zu Nick, der selbst als Notfallsanitäter unter Druck steht und ihren Stimmungsschwankungen nicht richtig zu begegnen weiß. Von ihren Eltern erhält sie ebenfalls keine Unterstützung, da ihr alkoholkranker und gewalttätiger Vater bereits vor Jahren verstorben ist und ihre Mutter selbst psychologische Hilfe braucht. Nur zu ihrer Schwester Irène und ihrem Bruder Bernie besitzt sie Vertrauen und das Gefühl echter Verbundenheit.

In Sydney scheinen sich die Umstände zunächst tatsächlich zu bessern und Audrey beginnt beharrlich die Idee zu verfolgen, sich ein inneres wie äußeres Schutzschild anzueignen. Ein paar Rückschlägen zum Trotz geht das Konzept auf und sie erholt sich sowohl beruflich wie auch privat. Doch nach einiger Zeit fühlt sie in ihrem neuen Leben eine gewisse Leere und sie kehrt in ihre alten, aber vertrauten Verhältnisse nach Melbourne zurück.

"Our Magic Hour" handelt vom Umgang mit Trauer und rückt dabei den Alltag eines Milieus in den Mittelpunkt, das erst spät Einzug in die Literatur erhielt und dort bis heute zu Kontroversen führt: Menschen aus extrem prekären Schichten der Gesellschaft, die ein Leben lang mit den Folgen ihrer Herkunft zu kämpfen haben und denen es schwer fällt, sich angemessen um sich selbst oder andere zu kümmern. Doch das Vorhaben Jennifer Downs, dem Erbe Ibsens oder Zolas nachzuspüren und durch die Erkenntnisse Freuds in ein neues Licht zu rücken, geht nicht auf. Anstatt Fragen von Determinismus, freien Willen und der Macht des Unterbewussten geschickt miteinander zu verknüpfen, wirken die Charaktere klischeehaft und die Metaphern, von denen es mehr als genug gibt, überholt. Audrey erlebt als Missbrauchsopfer die klassische Umkehr der Eltern-Kind-Beziehung, eine sogenannte Parentifizierung, doch ihre Rolle der Heiligen und die damit verbundene Gefahr der Ausbildung eines Größen-Selbst hinterfragt sie erst ganz zum Schluss allmählich und überhört selbst zaghafte Kritik an ihrem Verhalten nur zu gerne:

"Adam gathered her to him, spoke close to her ear. 'You're religion is other peoples happiness. It's absurd.' He touched the bones of her neck. 'You'll be okay.' "

Down betont, die eigentliche Bedeutung der Dinge liege unterhalb der Oberfläche und entziehe sich oft einer rein rationalen Deutung, nur um den Leser anschließend immer wieder und wieder auf diese Erkenntnis hinzuweisen (z.B. auf die Philosophie des Absurden). Vor allem Sex stellt für sie eine Sprache ohne Worte dar, die einen völlig anderen Zugang zur Realität und Wahrheit ermöglicht und allgegenwärtig ist. Doch auch dieser an sich gute Ansatz verläuft oft in trivialen Feststellungen.

"It was a grief she hadn't expected: she missed touching skin. Even when they hadn't fucked for weeks, and she couldn't look at him in bed at night, Nick would still roll over and hold her."

Obwohl der Tod Katys und die unterschiedlichen Reaktionen auf die Verlusterfahrung eines der Hauptmotive des Romans darstellt, konzentriert sich die Handlung im Wesentlichen auf die Entwicklung Audreys und ihren emotionalen Auf und Abs. Weder konnte ich mich mit der Hauptfigur noch der Geschichte richtig anfreunden, was bedauerlich ist, da Down schreiben kann und ich ihr Anliegen, den Alltag von Außenseitern und Kranken sozusagen durch die Kunst und Literatur zu würdigen, absolut begrüße.

[Julia Tulloh Harper · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, verging on 4 stars :)
I liked this novel about youth, grief, breakups, family. The writing is lovely and articulate and I think Down will go on to get better and better. Was also a lovely portrait of youth in Melbourne (white, educated, middle class, youth, I admit). The episodic nature of the narration at first felt a bit slow but the end had accumulated into something quite moving.
The strongest elements were definitely about main character Audrey and her family - dealing with an mentally unwell mother, abusive father (now dead), absent sister and troubled brother. The whole story kicks off after one of Audrey's best friends commits suicide (not a spoiler) but her grief over this seems patchy in the sense it came and went within narrative in ways that didn't feel totally realistic. I also felt like every problem in the book had been thrown at Audrey - childhood trauma, dysfunctional family, death of best friend, death of father, works in child protection (and later child oncology), break ups, friend with dad who has cancer, etc. Seemed a bit overkill and I think the story would have been stronger had it just focused on one of the issues and fleshed it out a little more - the episodic nature of the writing meant that some events felt a bit unconvincing (ie not enough connectors, so some events seemed a bit forced). That said I enjoyed this story and the writing and would pick up Down's other work.

[Annabelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m so disappointed- this was painfully dull. It’s beautifully written but not a lot happens and Audrey is a very frustrating protagonist.

[Alyssa Gil · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was so difficult for me to decide on a rating for this book, and it's going to be difficult to review too. It definitely has some strengths, and it brought up some strong emotions for me. But I can't get over how completely terrible the writing style was.

I'm genuinely surprised that this book has so many glowing, 5-star reviews. In all honesty, I found it exhausting to read. Not only emotionally, but also because it jumps from scene to scene so quickly, with no transitions whatsoever. I don't think I've ever read another book that was so incoherent. There's no perception of time at all. Rather than a scene that leads logically to another scene and then to another and another, this book feels more like a series of loosely connected snapshots. It's written chronologically, but a scene might take place on the same day as the one before it or three weeks later. And there are so many scenes, so many sentences, that felt completely irrelevant to the rest of the book. Between scenes, and even within scenes, the topic would change so suddenly it was jarring and often confusing. Take this paragraph as a small example:

"She phoned Adam. He didn't answer. She watched an older woman struggle by with two schoolchildren, all of them bundled into ski jackets. The woman huffed a greeting. Audrey smiled at them. Her nose was running. When she walked back up to the road, all the cars had their headlights on."

Now imagine reading an ENTIRE BOOK written like that. I was constantly going, "Why did you feel the need to include that?" "What relevance does this possibly have?" The answer to the latter question was always "none." If you had cut out all the sentences and passages, and sometimes entire scenes, that had little to no connection to the overall plot, this would be a novella of probably about 100 pages or so. It read more like a stream of consciousness than a novel that the author had plotted and edited.

Speaking of plot, if you're looking for something exciting and fast-paced, this is not it. There's really no mystery, no plot twists, no villians. And I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing; the book tells a beautiful but heartbreaking story of a young woman's life as she deals with grief, love, friendship, and all the messy parts of growing up. But I have to say I'm glad the book was short, because it's slow-moving and nothing exciting ever really happens. It almost read like a diary, just covering the everyday aspects of the main character Audrey's life, rather than a novel.

Now, to be fair, I didn't HATE this book. I almost, almost gave it three stars. If it hadn't been written the way it was, I could have loved this book, potentially. There were several times I almost burst into tears at how emotionally wrenching it was. I cared deeply for Audrey and for her relationship with Nick, which was beautiful even when it was breaking my heart. And the writing, when it wasn't strange and confusing and disjointed, was often beautiful as well.

I really, really wish I could say that the good parts of this book outweighed the bad, but unfortunately that's very far from the truth. This had a lot of potential, and I'm sure many readers could get past the writing style, but it ruined the book for me.

[Carolina Novo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was just what I needed right now

[Nadia Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The thing I loved about this book is it highlighted how time just keeps on ticking by while you grieve, or while everything falls apart. Sometimes the protagonist was totally wrapped up in her own self-pity and martyrdom, but just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other and doing all the things you have to do to be a "decent person": I really like how this was portrayed. I like that the characters seemed to experience growth but that it wasn't an easy or complete process. I read this because I liked Down's short story 'Aokigahara' in the ABR, and I'm glad I did.

[EliseCaldwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book was a painful and beautiful experience. The quiet anguish of Audrey as a result of her family history and the death of her friend is conveyed with such empathy and richness that the grief she feels flows from the pages and into the reader with each turn of the page. Her pain and sadness is evoked so vividly that reading this book is at times an overwhelming experience and one that transports you completely out of your own life and into the world Audrey inhabits.

The story is about grief, love, friends and family. The subject matter is addressed with warmth, complexity and great feeling. Relationships fracture and mend under great strain. There is betrayal, disappointment, hope and kindness. And it is all beautifully captured through perfect, elegant prose.

A great read, though emotionally draining. Highly recommended — a rich, beautiful treasure of a book.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tenderly drawn 'coming of age' story of Audrey, a 20-something Melbourne girl and her immediate group of friends as they come to grips with a tragic turn of events.
I'd describe this as a modern-day Monkey Grip - without the drugs and free love.
A very Melbourne story, even the second half which is based in Sydney (Sydney being everything that wasn't Melbourne ... tropical, sticky, town boundaries that are drawn by water as opposed to Melbourne's gridded streets). Down has portrayed Melbourne meticulously, the city virtually becoming a character in its own right.
Very well written, a little slow at times, but a very tenderly rendered story of love and loss and what it means to love someone through dark days.

[Susie Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

overwhelming take away is that everyone grieves differently... I inhaled this book because of the tense beautiful prose and parallels between my own life. it is such a complete and mature book but there was something slightly off-putting about the observation of my demographic - most aspects were relatable but that didn't make them any less privileged and slightly annoying. I guess i have a chip on my shoulder about the suburbanized teenage upbringing, which I couldn't shake in spite of the protagonist's own childhood and then adult life trauma. I was also a bit put off by that cookie cutter inner city relationship which seemed to triumph in the end. meanwhile that atmosphere is alive. and perhaps I just miss it because unlike Audrey I am staying on in Sydney.

[Amy Polyreader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it difficult to put a rating on this book. I hesitated to begin with as I found that the prose was a bit rigid and simplified for me.
Though after a few chapters, I was so deep in the lives of the characters that my preconceived ideas slipped away and I found myself unable to put it down.

It may seem to some that this is a book about nothing, and it could be taken that way - but it's so much more than that. This is a book about abuse, the process of greif, depression, friendship, family; the complications of, and work it takes to maintain relationship. The characters and places are still lingering in my memory.

I conneted with so many of parts of this book, and I am so impressed that this was written by a young female writer the same age as me.

[bladereader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I'm not entirely sure this book deserves the rave reviews it's getting. It's impressive in that it was written by a very young person with a clearly skilful control of language that more than a little emulates the style of Helen Garner, but frankly I didn't find it particularly flooring. Down has a strong voice, but unfortunately it reminds me of that of a private school girl trying to get an A+ by appropriating her favourite indie film into a book. Not relatable. Did get a buzz out of hearing my neighbourhood described though.