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Abyssinia
As small children, growing up at the property called Abyssinia, two sisters played with their dolls house together, side by side, always. Grace loved Mary and Mary loved Grace. But inseparable bonds can be unexpectedly shattered. When this happens to Grace, she is plunged into a dark and mesmerising world, a world full of bells and the ringing sky, of odd little children, strange events and frighteningly bizarre grown-ups
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Ursula Dubosarsky
104 books101 followersUrsula Dubosarsky is an award-winning author of numerous books for children and young adults. About The Golden Day, her first book with Candlewick Press, she says, "The little girls watch, wonder, respond, change, and grow — and then their childhood is gone, forever. This element of the story, I suppose, is at least partly autobiographical. But, as I say — all of our teachers come home safe and sound in the end." Ursula Dubosarsky lives in Australia.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 13, 2014
YA. This book has one of the most misleading blurbs I've ever seen. Here's my version:
In 1891, two little girls called Grace and Mary live on a remote Australian property called Abyssinia. They have a dollhouse, which they love, though one of the dolls has gone missing, and the newest doll looks sad and as though she does not belong. Somewhere else, a girl called Sarah is taken away in a blanket at night, and wakes up in a strange house crowded with things that nobody puts away, where the father is blind and the mother does not speak or look at her two children, and a strange mesmerist-doctor says that they will not get better until their lost daughter is recovered. Sarah doesn't like it there and doesn't belong, but she thinks there is nothing she can do; until Dr Fleet says that perhaps there is, if she will go to the heart of Africa for him - go to Abyssinia.
This book feels very clever as you're reading it. At the end, once everything is more or less resolved (sort of?), I felt as though the cleverness was being used as a mask for how little sense the plot actually makes. There is an evil (maybe?) mesmerist doctor who runs the action, but I don't know why, or what he gets out of it. "For every child that is lost, another must be found" is not actually a motivation. Or any kind of law that makes sense. Mary dies (this is not a spoiler: we're told about it on the first page), but you can't tell whether it was her dying or her extended life that was engineered. If the events had been laid out in a plain order, with no mysteries, they would make the most ridiculous narrative. So even though it felt clever, and the atmosphere was wonderful, and the characters were pretty great, I couldn't properly respect this book.
Anyway, the blurb is so incredibly unrelated to the story that I felt the urge to annotate it (somewhat spoilerishly, but this book makes so little sense I can't see that spoilers would make a difference):
A psychological thriller, a desperately moving and ultimately uplifting (in what way is the ending at all uplifting?) tale of childhood innocence... (They're definitely children? And fairly innocent, I guess? I'm not sure what that has to do with anything in the actual story.)
As small children, growing up at their property called Abyssinia, two sisters played with their dolls house together, side by side, always. Grace loved Mary, and Mary loved Grace. (Grace and Mary do love each other, but there's nothing to suggest they were unusually close for sisters.)
But inseparable bonds in life can be unexpectedly shattered. When this happens to Grace (Grace? Grace gets none of the POV narrative, except for a tiny bit at the end. Unless we're supposed to believe all of the narrative is a story Grace is telling herself, which is possible but not at all obvious, especially since the audience is supposed to be a young one - there's nothing to suggest this story actually belongs to her), she is plunged into a dark and mesmerising world, a world full of bells and the ringing sky (there is one line about Sarah waking from dreams of bells and the ringing sky, which I assume is where the blurb writer pulled this rather good phrasing. It has nothing that I can see to do with the plot, or anything that Grace ever saw), of odd little children, strange events and frighteningly bizarre grown-ups. (Again, these are all things that Sarah, not Grace, sees. I thought for a while that maybe Sarah was actually Grace, or Mary, but the book tells us quite firmly that she's somebody else, later on.)
It's a good blurb, in and of itself. If the narrative - both Mary's and Sarah's sections - are something Grace is imagining or writing, then the blurb sort of almost fits the book. But the blurb is really the only place that this reading is suggested, so.
In 1891, two little girls called Grace and Mary live on a remote Australian property called Abyssinia. They have a dollhouse, which they love, though one of the dolls has gone missing, and the newest doll looks sad and as though she does not belong. Somewhere else, a girl called Sarah is taken away in a blanket at night, and wakes up in a strange house crowded with things that nobody puts away, where the father is blind and the mother does not speak or look at her two children, and a strange mesmerist-doctor says that they will not get better until their lost daughter is recovered. Sarah doesn't like it there and doesn't belong, but she thinks there is nothing she can do; until Dr Fleet says that perhaps there is, if she will go to the heart of Africa for him - go to Abyssinia.
This book feels very clever as you're reading it. At the end, once everything is more or less resolved (sort of?), I felt as though the cleverness was being used as a mask for how little sense the plot actually makes. There is an evil (maybe?) mesmerist doctor who runs the action, but I don't know why, or what he gets out of it. "For every child that is lost, another must be found" is not actually a motivation. Or any kind of law that makes sense. Mary dies (this is not a spoiler: we're told about it on the first page), but you can't tell whether it was her dying or her extended life that was engineered. If the events had been laid out in a plain order, with no mysteries, they would make the most ridiculous narrative. So even though it felt clever, and the atmosphere was wonderful, and the characters were pretty great, I couldn't properly respect this book.
Anyway, the blurb is so incredibly unrelated to the story that I felt the urge to annotate it (somewhat spoilerishly, but this book makes so little sense I can't see that spoilers would make a difference):
A psychological thriller, a desperately moving and ultimately uplifting (in what way is the ending at all uplifting?) tale of childhood innocence... (They're definitely children? And fairly innocent, I guess? I'm not sure what that has to do with anything in the actual story.)
As small children, growing up at their property called Abyssinia, two sisters played with their dolls house together, side by side, always. Grace loved Mary, and Mary loved Grace. (Grace and Mary do love each other, but there's nothing to suggest they were unusually close for sisters.)
But inseparable bonds in life can be unexpectedly shattered. When this happens to Grace (Grace? Grace gets none of the POV narrative, except for a tiny bit at the end. Unless we're supposed to believe all of the narrative is a story Grace is telling herself, which is possible but not at all obvious, especially since the audience is supposed to be a young one - there's nothing to suggest this story actually belongs to her), she is plunged into a dark and mesmerising world, a world full of bells and the ringing sky (there is one line about Sarah waking from dreams of bells and the ringing sky, which I assume is where the blurb writer pulled this rather good phrasing. It has nothing that I can see to do with the plot, or anything that Grace ever saw), of odd little children, strange events and frighteningly bizarre grown-ups. (Again, these are all things that Sarah, not Grace, sees. I thought for a while that maybe Sarah was actually Grace, or Mary, but the book tells us quite firmly that she's somebody else, later on.)
It's a good blurb, in and of itself. If the narrative - both Mary's and Sarah's sections - are something Grace is imagining or writing, then the blurb sort of almost fits the book. But the blurb is really the only place that this reading is suggested, so.
June 3, 2020
"It never does any good knowing too much."
Two dolls houses and two lost girls and for everything found, something is lost.
August 12, 2015
Abyssinia is going to be one of those novels that lurks at the edges of my mind, never fully revealed to me. Touted as a teen psychological thriller it's layers are intriguing and to fully appreciate this story you must pay attention to the details - like the story structure and all the parts of the newspaper articles and the quotes referenced at each part. I disagree with the blurb's description of this being an "uplifting tale" - this is not a happy ever after ending and nor would that have suited the gothic undertones. If you like something I little left of centre, a little strange and a well distilled story, this is a great read for teens and adults.
March 10, 2015
What a cool book! I can't believe I've had this sitting on my shelf for about 10 years!
I remember buying it because it sounded dark and like it was just my kind of book, but I had always thought it was a kids book.
Far from it, this is a unique psychological thriller and an enjoyable read.
I remember buying it because it sounded dark and like it was just my kind of book, but I had always thought it was a kids book.
Far from it, this is a unique psychological thriller and an enjoyable read.
October 15, 2020
This story is written as if it's a Matryoshka doll; stories nested within stories. Written by Australia's wonderful Children's Laureate, Ursula Dubosarsky, Abyssinia is a strange, evocative tale of two sisters, a silver whistle, a mesmerist doctor, and a doll's house. I'm not entirely sure what happened of that I 'get' the ending, but I really enjoyed listening to this audio book.
April 23, 2018
I found this more of a struggle to connect with and stay interested in. She still writes well, and perhaps it was just where I was, maybe I will revisit at some point and try again, but I struggled with this one.
May 20, 2017
A weird bizarre tale. A tint of terror.
May 26, 2017
I enjoyed it but I was confused the entire time. I never did figure it out.
December 28, 2018
I read this as my daughter had it out of the library and I didn’t have a book to read. It was ok, a bit weird, not my usual read and not sure my daughter will like it much..
November 28, 2023
Upper Primary or YA read. A subtle thriller with mysterious disappearances. A strange Dollhouse. The ending was rather baffling!
April 1, 2024
After reading two Ursula Dubosarsky books I have determined that her books are really not my cup of tea.
December 30, 2014
This was not an awful book. Did I hate it? No I did not.
By the time I finished, did I have any idea about anything that had happened in this book's 134 pages? Honestly, I didn't have a clue. I was able to conclude that the writing was rich and full of description and imagery.
But I had no idea. There were a lot of characters in a very small book. And none of them made ANY sense whatsoever. I THINK that all the things that happened were meant to link together but I didn't get it.
A very confusing little book. If you can actually figure out what the characters are doing and what is actually happening, then you might really like this. However because this is a little too crazy for the human brain, I don't think you'll like this much if you are looking for a concrete ending. 3 out of 5 stars, though. I'll probably read this again in a few years and still not be sure which characters were real, what the newspaper articles meant, why the kids disappeared and came back, and what was the significance of Abyssinia or "Mary's" headaches.
I give this 3 stars because it has turned my brain on and made me think. I honestly don't know what just happened, but I think it's a good kind of confusion.
By the time I finished, did I have any idea about anything that had happened in this book's 134 pages? Honestly, I didn't have a clue. I was able to conclude that the writing was rich and full of description and imagery.
But I had no idea. There were a lot of characters in a very small book. And none of them made ANY sense whatsoever. I THINK that all the things that happened were meant to link together but I didn't get it.
A very confusing little book. If you can actually figure out what the characters are doing and what is actually happening, then you might really like this. However because this is a little too crazy for the human brain, I don't think you'll like this much if you are looking for a concrete ending. 3 out of 5 stars, though. I'll probably read this again in a few years and still not be sure which characters were real, what the newspaper articles meant, why the kids disappeared and came back, and what was the significance of Abyssinia or "Mary's" headaches.
I give this 3 stars because it has turned my brain on and made me think. I honestly don't know what just happened, but I think it's a good kind of confusion.
May 17, 2012
Oh god this was bad. The boring, slow, tryhard-strange, slightly paedophilic book was made 10X worse when we had to read it out loud in a class where only 25% of us could properly form a sentence.
Bad book, bad memories associated with it.
Maybe it would've been a better book if the author hadn't tried so damn hard to make it screwed. It didn't make sense ON PURPOSE and all the stupid similies and allegories just made me want to rip the book in half.
...Which I did.
CONS: The part where the book probably wasn't even in English it was so stupidly, annoyingly "complicated"
PROS: We didn't do any written work on it because there was literally nothing to write about.
Just...just don't read it.
Bad book, bad memories associated with it.
Maybe it would've been a better book if the author hadn't tried so damn hard to make it screwed. It didn't make sense ON PURPOSE and all the stupid similies and allegories just made me want to rip the book in half.
...Which I did.
CONS: The part where the book probably wasn't even in English it was so stupidly, annoyingly "complicated"
PROS: We didn't do any written work on it because there was literally nothing to write about.
Just...just don't read it.
April 28, 2015
One of the challenges for our book club was to read a book written by an author with the same initials. Not only did I find one, but one with the same first name as mine :-)
This book was quite dark and spooky. Weird and mysterious things were happening to the young children. The setting had an unreal feel to it. I was not sure where the reality starts and where it ends.
Overall it was a very quick read. The reader got to know the characters just enough to question what are their motives? who are they really? what role do they play in the mystery?
It was a great story, spooky enough to keep you interested without keeping you up at night.
This book was quite dark and spooky. Weird and mysterious things were happening to the young children. The setting had an unreal feel to it. I was not sure where the reality starts and where it ends.
Overall it was a very quick read. The reader got to know the characters just enough to question what are their motives? who are they really? what role do they play in the mystery?
It was a great story, spooky enough to keep you interested without keeping you up at night.
December 28, 2013
Eerie and difficult to digest because the narrator is constantly undermining their reliability, this novella seems to me what an acid trip might be like. The reference to Pythagoras and reincarnation plus hypnosis keep the reader questioning what is fantasy and who are the real characters. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Only an afternoon read but worth it for a thriller that has so many layers you could read it multiple times and still be uncertain of what actually happened. Loved it.
September 23, 2013
Found this very hard to understand but was often compelled to keep reading only to be left up in the air. However after reading other reviews I may give it another go...read it in one sitting so I keep the threads together.
I have enjoyed other books by Ursula Dubosarsky, and as this is in our primary school library thought it one to read so I can recommend it to students...don't think many will understand it or persist with it.
I have enjoyed other books by Ursula Dubosarsky, and as this is in our primary school library thought it one to read so I can recommend it to students...don't think many will understand it or persist with it.
July 7, 2014
I actually quite enjoyed this book. In the beginning, I was confused as they were different characters and names that weren't right, and it just felt kind of off to me. But the more I progressed on with it, I started piecing the little clues together, and overall I was satisfied with how it played out.
December 15, 2012
Abyssinia is the best book I have read so far, it's adventurous and exciting. I loved all the connections in the book, even though I had to go back and forth. I would recommend this book for anyone that's looking for a book with exciting adventures !!
February 22, 2011
A bit too weird for me. Had such a great idea, but seemed to end too abruptly with too many unanswered questions.
February 26, 2016
My favourite childhood book
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews