What saves this coming-of-age novel from being one big whine is an incredible level of literary merit. It's not flowery or "high lit" but there is a tremendous richness to the prose, a kind of going deeper with every paragraph. Part of this is the vocabulary which is not only full of colloquial Australian speak but has enough $1 words to fill a piggy bank. It is a story told in first person, with letters interspersed. The main character, Lucy, is trying to make sense of her surroundings and the letters become a tool for her introspection in terms of figuring out a world she does not feel she fits into. A poor Vietnamese/Australian girl, she gets accepted to a prestigious private school and finds herself awash in a setting where none of the rules make sense. A good student with a creative mind, she finds herself in constant observation, attempting to understand a society completely different from the one she lives in. Ms. Pung gets snaps for dealing with bullying in a somewhat new way. Lucy is pulled along and has to work to extricate herself from being one of the followers who allows things to happen. It isn't easy as some of the adults around her aren't into making waves. Lucy's voice is strong without being strident and she comes off real, with all of the blemishes typical in a teen girl. What comes through is a young woman balanced between many sword-points, determined to succeed. Lucy does feel somewhat older than the (presumably) 9th grader in the book but since the entire thing is told in past tense the reader can assume this is a way of looking back at what she learned. One twist near the end will have many readers stunned but fit well with the overall theme and tone. A solid read for my second "Books for the Beast" book. I look forward to the next eight ...
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