helena fox | Lost in a Good Book

The Quiet and the Loud by Helena Fox

Published: 28 March 2023 (print)/28 March 2023 (audio)
Publisher: Dial Books/Macmillan Australia Audio
Pages: 384/10 hrs and 35 mins
Narrator: Kaiya Jones
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
★ ★ ★ – 3 Stars

George’s life is loud. On the water, though, with everything hushed above and below, she is steady, silent. Then her estranged dad says he needs to talk, and George’s past begins to wake up, looping around her ankles, trying to drag her under.

But there’s no time to sink. George’s best friend, Tess, is about to become, officially, a teen mom, her friend Laz is in despair about the climate crisis, her gramps would literally misplace his teeth if not for her, and her moms fill the house with fuss and chatter. Before long, heat and smoke join the noise as distant wildfires begin to burn.

George tries to stay steady. When her father tells her his news and the memories roar back to life, George turns to Calliope, the girl who has just cartwheeled into her world and shot it through with colors. And it’s here George would stay—quiet and safe—if she could. But then Tess has her baby, and the earth burns hotter, and the past just will not stay put.

A novel about the contours of friendship, family, forgiveness, trauma, and love, and about our hopeless, hopeful world.

Having read an amazing award winner recently, it was clearly an exception to my usual experience of award winners being long and boring because this one fell right back into the long and bit boring track. This book is clearly an award winner, there’s big ideas, poetic words, long drawn out emotional explorations. Which is fine. That’s why these books win awards. But it’s something you have to remember going in. I haven’t done a literary award winner in a while and I had to get used to it again.

The plot was interesting but the slowness takes away from your full enjoyment. Needing to move the plot along faster became my main wish and while I enjoyed the characters and their lives, it was drawn out. I had my audiobook on 1.75x speed and it still seemed to take forever. I thought it was almost over and I still had four hours left.

I enjoyed the environment Georgia explores. Living on the water, going out in the kayak and feeling peace in solitude. Those are wonderful moments of peace and reflection, which Fox does well. The emotional release of art as well as being on the water was a great new approach than what usually happens in books. I love Australian YA because we have these amazing stories that are outside of school settings that are about people’s fascinating and complicated lives outside of school drama.

There are a lot of characters in play which breaks up the long emotional and introspective thoughts and contemplations. Her mum and stepmother Mel are the parents, there’s grandad and his eccentricities, as well as the friendships between Tess, Lars, and Georgia. Not to mention a potential new friend in Calliope.

There are emotional moments and a lot of big issues that come into play. Alcoholism, abandonment, pregnancy and complications, as well as a variety of mental illnesses. It’s a complicated and messy life with complicated and messy characters. Lars is annoying, Tess is annoying, but I kind of enjoyed that in it showed imperfect people and how you can still be friends with them. Not to mention the bonds of childhood friendships and the obligations that entails. It’s also a good example of how as people grow up they change and as their lives go in different directions it’s a big thing for friendship groups.

There is actually a lot of things happening but the focus remains on Georgia so we only get bits and pieces as she interacts with it and the action around it is few and far between. The snippets we learn about of her father, the mystery of her flashbacks and various memories, as well as the drama of Tess’ intentional teen pregnancy added some flare.

The mention of the Black Summer fires hits a bit too close to home, as did the Covid mention. The reminder is always so depressing about that fire season and the anxiety rises to the surface as you relive it. It’s good that it isn’t being forgotten though and it plays into the story well. On the flipside, things are still long and overdone and they counteract good plot by distracting from it and making it feel weighed down.

It’s a good coming of age story that deals with changing relationships, discovering who you are, and how trauma shapes your life whether you realise it or not. I’m glad I read it but I also think it could have worked if it was less literary. But that isn’t how profound internal discovery and life changes happens. It was probably the best format to explore these ideas, it certainly makes them more impactful despite the pacing issue.

You can purchase The Quiet and the Loud via the following

QBD | Dymocks | Booktopia

Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible

Book Bingo 2024

A few days ago as I went to write my book bingo wrap up I realised, despite announcing it to the world in January, I never actually ended up making it. Which is a shame because it is one of my favourite challenges, not only to do but to create. Who knows what happened to distract me. But now we are here, and I made one quickly a few days ago to keep my goals alive.

In an effort not to sway my results I pulled random ones from the past bingos I have made, as well as a few online ones. I picked things I knew I hadn’t selected before and some classics because there’s so much variety in a simple bingo prompt sometimes you always get something delightful.

Then the joy came from going through the 75 or so books I had read this year and seeing if any matched. I rarely keep up with bingo anymore through the year, I make it and see come December if I made a bingo. I like this approach because I do often hit my targets, but occasionally when I pick an out there prompt like poetry or something that isn’t usually in my reading wheelhouse I feel bad and try and get a last minute read it.

Looking back at my reading there are a lot I read back in January or March that feel like a lifetime ago, a good feeling since it felt the year flew by. I read a lot of young adult, and a few picture books, though not as many as usual. I balanced out my foreign reads with local, and attempted to diversify my shelf more in terms of genre, content, and character to mixed appreciation.

I finished series, started new series, and lots of Aussie reads though those #LoveOzYA ones are still hard ones to hit when you don’t have time to read a physical book. I did some power reads in the last few days, still sought out audios instead of the three books that are currently in front of me that are all on average 200 pages (why is that???). Maybe there will be a NYE miracle. The issue is reading takes time, even the shortest audiobook on 1.5x speed takes hours to read, but it won’t stop a mad attempt to finish books to tick off an arbitrary goal I set for myself.

So it’s been a weird bingo this year, technically made and completed in the span of a few days but an honest attempt was done. I am calling this a loose definition of a win. One because yes I did make a lot of full lines, but yes I did make this last minute and I feel making and completing a bingo in a week might not be in the spirit of the challenge. I have never been a fan of using one book for multiple prompts, and I read way more than 25 books a year so I have had choice on my side. Plus with some of my categories being broad or typical reads I am usually in with a good shot of a line or two being completed by years end.

Here’s to 2025 being a better organised bingo year. I may even make one up now while the guilt is still fresh. But for now here is the breakdown of my reading achievements. I will link those with reviews when they go up.