Review: Between Us by Clare Atkins

Powerful and heartbreaking are the two words that came to mind the moment that I sat down to write this review. From the moment that I heard of this book--about two very different teenagers in Darwin--I knew that I had to read it, and I was not disappointed. I was sad at times, and sadly not surprised, but the story also moved me to the point where I was still thinking about it well after I closed the covers.

Ana, known as KIN016 to the staff at Wickham Point Detention Centre, is both excited and frightened to be starting school in Australia. Ana is an Asylum Seeker who arrived in Australia by boat, along with her mother, her baby brother and her mother's boyfriend. Since then, life in detention has been tough. They've been moved around a lot, and her mother's boyfriend is stuck in the detention centre in Nauru, while Ana's pregnant mother is expecting their baby any day. Meanwhile, Kenny, a guard at the centre who was born in Vietnam tells Ana that his son Jono will look out for her. Kenny soon regrets his decision when Jono and Ana become closer than what anyone would have expected them to...

This was an interesting take on some of the real issues that surround immigration detention in Australia. Through Jono, we see the freedoms that kids in Australia have and take for granted. Through Kenny we see the conflict between humanity and bureaucracy, as well as the suspicion of the people who are in detention--are they genuine refugees or not? Kenny's own story of arriving in Australia is very different--his sister arrived here in an era when refugees were welcomed, and he came out a few years later, having been sponsored by his sister. It's partly his own experiences that help to ignite his suspicions, along with his fraught relationship with Jono. Kenny's suspicions eventually have devastating consequences.

As for Jono himself, he's a broken kid whose life is turned around for the better through his friendship with Ana? But is the friendship equal? Does Ana's life improve because of her friendship with Ana. Read her final chapters, and compare them with Jono's chapters at the start of the novel and maybe you'll get an idea.

Although heartbreaking, this was an enjoyable and realistic read about the very human side to what is quite a difficult issue in Australia. On a side note, it was also pleasing to read a novel set in Darwin, as these can be few and far between. 

Highly recommended.

This book was read as part of the Aussie Author Challenge 2018

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more