3 out of 4 stars
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I rate the book 3 out of 4 stars
Ironbark Hill follows sixteen-year-old Natalie Chapman as she works to achieve the several life goals she has set for herself. She wants to step up from the poverty-stricken life she is living to become an artist. She wants to protect her family from her stepfather and she wants to know more about her father's death.
Natalie is a pretty relatable character. She's shy and quiet but is buzzing with life. She doesn't really see the beauty everyone else see's in her at first, but as the year progresses, she begins to see herself as the beautiful young woman she is. She stands up for her mother and her brother when her step-father steps out of line, which shows the love she has for her family, but it always results in her getting hurt. The scene where she gets beaten by her step-father is pretty brutal. She shouldn't have to go to such lengths to protect her family, but she does. While she's living a difficult life at home, she also sets goals for herself. Not just for her family, but for her future as well. She almost seems at ease when she's focusing on her art and it would have been interesting to see the progression of her art career after this year was over.
Some of the topics touched this book are really sensitive ones. The fact that the author was able to incorporate them all so well is amazing. The majority of the events in this story wouldn’t have even happened if it hadn’t been for Alex and the abusive relationship Natalie’s mother wouldn’t leave. There was a constant presence of the reversal of roles in the family. Natalie was always standing up for her brother and her mom, and her mom always stood off to the side, pretty quiet. If she would have actually spoken up and asked Alex to leave (and stuck to it), the book might not have ended as it did.
As a final thought, the ending of the story was quite expected (as the author included a little bit of foreshadowing in the beginning.) I don’t think the book should have ended any other way. It was almost an inevitable ending that was pretty much expected from the very beginning. I can’t really say much more than that without spoiling something.
This book had me stepping pretty far out of my comfort zone. I don't really read a lot of books like this but I'm glad that I did. For not being published by a publisher, there weren’t many mistakes that were significantly noticeable. The dialect was difficult to understand at first, but as I kept reading, it got easier to understand and it read pretty smoothly. It was, overall, it a pretty good book. I probably would not read it again, just because it didn't resonate very strongly with me. It's not that it was bad, because it wasn't, some books just stick with me better than others do. I would, however, recommend it to others to read because it was pretty good.
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Ironbark Hill
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