3 out of 4 stars
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Ironbark Hill by Jennie Linnane tells the story of Natalie Chapman, a sixteen year-old half aboriginal girl living in Australia during what is possibly the 1950s. The author never comes out and gives us an exact time period, but the story is narrated by Natalie herself looking back on her life and she mentions that it is currently around Australia's bicentenary.
Natalie longs to escape her life of poverty and has dreams of becoming a landscape artist and art teacher. Living at home with her family, she and her special needs younger brother, Joey, often seem to provoke the ire of their abusive, alcoholic stepfather, Alex. Because of her love for her mother, grandfather, and siblings, she feels duty bound and unable to leave home. She loves Mondays when she escapes to her job working in the affluent household of Bruce and Rosemary Glover.
Natalie is in awe of Rosemary which leads to conflicting emotions as she develops an attraction to Bruce. Matters complicate when she discovers her feelings are reciprocated.
While this book could easily be dismissed as a typical coming-of-age tale, it is more than that. The author does an excellent job creating characters that are very three-dimensional, relatable, and memorable. She is very descriptive and the story flows well from one chapter to the next. Her dialogue is enjoyable as well. It is vivid and I can see and hear the characters as they speak.
I also found that the author handled the abuse in the story delicately. The abuse Natalie has witnessed and suffered is key to her story, but the author manages to get her point across without bombarding the reader with overly graphic and violent imagery.
The only thing I found that I did not like about this book is that it seems to kind of meander through the first half. I kept waiting for something more to happen. That being said, the author at least made good use of the first half by really establishing the setting and the characters and the pace does pick up in the second half of the book.
I gave this book a rating of 3 out of 4 stars. The book has really great description, dialogue, and characters, but it was sometimes difficult for me to stay interested because the plot line moved a little too slowly to continually hold my attention. The ending helped to win me over since the book did not conclude how I expected it to. I am not often surprised by endings, so this was a nice change for me.
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Ironbark Hill
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