“My life has been told to me through campfire tales – stories that spill over when the fire has burned low and silence must be filled. They’re like old coats hauled from the back of the cupboard. Dusted off, aired out, good as new. My mother, Vivienne, doled them out as reward or consolation, depending on her mood. And so I came to know myself – through the telling and retelling. They became as much a part of me as blood or bone. On the night of my eleventh birthday, Vivienne told me that I was cursed.”I didn’t know much about Friday Brown before I started reading, but I knew as soon as I did that I would love it. Australian YA has a reputation for being fantastic and this book is yet another tick in its box from me.
The story starts off a little strange and its a little disjointed, once you work out that Fridays life has been changed so much by the death of her mother the story really kicks in and from there it was hard to put down. Friday meeting Silence was my favourite part of the book because his character just oozed from the pages at me and it is the main starting point. I had read about 200 pages before realising that this was an Aussie setting rather than a US one and that made some things make a little more sense about the settings earlier on… I guess thats what you get for not reading the blurb before starting a book!
The characters were intense, in fact the whole book was intense. There was a deep melancholy which was present throughout most of the book but that wasn’t a bad thing… it meant that the good parts of the book stood out even more. The characters were not all likable and I found myself seething during some exchanges between Friday and Arden in particular. Pretty much any time I came across Arden in the book I wanted to chuck it across the room, even at the beginning when she didn’t seem so bad. I fell in love with some of the other characters though and wanted to adopt Silence and AiAi. Friday herself was a very interesting character and there were times when I hated her, but only because I loved her so much i think.
I absolutely loved this book, the writing, the setting, the characters, all of it. The ending was perfect and I pretty much cried for most of the last third of the book. I don’t think I’ve cared for the characters in a book as much as I cared for these ones in a long time. I will definitely be trying to get hold of more from Vikki Wakefield soon!
Friday Brown will be published on July 4th by Hot Key Books. My copy was sent from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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One Comment
So Many Books, So Little Time
I’m hearing rave review after rave review for this book – I think I need to push it up the TBR pile!