Sign in with Facebook
The Danger Game
Alice and Louise are sisters united by a distant tragedy - the house fire their brother lit and burnt to death in, fourteen years ago. Alice teaches dirt-poor students at a state high school that the government wants to close, and she pursues an episodic, estranged relationship with a married man. Louise, a habitual liar and recovering heroin addict, has been playing 'the...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
August 2009
by Sleepers Publishing
(first published 2009)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
137)
This was the first book I decided to read and review as part of the Australian Women Writers challenge. It's been sitting on my bookshelf for quite sometime as a friend gave it to me. I enjoyed the first few chapters until I made the mistake of reading the backcover blurb which basically gave away two major plot points: the death of the brother and the disappearance of the mother (don't feel like these are spoilers as they are also in the plot description). Was a little disappointed to have the...more
They say you should write about what you know and Ashton (who previously worked as a union campaigner) seems to have taken this a little too much to heart in her debut novel. What starts out as a fairly promising story, of two adult sisters trying to piece together the whys and wherefores of a dysfunctional family tragedy in their childhood, soon loses all sense of direction and the subplots regarding Alice's relationship and work life take over.
The focus on Alice's involvement with a union camp...more
The focus on Alice's involvement with a union camp...more
This book had a most interesting and promising beginning, which drew me in. A dysfunctional family unravels after the death of the son and the narrative switches back and forth between the past and the present, and between character perspectives, as the two surviving children try to make sense of what happened. Some of the writing at the beginning is quite exquisite and shows a lot of depth and understanding of human relationships, particularly infidelity. However, the story itself began to unra...more
The amount of times I wanted to just put this book down and quit... It was a mix of depressing and boring. The book started off being about these two sisters who had lost their brother when they were children, after this incident their mother had left without so much as a word. Interesting, I thought, I mean I read the back of the book before I bought it and it did attract me. The story started off pretty depressing, but still somewhat interesting. Then halfway through the book the main storylin...more
Nov 24, 2011
Elizabeth Lhuede
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Shelves:
australian-women-writers,
australian-author
Recently I downloaded a collection of Aussie short stories in an iPad app put out by Sleepers, a small press based in Melbourne. Among the hundreds of stories lay the bright shard of Kalinda Ashton‘s short fiction. Its sheer painful brilliance prompted me to hunt down her 2009 debut novel, The Danger Game, which I found in Blue Mountains library.
To say The Danger Game is a “worthy” book sounds lame. But it’s true. It is worthy. It depicts suffering with compassion, doesn’t shy away from the comp...more
To say The Danger Game is a “worthy” book sounds lame. But it’s true. It is worthy. It depicts suffering with compassion, doesn’t shy away from the comp...more
Kalinda Ashton's debut novel, The Danger Game has been talked about around the Australian literature scene as one of the key texts in the last few years and it is easy to see why as it deals with issues of class in such a compelling way with Ashton's gift of metaphor and description. I definitely should have read this earlier.
The Danger Game deals with the lives of three siblings in a clearly working-class family, each from a unique point-of-view. Jeremy's story is in the past as children and hi...more
The Danger Game deals with the lives of three siblings in a clearly working-class family, each from a unique point-of-view. Jeremy's story is in the past as children and hi...more
I also read this book a couple of years ago for my literature class at uni and although I can't remember very much of the storyline I can remember that this book kind of confused me. The storyline jumped all over the place and I had trouble keeping track of which character was which and why they were important. I gave it two because I understand that I may have enjoyed it more if I could follow the storyline better, that might just be me.
A pretty bleak telling of a family destroyed by alcohol, drugs and poverty in suburban Melbourne. It has moments of first-novel awkwardness and self-referentialness, but overall it's a pretty smooth read. I just found the content too depressing: if you like disintegrating lives undone by circumstance you might enjoy it more.
It started off well but I quickly began to lose interest as the book just seemed to meander uneccessarily. The only thing I really wanted to learn about was Jeremey's death but in the end it was all a bit of a letdown.
Not the most uplifting book I have ever read. The story follows a family which falls apart after the tragic death of the son. His twin sister turns to drugs and his other sister fights to keep her job in a school thratened to be closed.Running through this is the story of their lives and how unravelled they became. A sad but enlightening read.
I thought this was an accomplished debut novel. Skilled writing, believable characters. good contemporary Australian stuff
I love this book! Exquisitely written and very moving.
this book was very boring, but it did have some interesting aspect, like how each of the three characters were written in different ways, one was first person, one was second person and the last was third person. Clever, but still a boring book, i only held on because i wanted to know how the brother died and if someone killed him or if it was just purly as accident
May 14, 2013
Azza A.
marked it as to-read
Apr 14, 2013
Bound_flogged
marked it as to-read
Mar 31, 2013
Karen Pearman
marked it as to-read
Mar 13, 2013
Hayley Alexis
marked it as to-read
Mar 11, 2013
Belinda Rule
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Kalinda Ashton is an Australian writer and academic based in Melbourne, Victoria. She holds a doctorate in professional writing from RMIT, and has taught literature and creative writing at various universities in Australia. She has written fiction, poetry and plays.
Kalinda's first novel 'The Danger Game' was published in 2009 to popular and critical acclaim. It has been praised by authors such as...more
More about Kalinda Ashton...
Kalinda's first novel 'The Danger Game' was published in 2009 to popular and critical acclaim. It has been praised by authors such as...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
