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Eggshell
Set in 2000s Adelaide, Eggshell tells the story of Kira, a sarcastic, cynical teenager living in a council flat with her Cantonese grandmother (Apoh) and her rebellious older cousin, Jake. This novella starts and ends with Kira's experience of Year 12 where she is caught between two worlds: being a subservient Cantonese granddaughter and a Big Brother-watching, boy-crazy Australian schoolgirl. Eggshell is a young-adult novella dealing with themes of identity, racism, romance, sexuality and adolescence.
‘Eggshell really gets into the skin of a teenager grappling with adult responsibilities and caring duties. Kira’s world is completely real, her voice imbued with the urgency of a young adult trying to make sense of both her rich interior world and the often hostile exterior one. Olivia De Zilva’s voice explodes with a radiant energy, a raw and potent emotional power’ Alice Pung
'As a Chinese Australian who lived through the early 2000s, this stunning novella gave me cultural whiplash, taking me straight back to my salad days of early internet, teen fashion mags, Charlie perfume in the girl's locker rooms and rites of passages with privileged Western students! I laughed out loud at the biting humour, I wept for these flesh and bone characters and I nodded along to our shared Asian experience until my neck hurt. Olivia is an exciting new powerhouse and I will be following her career keenly.' Shirley Marr
'Delightfully raucous and rich in detail, Eggshell is packed with all the cringe, colour, heartache and hilarity of high school. De Zilva has created a cast of memorable characters that you'll fall in love with, groan at, despair for and ultimately cheer on with both fists raised.' Erin Gough
‘Eggshell really gets into the skin of a teenager grappling with adult responsibilities and caring duties. Kira’s world is completely real, her voice imbued with the urgency of a young adult trying to make sense of both her rich interior world and the often hostile exterior one. Olivia De Zilva’s voice explodes with a radiant energy, a raw and potent emotional power’ Alice Pung
'As a Chinese Australian who lived through the early 2000s, this stunning novella gave me cultural whiplash, taking me straight back to my salad days of early internet, teen fashion mags, Charlie perfume in the girl's locker rooms and rites of passages with privileged Western students! I laughed out loud at the biting humour, I wept for these flesh and bone characters and I nodded along to our shared Asian experience until my neck hurt. Olivia is an exciting new powerhouse and I will be following her career keenly.' Shirley Marr
'Delightfully raucous and rich in detail, Eggshell is packed with all the cringe, colour, heartache and hilarity of high school. De Zilva has created a cast of memorable characters that you'll fall in love with, groan at, despair for and ultimately cheer on with both fists raised.' Erin Gough
190 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 2, 2025
This book was obviously written by a millennial (lovingly)
April 22, 2026
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging meets The Catcher in the Rye.
This book is just so damn good, full stop. I never see my lil’ ol’ city-town of Adelaide on the page and I loved it, and I loved Kira (you do have guts, Kira!), and I loved this author for packaging up teenage-hood in such a heartfelt, robust, accurate parcel. I know I totally sound very Adult-discussing-teen-fiction but that’s only because I am, I’m sorry, and if you’re a teenager you really should read this book because you’ll love it too. I wish this book existed when I was 17.
The movie and book referenced at the top here are two of my favourites, so it’s no wonder this one quickly came to mean so much to me. Kira’s off-beat, quirky, awkward, she feels like she’s behind her peers on all fronts, she might be cursed for crushing on a white guy at work. Her friendship circle is imperfect, her family even more-so. She’s having the most messed up year of her life. Yet there’s an inexplicable optimism about her, and what keeps her going are the moments she allows herself to be vulnerable.
If you’re elder-Gen Z or older, read this for the nostalgia and the reminder of how challenging yet tragically beautiful it was to be a teen. Enjoy every single pop-culture reference and the memories they resurface — I’m convinced Olivia De Zilva is a time traveller because I forgot about so much of this stuff.
If you’re a teenager or young adult, read this to feel seen. Read this if you’re nostalgic for a time you never got to experience. Read this because no matter how 2007 it is, Eggshell’s themes of adolescence and grief and first times are timeless. This book doesn’t shy away from how isolating and alienating those years of our lives can be. Kira’s grieving, persevering through probably the hardest trial of them all, regardless of age — because young people live in a pretty unforgiving world; they don’t live inside an impenetrable bubble wrap.
After Eggshell and Plastic Budgie, Olivia De Zilva is an auto-buy author for me. 🌟
Here are some of my favourite lines/passages:
“attention was currency as a lonely and untouched teenage girl”
p61
_________________________
‘I like that Whitlams song a lot. You know the one about afro-dizzy-acts?'
I tried to remember the last ‘cool' song I'd heard.
This guy talking about missing his dog and his girlfriend over a soft piano was the only thing that came to mind. Sam raised his eyebrows, looking at me like I was an extraterrestrial.
‘What?' I asked, my cheeks flushing.
'Do you mean aphrodisiac?'
There was a hole forming in the ground with my name on it. We stood in awkward silence until Sam burst out laughing.
'That's a good bit, Kira,' he wheezed, keeling over.
I pretended to laugh but didn't get what was so funny.
p64
_________________________
'I just don't want to be the Asian freak, now the orphan freak, when I already have to deal with being the poor freak or the virgin freak,' I said, not looking him in the eye. 'We can't say sorry to cancer and make it go away. You wouldn't understand.'
He just looked at me, thinking of something to say. I had blown up on him of all people. It felt good to finally tell someone besides Miss Sang, but I didn't realise that it was all bubbling up inside me like this.
‘I think I would understand more than you think,' he said, puffing on his joint.
p88
_______________________
‘I thought of everything he had said and how what I hated about myself was the stuff he liked the most. It was an unusual feeling to be seen by someone, though I didn't quite understand what it meant yet.’
p145
This book is just so damn good, full stop. I never see my lil’ ol’ city-town of Adelaide on the page and I loved it, and I loved Kira (you do have guts, Kira!), and I loved this author for packaging up teenage-hood in such a heartfelt, robust, accurate parcel. I know I totally sound very Adult-discussing-teen-fiction but that’s only because I am, I’m sorry, and if you’re a teenager you really should read this book because you’ll love it too. I wish this book existed when I was 17.
The movie and book referenced at the top here are two of my favourites, so it’s no wonder this one quickly came to mean so much to me. Kira’s off-beat, quirky, awkward, she feels like she’s behind her peers on all fronts, she might be cursed for crushing on a white guy at work. Her friendship circle is imperfect, her family even more-so. She’s having the most messed up year of her life. Yet there’s an inexplicable optimism about her, and what keeps her going are the moments she allows herself to be vulnerable.
If you’re elder-Gen Z or older, read this for the nostalgia and the reminder of how challenging yet tragically beautiful it was to be a teen. Enjoy every single pop-culture reference and the memories they resurface — I’m convinced Olivia De Zilva is a time traveller because I forgot about so much of this stuff.
If you’re a teenager or young adult, read this to feel seen. Read this if you’re nostalgic for a time you never got to experience. Read this because no matter how 2007 it is, Eggshell’s themes of adolescence and grief and first times are timeless. This book doesn’t shy away from how isolating and alienating those years of our lives can be. Kira’s grieving, persevering through probably the hardest trial of them all, regardless of age — because young people live in a pretty unforgiving world; they don’t live inside an impenetrable bubble wrap.
After Eggshell and Plastic Budgie, Olivia De Zilva is an auto-buy author for me. 🌟
Here are some of my favourite lines/passages:
“attention was currency as a lonely and untouched teenage girl”
p61
_________________________
‘I like that Whitlams song a lot. You know the one about afro-dizzy-acts?'
I tried to remember the last ‘cool' song I'd heard.
This guy talking about missing his dog and his girlfriend over a soft piano was the only thing that came to mind. Sam raised his eyebrows, looking at me like I was an extraterrestrial.
‘What?' I asked, my cheeks flushing.
'Do you mean aphrodisiac?'
There was a hole forming in the ground with my name on it. We stood in awkward silence until Sam burst out laughing.
'That's a good bit, Kira,' he wheezed, keeling over.
I pretended to laugh but didn't get what was so funny.
p64
_________________________
'I just don't want to be the Asian freak, now the orphan freak, when I already have to deal with being the poor freak or the virgin freak,' I said, not looking him in the eye. 'We can't say sorry to cancer and make it go away. You wouldn't understand.'
He just looked at me, thinking of something to say. I had blown up on him of all people. It felt good to finally tell someone besides Miss Sang, but I didn't realise that it was all bubbling up inside me like this.
‘I think I would understand more than you think,' he said, puffing on his joint.
p88
_______________________
‘I thought of everything he had said and how what I hated about myself was the stuff he liked the most. It was an unusual feeling to be seen by someone, though I didn't quite understand what it meant yet.’
p145
November 30, 2025
In a room full of 100 people, and 99 don’t believe in you, all it takes is that one person.
How many people need to be in the room before that stops being true? 1 million? 1 billion?
Eggshell cements ODZ as one of Australia’s most promising young writers.
How many people need to be in the room before that stops being true? 1 million? 1 billion?
Eggshell cements ODZ as one of Australia’s most promising young writers.
January 8, 2026
Picked this up from the Flinders Uni's Read & Return bookshelf!!!
This took me quite a while to read because I didn't expect to be attacked by so much reality in all fronts.
Even though I've only been in Adelaide for a year, I really liked that I could picture what's happening in the chapters because I actually know where that is.
This is a very, very good first read of the year!!!
This took me quite a while to read because I didn't expect to be attacked by so much reality in all fronts.
Even though I've only been in Adelaide for a year, I really liked that I could picture what's happening in the chapters because I actually know where that is.
This is a very, very good first read of the year!!!
January 29, 2026
4.25 stars out of 5.
February 9, 2026
The second half went by so much faster than the first. I really liked this book, and I liked the descriptions, too.
March 2, 2026
My new favourite YA book! Olivia De Zilva’s talent is unmatched
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews