Islands in Aussie Readers

Jan 10, 2019 PattyMacDotComma rated it really liked it

Shelves: australian-author, fiction, arc-done

3.5★
“Some kind of arrangement. He shies away from the word, from its formality, its conviction. Can’t he – can’t they all – just stay a while longer in the shelter of not-quite, of haven’t-decided, of not-sure?”

Helen’s left, John’s got the girls, school’s about to start, and he doesn’t want to face the changes she’s imposing on the family.

There are a lot of islands in this story, the main one being the real one where much of the story takes place or which connects various characters. Phillip Isl ...more

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Feb 20, 2019 Brenda rated it liked it

Shelves: own-read, arc, aussie-authors, sent-by-publisher, reviewing-by-request, contemporary-fiction, uncorrected-proof, 2019-release

Helen and John Worth along with their two daughters Junie and Anna were happy when the children were small. But as they matured, still children, Helen grew restless - unhappy with her lot – she wasn’t getting any younger. So, when Helen left John and started a new relationship, she fractured her family in more ways than one.

With the family in crisis Junie closed up, quiet, defensive, abrupt. Anna rebelled in every way she could. Anna was fifteen when she ran away – but they thought she’d return; ...more

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Mar 19, 2019 Michael Livingston rated it really liked it

I took a while to get into this - I'd recommend starting it when you've got a good chunk of time to commit so you can straighten out who all the characters are and their relationships. I was sneaking in bursts of 10 pages here and there and it took me until about a quarter of the way in to really figure out what was going on.

This is because Frew uses lots of shifts in perspective to tell this story - it jumps around in time, some chapters are narrated by characters who have just tangential inte ...more

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Feb 22, 2019 Kim rated it liked it

Shelves: cultural-australia, owned, literary-fiction, fiction, 2019-release-aussie-author, contemporary-fiction, 2019-read, arc, unhauled, unhualed-2019

Islands by Peggy Frew
No man is an island, or so the saying goes. But these characters are definitely islands unable to connect no matter how close their proximity and no matter how the tides of their lives ebb and flow around them. I was struck by how wisely observed they are by the author either while in a character's head or through brief interactions with other characters they bump into in moments of their lives that we all may face.
Each chapter gives us a different observation of a character ...more

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May 01, 2021 Rhoda rated it really liked it

Helen and John are having marriage problems and are too preoccupied with their own lives to notice that their daughters Junie and Anna are suffering. Junie retreats into defensiveness and becomes aloof and Anna becomes very difficult and rebellious to the point that she will disappear for a few days at a time. Until the time she disappears and simply never returns....

Despite what it might sound like, this book is not about a mystery. It is about the fallouts that occur within families when diffi ...more

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Mar 02, 2019 Bree T rated it really liked it

Shelves: arc, australian, aww2019

A couple of years ago, I really enjoyed Hope Farm by Peggy Frew, which ended up being shortlisted for the Stella Prize. I was attempting to read the shortlist that year and I think of all of them I read, Hope Farm was probably my favourite. So I was quite excited to see a new book from her and I was quite interested by the premise.

This is the breakdown of a marriage and how it affects not only the two people within the marriage, but also their children. Joh and Helen met at university, married a A couple of years ago, I really enjoyed Hope Farm by Peggy Frew, which ended up being shortlisted for the Stella Prize. I was attempting to read the shortlist that year and I think of all of them I read, Hope Farm was probably my favourite. So I was quite excited to see a new book from her and I was quite interested by the premise.

This is the breakdown of a marriage and how it affects not only the two people within the marriage, but also their children. Joh and Helen met at university, married and had two daughters, Junie and Anna. They spend a bit of time at what they refer to as ‘the island’, where John’s mother lives. I’m assuming it’s Phillip Island, down in the south east of Victoria (somewhere I have never been despite having wanted to go since I moved to Victoria 13 years ago. I’m finally going next month!). The couple separate after Helen has an affair, after long periods of obvious discord and it has a severe impact on not only John but also the two girls.

John does not cope well with the marriage breakdown and that is incredibly evident to the two girls. Anna isn’t able to visit John because she doesn’t deal well with his inevitable breakdowns. Junie moves out of her mother’s house and in with her father because she can’t deal with Anna. As Anna delves into her teen years, she becomes more and more rebellious with skipping school, smoking dope and spending time hanging around people in the city. One day, Anna goes out and doesn’t go home again. Helen is somewhat used to this, it seems Anna has disappeared a couple times before for a day or two and come home. But this time, she doesn’t. And those crucial early hours are lost, as she isn’t reported missing until several days later. By then, it’s like she just vanished.

Like the breakdown, John doesn’t take Anna’s disappearance lightly either. He’s consumed not just with grief, but with the search for answers, undertaking his own investigation. He tracks people down that Anna may have had even just the most brief interaction with in passing and questions them, getting names of dubious characters and takes off to follow up vague suggestions and sightings like ‘she went to Geelong’ or ‘caught a bus to Sydney’. For John, it is an obsession, to the point where it’s possible he may come to some harm – if not at his own hand, at the hands of someone who may tire of his questions.

John feels so representative of a man with a missing child, for me. He’s unhinged in his desperation and it felt so real, that non stop search for answers. The more time that ticks by, the less likely you are to get a positive outcome and it seems like John is racing against time, trying to find that crucial clue he needs to solve the mystery and find his daughter. It takes over his whole life to the point where he needs help in order to deal with things, I think. It’s possible that John has needed help for quite a long time. I think I actually felt the most sort of connection to John, which was not something I expected. I had a lot of sympathy for him – his mother is a domineering personality who made it clear she didn’t like his wife. His marriage didn’t last and he was devastated by that and by Helen’s boyfriends after their split. He had trouble relating to his daughters at times, unable to keep himself from spilling out his unhappiness and grief and then Anna disappeared. I found things like Helen moving out of the family home and John moving in a year or two after Anna’s disappearance, so that someone would be there if she came home, very sad. You could imagine him living there, waiting for that door to open and Anna to reappear.

This is mostly a story about women, so it’s sort of odd that I feel I related to and sympathised most with John. I found Junie difficult to get to know although the descriptions on her art and how she ended up back on the island as an adult were very good. I found Helen a bit flighty and not particularly interesting, nor did I get much of a handle on her thoughts and emotions after Anna’s disappearance. I do feel as though the narrative of this was cluttered up a bit with the points of view from a few other people connected only briefly or in passing with the family and I’m not sure it added a whole amount to it, for me personally.

I did enjoy this but I think I was looking for a little more resolution at the end. I know life doesn’t often work that way but I did feel a bit unsatisfied at the finish.

***A copy of this novel was provided by the publisher for the purpose of an honest review*** ...more

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Dec 01, 2019 Joanne rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction, e-books, women-writers, australian-writers

Started out well, and then I was intrigued when I realised I was actually in the place that much of the story was set - Phillip Island. But eventually I just found the story too wandering, confusing and and incoherent. I finished it, but felt it could have been much better. Peggy Frew obviously can write well, but seemed to get lost halfway through the book.

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