There Was Still Love in Aussie Readers

Dec 12, 2019 PattyMacDotComma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites-adult, chcc-library, australian-author, historical-fiction, award-win-listed, fiction

5★
“They both had big faces, strong angular faces that you could grab onto with both hands. You could hang off those faces. Stone faces that could forge through anything. Faces you would never forget.

They were not delicate, but they were useful. They could withstand a lot.”

1968. Czech grandmothers, sisters, one in Prague and one in Melbourne. Young Ludĕk lives in Prague with Babi and his grandfather while his pretty young mother, Alena, travels the world with The Magician and his Black Light Thea ...more

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Oct 01, 2019 Brenda rated it it was amazing

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

What an utterly divine, beautifully written novel There Was Still Love is by Aussie author Favel Parrett. Moving, profound, I’m blown away by this book. I loved the author’s previous novels, and this one is exceptional.

Set in Prague in 1938 and 1980, and Melbourne in 1980, it tells Eva and Mana’s stories and that of their grandchildren. Ludek lives in Prague with his Babi while his mother is a long way away working, and Mala Li ka lives in the tiny Melbourne flat with her grandma and grandpa. L ...more

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Apr 20, 2019 Michael Livingston rated it it was amazing

Beautiful book about families divided by geography and politics - Parrett focusses on tiny moments that capture deep feelings. Gorgeous.

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Oct 08, 2019 Bree T rated it really liked it

Shelves: australian, cultural, aww2019

This is a really hard review to write. I’ve read one of Favel Parrett’s novels before (the first one, Past The Shallows) and I have the second one somewhere, just haven’t gotten around to it. I bought this one on holidays down in Phillip Island at the amazing little bookstore we found there. It was a book I was curious about and I was already starting to see some wonderful things about it around, so it was definitely one I was looking forward to.

I did enjoy this. I just don’t think I enjoyed it This is a really hard review to write. I’ve read one of Favel Parrett’s novels before (the first one, Past The Shallows) and I have the second one somewhere, just haven’t gotten around to it. I bought this one on holidays down in Phillip Island at the amazing little bookstore we found there. It was a book I was curious about and I was already starting to see some wonderful things about it around, so it was definitely one I was looking forward to.

I did enjoy this. I just don’t think I enjoyed it as much as everyone else. It’s set during a couple of different time periods and also places – Prague in both 1938 and also 1980 and Melbourne in 1980 as well. I was quite interested in Prague in 1980….. it was not what I expected, sometimes I think I forget how entrenched in Communist rule it was (often by force). Experiencing it through the eyes of people who both lived there their whole lives and also were returning to visit, was enlightening. Also experiencing Melbourne through the eyes of someone who had only lived in Prague was interesting too, particularly the way in which they were overwhelmed by the choices in supermarkets and shops, the many options for the one product. Which was not the way it was in (what was then) Czechoslovakia.

There are a lot of moments in this book that are written with lovely simplicity – such as the reunion between two sisters torn apart by war, that now live halfway across the world from each other. And the ways in which the resentments of a lifetime bubble to the surface, even after just hours in each other’s company again. There’s also a moment where the sister living in Australia faces an ugly moment of racism which is heartbreaking in its deliverance, as seen through the eyes of a young child.

So there are moments here. Beautiful moments that are well written. But I have to admit, were this not such a short novel, my attention would have wandered quite a bit. There are large parts of it where I feel as though I was waiting for something to happen, waiting for more. Some of the moments felt like for me, they needed more fleshing out. I did like the relationship between Mala Liska and her grandfather, but some of the scenes just felt like unconnected bits and pieces of a story.

I admire Favel Parrett’s writing enormously and there were parts of this that I felt were truly wonderful. But as a whole, I just don’t think I connected with it as much as I would have liked. And it’s a struggle for me to find things to say about it – there were bits I liked, there were bits that for me, just felt like they were there.
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Nov 26, 2022 Rhoda rated it liked it

3.5 stars

Set between Prague (1938 and 1980) and Melbourne in 1980, this is a story of three generations of a family originating from Czechoslovakia. We follow mostly the children Ludek and Mala Lika (Little Fox), along with their grandmothers Eva and Mana, who are sisters living on opposite sides of the world, living very different lives.

This is a beautifully written book that is so completely tinged with nostalgia that it feels “vintage”. If words were colours, this book would be sepia 😊 I abs ...more

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Oct 21, 2019 Kim rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019-release-aussie-author, australian-author, act-library, australian-women-writers, australian-fiction, 2019-top-reads-aus-release-2019, aww2019

This a sweet, sweet story. A warm hug. Sometimes providing a little sting to the heart-strings like you get from an extra strong Peppermint placed on the tip of your tongue.
More of a review to come, or you can taste this delight for yourself :D

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Mar 26, 2020 Tango rated it liked it

Judging by the reviews people have really loved this book but I must have missed something. I found the first half disjointed and hard to follow. I kept feeling that this should have been a really emotional story but it just held me at arms length. I really did struggle to work out who was who and whose story was being told when, and it just skimmed along too lightly without providing the depth of emotion that this story should have revealed. The last third definitely picked up and it redeemed i ...more

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