ALPHAreader's Reviews > No Limits

So, I was lucky enough to read this a little while ago thanks to Ellie Marney ... and here's what I have to say about NO LIMITS:

Harris Derwent is the sort of character Aussie YA, and its readers, need right now. He's exactly the protagonist I've personally been calling for, for many years now, to elevate our literature - a complicated male hero full of grey areas and emotions exposed like a bruise.

No Limits is likewise setting standards and pushing boundaries in our YA - for even Marney's small town setting is a revelatory statement, for not being what we've had plenty of before: middle-class suburbia, inner-city dwellers or quaint seaside coastal towns. The setting has a sharp, domino-effect on the storyline - unearthing everything from the scourge of drug-use in these dying towns, to the insidious silence of abuse in tight-knit communities, where everybody knows everybody else's business, but dares not interfere.

This is modern Australia for so many growing up on the periphery right now, picked apart with exquisite and smart insight from one of Australia's best crime and YA writers. A novel of bruising empathy and excitable romance - with so much potential for a subversive new crime series, I'm practically salivating just thinking of the possibilities.