Description
From the award-winning author of The Intern, Faking It and Remind Me How This Ends. School's out. Forget study, exams and mapping out the future. For the next seven days, the only homework is partying with friends, making new ones and living in the moment. There are no parents or curfews - and no rules. Zoe, Samira and Dahlia are strangers, but they have something in common: their plans for a dream holiday after their final year of school are flipped upside-down before they even arrive at the beach.
From hooking up and heartache, to growing apart, testing friendships and falling in love, anything can go down this week.
Review
This is a terrific novel following the journey of three girls at ‘schoolies week’.
With vastly different backgrounds, our characters are each there with their own friendship groups, but do occasionally interact as they are in the same town for the end of school celebrations.
Samira begins her week being dumped by her boyfriend and discovering that her friends are not really friends. Luckily she meets up with the nerdy group from next door, and discovers a true connection.
Highly driven Zoe is hoping to get into medicine at university, but things don’t always go to plan. When her strict parents decide to ban her from going because they have heard what happens at schoolies, she decides enough is enough, and goes anyway. She is, after all, going with her cousins, so what can go wrong? Right?
Dahlia, whose best friend Stevie died of a brain tumour 12 months ago, and her two friends are really living their lives as a memory to Stevie. Will they learn that they can live their own dreams, whilst not forgetting Stevie?
As is to be expected in a schoolies week story, the girls are out and about, and there is drinking and partying, but mostly this is a journey of discovering their individual identities.
With themes of self discovery, friendship, family, hopes and dreams, this novel will best suit readers aged 14 and older.
Reviewed by Rob
