Kate Ryan

If you pay any attention to the zeitgeist, you know that (noun-turned-verb) parenting is as contentious a topic as ever. From Leunig cartoons to the school staff room—and in social media, of course—judgements are made about parents who don't conform to The Right Way, but there is no consensus about what that might be.

Kate Ryan's debut novel The Golden Book interrogates parenting styles in a story that explores responsibility and blame in the context of a child's life ruined by a single show more reckless moment.

In the NSW regional town of Bega in the 1980s, best friends Jessie and Ali come from different backgrounds. Ali is an only child with a controlling mother called Diana and a compliant father called David. They are teachers, they are middle-class, and their child lives in an ordered household with predictable routines, nutritious meals and good results at school. Jessie is 'free-range', with three brothers, all four of these children from different fathers. Jessie's mother Aggie is anti-interventionist, haphazard, cheerfully disorganised, and fleetingly interested in causes and half-baked efforts at crafts. Her latest bloke is the unpleasant Claudio, and she is often stoned on weed. Jessie is highly intelligent with a phenomenal memory but she is illiterate, probably dyslexic. Her prospects at high school don't look good, and she is often hungry.

Beginning to chafe at the loving but strict regime in her home, Ali is attracted to freedom and adventure with Jessie. Together every day, they share a love of epic adventures in stories of the Greek heroes and the Knights of the Round Table. Ali reads these books at home and retells them to Jessie, and at Jessie's place, she also reads these stories aloud. Jessie dreams up the idea of a series of covert quests to be undertaken before they turn thirteen. These quests are really dares, and they buy a Golden Book to record the dare and its execution. Ali does the writing, and Jessie cannot read what is written in this journal of risk-taking. Some of these quests are semi-reproduced in the writing class that Ali attends as an adult, and this is how the reader recognises the risks being taken as well as the emerging fissures in the children's relationship.

The structure of book, which nods at Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, is fragmentary, moving backwards and forwards in time and place as the adult Ali confronts her memories of the tragedy that befell Jessie.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/10/27/the-golden-book-by-kate-ryan/ show less

I wish there had been someone for Amanda to talk to about each of the men in her life. She seemed to be so confused in the way she related to them. It kind of worried me because she didn't seem to be mature enough to go to Germany. (I wanted to ask her dad what made him think she was ready for Germany if he didn't want her to start college early.

I liked both guys, and I thought they both have potential to be "the one." I could also see how her need for alcohol during all this started her show more down the slippery slope of addiction.

I got a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Please write fast, Kate! I want more very soon! show less

I wish there had been someone for Amanda to talk to about each of the men in her life. She seemed to be so confused in the way she related to them. It kind of worried me because she didn't seem to be mature enough to go to Germany. (I wanted to ask her dad what made him think she was ready for Germany if he didn't want her to start college early.

I liked both guys, and I thought they both have potential to be "the one." I could also see how her need for alcohol during all this started her show more down the slippery slope of addiction.

I got a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Please write fast, Kate! I want more very soon! show less