Reviews with content warning for Child death - Terra Nullius

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman

7 reviews

casacacti's review

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

this was definitely an interesting concept, but a little gutsy for a debut imo. coleman definitely succeeded in putting me, a white australian, in the shoes of an aboriginal australian who lived through the colonisation / stolen generations of australia. there just wasnt a clear end goal for any of the characters except for jacky, and even when that goal was "achieved", there wasnt anything... new for him, even though the story continued on.

coleman writes with very beautiful language, though at times the dialogue and the narrative feel disconnected. it almost sounded like someone else started writing it in the second half of the book.

this is still a good debut; i think it just needed to be fleshed out a little more. i would have liked to have little hints of the origin of the settlers throughout the beginning of the book, just to keep readers intrigued, rather than surprising us with it half way through.

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avisreadsandreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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dellydoos's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Simple but unexpected, Terra Nullius is a novel that presents a thought-provoking and timely commentary on Australia's colonial past and its ongoing legacy. It’s a story about Jacky, a native boy on the run from a government-sanctioned settlement, where he has been re-educated, tortured, and stripped of his identity. Now on the run, the only thing he’s looking for is home, a place whom he only knows the name of.

The first half of this book was straightforward, and if I’m being honest, a little slow. However, I think this is to the novel's strength. As a reader with little background of this book before I went in, I already had a preconceived idea about what the story would be about. And I’m glad to say my expectations were greatly subverted. Come the midway mark, right at the end of Chapter Nine, Coleman expertly delivers a subtle little twist. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment that genuinely had me rereading three times over to check I had read the passage right. And the power of this twist–wow, it was so small, and it hardly affected the plot at all; and yet it changed everything.

I found the second half to be so much more engaging than the first half. The setting was more interesting, and the stakes were even higher. However, despite its strengths, I found the book to be lacking in some areas. The pacing was uneven, and the world-building felt underdeveloped, leaving me with questions about the broader context of the story. Additonally, with so little time spent between so many characters I was left feeling some of them were underdeveloped.

However, this book still raises important questions about identity, belonging, and power. About the horrors of colonialism, of genocide and the erasure of culture. Coleman’s ability to humanise this experience is one of the book's greatest strengths, making it a valuable contribution to the ongoing dialogue about reconciliation and reparations in Australia. This book was both sad and painful, but definitely worth reading. 3.5/5 stars.

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