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tasmanian_bibliophile's review against another edition
4.0
‘I drank because I was young and dumb and bored and wanted a laugh with my mates. I took pills because it made me happy.’
Jez is a seventeen year old teenager, living in Canberra’s Tuggeranong Valley with her alcoholic single mum Helen. Jez is sort of celebrating the end of year 11 with another body piercing, but she’s bored and in the absence of money or prospects there isn’t much to look forward to.
Jez is hanging out with her friend Lukey, but when Laura from Melbourne moves into the neighbourhood Lukey seems to prefer Laura’s company. This naturally adds to Jez’s angst and she ends up spending time with her next door neighbour, Casey. Casey has way more experience than Jez and is utterly self-absorbed. Casey’s not really the best of influences, but she has a very attractive older brother and two parents. A family, in other words, no matter how dysfunctional. Jez has Helen, but Helen is an embarrassment to Jez.
This is the story of Jez’s summer: of parties, drugs, and sometimes of the consequences of choice. It’s also a story about teenagers and adults making the best of tough situations and circumstances. It’s a side of Canberra that people outside don’t often encounter or think about – but they’d recognise it instantly in the outer suburbs of other cities. We’ve all seen alienated teenagers, and some of us may recognise younger generations of ourselves. The drugs of choice, the tribal identities and costumes may have changed but developed-world teenage angst has its recognisable forms. Of course, not all teenagers are like Jez and her friends: some can see a hopeful place in the future for themselves. But not Jez.
‘That really got me thinking – a lot of that femi-nazi shit is fine for chicks smart enough to go to university and get proper jobs. And then those smart women with good jobs whinge about how men get all the better paying jobs or whatever. What are the rest of us supposed to do? I wondered.’
It’s a confronting novel in many ways: those of us who’ve survived our own teenage angst will know that we didn’t all make it through and may regret some choices made along the way. And role models are so important. But if you’ve been there, then it’s hard not to relate to the despair and loneliness of perceived difference and disadvantage, of wanting to belong.
If you can get into the contemporary codes, language and style of Jez and her peers, and acknowledge the good and bad of the different parenting modes described, it’s possible to see some hope for the future. Can Jez (and others) move beyond a passive acceptance of bad luck and poor management? Can they make a better future for themselves? Perhaps. Maybe. Have teenagers changed much in the past 40 years? Hmm.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Jez is a seventeen year old teenager, living in Canberra’s Tuggeranong Valley with her alcoholic single mum Helen. Jez is sort of celebrating the end of year 11 with another body piercing, but she’s bored and in the absence of money or prospects there isn’t much to look forward to.
Jez is hanging out with her friend Lukey, but when Laura from Melbourne moves into the neighbourhood Lukey seems to prefer Laura’s company. This naturally adds to Jez’s angst and she ends up spending time with her next door neighbour, Casey. Casey has way more experience than Jez and is utterly self-absorbed. Casey’s not really the best of influences, but she has a very attractive older brother and two parents. A family, in other words, no matter how dysfunctional. Jez has Helen, but Helen is an embarrassment to Jez.
This is the story of Jez’s summer: of parties, drugs, and sometimes of the consequences of choice. It’s also a story about teenagers and adults making the best of tough situations and circumstances. It’s a side of Canberra that people outside don’t often encounter or think about – but they’d recognise it instantly in the outer suburbs of other cities. We’ve all seen alienated teenagers, and some of us may recognise younger generations of ourselves. The drugs of choice, the tribal identities and costumes may have changed but developed-world teenage angst has its recognisable forms. Of course, not all teenagers are like Jez and her friends: some can see a hopeful place in the future for themselves. But not Jez.
‘That really got me thinking – a lot of that femi-nazi shit is fine for chicks smart enough to go to university and get proper jobs. And then those smart women with good jobs whinge about how men get all the better paying jobs or whatever. What are the rest of us supposed to do? I wondered.’
It’s a confronting novel in many ways: those of us who’ve survived our own teenage angst will know that we didn’t all make it through and may regret some choices made along the way. And role models are so important. But if you’ve been there, then it’s hard not to relate to the despair and loneliness of perceived difference and disadvantage, of wanting to belong.
If you can get into the contemporary codes, language and style of Jez and her peers, and acknowledge the good and bad of the different parenting modes described, it’s possible to see some hope for the future. Can Jez (and others) move beyond a passive acceptance of bad luck and poor management? Can they make a better future for themselves? Perhaps. Maybe. Have teenagers changed much in the past 40 years? Hmm.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
shelleyrae's review against another edition
4.0
A coming of age story set in the suburbs of Australia's capital during the 1990's, Snake Bite is a story of adolescent rebellion and disovery.
It's the summer before her final year of school and seventeen year old Jez spends most of her time with her best friend Lukey, contemplating new piercings, playing X-box and popping pills... until new girl Laura lures Luke away. While her single mother works nights and spends her days sleeping off a hangover, Jez seeks the company of her neighbour, Casey, who has no qualms about exposing Jez to the excesses of her lifestyle.
The themes of the novel are universal amongst adolescents, despite being couched in local colour. For Jez, all the angst, fear and boredom involved in growing up is complicated by poverty, family dysfunction and addiction. The summer challenges her ideas about love, sex and friendship when she confronts betrayal and exploitation. Thompson deftly evokes the intensity of emotion and drama teenagers struggle with as they learn about who they are, and who they want to be.
The story also explores the fragile relationship between Jez and her mother. Like most teens Jez considers her mother an embarrassment but the issues between them are compounded by Jez's mothers alcoholism and lack of responsibility.
Change happens slowly, and often painfully, but eventually Jez discovers hope for a future that won't necessarily include dealing drugs, stripping or repeating her mother's mistakes.
Perhaps because I have a 17 year old daughter, the slang used doesn't bother me the way in which it seems to irritate others. The few terms I was unfamiliar with could be understood by context, and neither do I have any problem with the casual use of explicit language, though some might find it confronting.
Snake Bite is a gritty, poignant and authentic novel, a raw slice of contemporary Australian life exposed for its uncomfortable truths. I enjoyed it and I'd recommend it particularly to YA readers, and adults who experienced adolescence in the 1990's.
tricky's review against another edition
4.0
First of all just pick this book up and read it. Do not read the blurb at the back, do not get bothered about what genre it fits into, just read it. Why? Thompson has captured a slice of Australia life that is unique and beautifully but brutally revealed on the page. This is a warts and all story, that is fresh and vivid.
Jessica (Jez) is 17, closing in on 18 and has finished school for the year. She is stuck in the Canberra suburb of Kambah and life truly does suck. Her mother is an alcoholic, it is a stinking hot summer and there is nothing to do but take drugs, drink and screw. In this chaos of boredom Jez tries to find some meaning to her life. Should she stay in Kambah or move to Melbourne, should she hook up with Lukey or remain friends. Then there is how to deal with being eternally embarrassed by having a fat mother. It is not an easy world that Jez has to navigate.
There are characters such as Casey and Shaz and it is hard to believe they are real characters but they do exist. Thompson has skilfully crafted an engaging set of characters that lift off the page and are perfectly flawed. It would be easy just to make some of the characters clichés but I really was impressed how Thompson steered clear of that. As repulsive as Shaz is the argument between her and Jez have late in the story is a revelation about Shaz’s fears and self-loathing.
The slang, language and tone of the book is wonderful. Thompson captures the world that Jez and her contemporaries live in with amazing accuracy. The language grabs you from the outset and you are easily brought into the world. That takes a great skill and I never felt at any time that I needed a dictionary on Bogans to understand what was being said or implied.
This is a cracking first novel as what Thompson creates is a world of little hope, little possibility of advancement and a resigned expectation that this is all there is. As the story unfolds and the different influences move through Jez and her mother’s life you are given the opportunity to see that just maybe they can both rise out of a dead end.
Jessica (Jez) is 17, closing in on 18 and has finished school for the year. She is stuck in the Canberra suburb of Kambah and life truly does suck. Her mother is an alcoholic, it is a stinking hot summer and there is nothing to do but take drugs, drink and screw. In this chaos of boredom Jez tries to find some meaning to her life. Should she stay in Kambah or move to Melbourne, should she hook up with Lukey or remain friends. Then there is how to deal with being eternally embarrassed by having a fat mother. It is not an easy world that Jez has to navigate.
There are characters such as Casey and Shaz and it is hard to believe they are real characters but they do exist. Thompson has skilfully crafted an engaging set of characters that lift off the page and are perfectly flawed. It would be easy just to make some of the characters clichés but I really was impressed how Thompson steered clear of that. As repulsive as Shaz is the argument between her and Jez have late in the story is a revelation about Shaz’s fears and self-loathing.
The slang, language and tone of the book is wonderful. Thompson captures the world that Jez and her contemporaries live in with amazing accuracy. The language grabs you from the outset and you are easily brought into the world. That takes a great skill and I never felt at any time that I needed a dictionary on Bogans to understand what was being said or implied.
This is a cracking first novel as what Thompson creates is a world of little hope, little possibility of advancement and a resigned expectation that this is all there is. As the story unfolds and the different influences move through Jez and her mother’s life you are given the opportunity to see that just maybe they can both rise out of a dead end.
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