Scan barcode
A review by melbsreads
The Whole of My World by Nicole Hayes
3.0
Trigger warnings: death of a parent (in the past), cheating, alcohol abuse,
This book was SLOW for me. I think part of the problem is that it's set in Melbourne in the 1980s, but it's really only the lack of technology and the songs mentioned that indicate that it's the 1980s. There's one mention once of the protagonist having been born in the late 1960s, but it's about two thirds of the way through the book. So in the early stages especially, it was Melbourne but also NOT??
This is also a book that's very centred around AFL. But Hayes has changed the names of all the teams. Which, look. I get it. You don't want people comparing the footballers in the book to actual footballers. But it honestly took me a while to work out that Shelley was talking about AFL teams and not VFL teams. But once I joined the dots, it was quite fun to try and work out which team was which. The names of major streets and suburbs are also frequently changed, and I'm honestly not quite sure why.
Anyway. I liked the way this dealt with grief and new schools and complex friendships. But the cover really doesn't fit with the book and I struggled with just how CONSTANT the football stuff was. It sometimes felt like the plot was "will this team win the premiership?" rather than "teenage girl struggles with grief", and I honestly just did not caaaaaaaaare.
That being said, the way it depicted the interactions between football players and teenage girls was horrifyingly accurate to what certain sections of my high school class were doing and Y.I.K.E.S.
So yeah. I liked Shelley as a character. I liked her story. I just didn't care about the football side of things. Like, at all.
Spoiler
death of a sibling (in the past), car accident, grooming???This book was SLOW for me. I think part of the problem is that it's set in Melbourne in the 1980s, but it's really only the lack of technology and the songs mentioned that indicate that it's the 1980s. There's one mention once of the protagonist having been born in the late 1960s, but it's about two thirds of the way through the book. So in the early stages especially, it was Melbourne but also NOT??
This is also a book that's very centred around AFL. But Hayes has changed the names of all the teams. Which, look. I get it. You don't want people comparing the footballers in the book to actual footballers. But it honestly took me a while to work out that Shelley was talking about AFL teams and not VFL teams. But once I joined the dots, it was quite fun to try and work out which team was which. The names of major streets and suburbs are also frequently changed, and I'm honestly not quite sure why.
Anyway. I liked the way this dealt with grief and new schools and complex friendships. But the cover really doesn't fit with the book and I struggled with just how CONSTANT the football stuff was. It sometimes felt like the plot was "will this team win the premiership?" rather than "teenage girl struggles with grief", and I honestly just did not caaaaaaaaare.
That being said, the way it depicted the interactions between football players and teenage girls was horrifyingly accurate to what certain sections of my high school class were doing and Y.I.K.E.S.
So yeah. I liked Shelley as a character. I liked her story. I just didn't care about the football side of things. Like, at all.