We’re back in the community where Aster, Indigo and Xavier live but this time the emphasis is on 15-year-old Esme Rogers. Esme has parents who prefer her older sister, Ro, so much so that Ro receives an allowance but Esme doesn’t. Esme’s dreams and talents aren’t her parents’ aspirations for her and Esme has developed severe issues with her negative self-image. Her poems that intersperse the text give an insight into her thought processes. She doesn’t believe her friends who tell her she has special qualities, especially after one friend betrays her. And her one safe place, the local milk bar where she works, is being sold.

But Esme’s sister and friends are looking out for her. Ro opens up about her own mental health struggles, a result of striving for the perfection her mother expects. She helps Esme when she ends up in a psychiatric ward and the local community rallies to hold a fundraising drive to raise money to buy the milk bar. Esme finally admits that she is loved by many people – and even her mother comes to see that she may have issues herself.

This is another story based on familiar characters but the constant wrestling with major mental health issues faced by most of them does drag the tone down. The characters who appear to have a healthy approach to life are rather minor. And is the ending a bit too predictable?

Reviewed by Lynne Babbage

Age Guide 11+

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Gordon grew up in a small town by the sea in Tasmania.

Her first book, Three Things About Daisy Blue was published in the Girlfriend seriesin 2010. Her second book, Thyla, was published in April 2011 and her third book, Vulpi, the sequel to Thyla, was published in April 2012. Kate was the recipient of 2011 and 2012 Arts Tasmania Assistance to Individuals grants.

Writing Clementine was published in June 2014. It received the 2016 IBBY Ena Noel Award and was published in the German language by Random House, Germany. In 2018, Kate was shortlisted in the Dorothy Hewett Awards for an Unpublished Manuscript, and was commended in the 2018 Vogel’s Awards.

The Heartsong of Wonder Quinn was published in 2020. Megan Daley called the book “‘Just exquisite”. It was a CBCA Honour Book in 2021. Its companion books, The Ballad of Melodie Rose and The Calling of Jackdaw Hollow were published in 2021 and 2023.

The ‘Juno Jones’, ‘Word Ninja’ books are a junior fiction series about books, friendship, alien lizard men, killer mermaids and an adventurous girl who definitely does not like reading.

Girl Running, Boy Falling was released in 2018. It is a story about grief, family, mental health and friendship, set in a small town in Tasmania. It has been long-listed in the 2019 CBCA Awards.

In 2019, Kate had her first picture book, Bird on a Wire. Her second picture book, Amira’s Magpie, was published in 2021.

Aster’s Good, Right Things was published in November, 2020. The companion novels, Xavier in the Meantime and Indigo in the storm were published in 2021 and 2023. Aster’s Good, Right Things was the winner of the CBCA Book of the Year for younger readers in 2021. It was shortlisted in the Tasmanian Literary Awards in 2022.

Whalesong was published in 2022, following Kate’s residency at the Maritime Museum of Tasmania.

Kate continues to write novels and picture books from a cottage overlooking the river and the mountain, on the Eastern Shore of Hobart. She has two daughters, an elderly cat and a very silly labradoodle.