Nova Weetman needs no introduction to Australian middle-grade and young adult readers. Over many years she has established herself as a reliable ‘go to’ author for librarians and booksellers when making recommendations for realistic, contemporary fiction.
In this latest offering, her skill in drawing recognisable and engaging characters and scenarios is proven yet again. Upper middle-grade readers will immediately connect with the many ‘firsts’ that our titular characters experience: first job, first crush, first steps towards independence and self-awareness.
Set in the final weeks of Year 7, this gently-paced linear story starts with Sonny and his comedic ‘meet-cute’ with Tess, involving a bike crash and dim sims; and the friendship builds through the following alternate first-person point of view chapters. As they orbit each other at school and work, we see how they navigate their new emotions.
There is a lot of humour thrown into the banter – both with each other and their respective school friends – which is highly entertaining, shining a light on their personalities. Themes of family, friendship and loyalty are central. The adults and parent-figures throughout are stand-outs, showing a variety of terrific examples of love and support in environments where children can thrive, safely and with confidence. Interactions at home are real, and we genuinely feel Sonny’s and Tess’s frustrations; and it was refreshing to see the adults adjusting their own behaviours and attitudes in response to their young teens’ growing up.
Weetman’s foray into romance with Sonny and Tess is heartfelt and lands very successfully; and (spoiler alert!) I couldn’t help grinning with delight as I read the final page. Go Sonny and Tess!
Reviewed by Alida Galati
Age Guide 11+
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I’ve been writing stories since I was 12. My first book was called The Jelly People. A gruesome tale about a cloud that falls across a land and turns the entire world into jelly except for a plane full of 12-year-olds, who then have to survive the new world order. It’s basically a post-apocalyptic story with some jelly throwing and jelly eating tossed in for good fun. Actually it’s really dark and sort of disturbing, and reading it now does make me wonder what was going on in my 12-year-old brain!
I used to write on an old black typewriter. The sort you’d see in a detective film. Now I don’t. Now I have a laptop, lots of chocolate wrappers and a cat sitting close by just checking what I’m up to. But I sometimes miss my old typewriter. If I was having a bad day when I was a kid, I could press down on every key and jam it up. It always made me feel better. But that’s much harder to do with a laptop.
I have two kids. A girl and a boy. I still wrote a lot before I had kids but mainly for TV shows like Neighbours and the mermaid series, H20, or short films and short stories. After I had kids, we spent a lot of time reading and it made me remember all the books I’d loved reading when I was younger. So I pulled out all my old faves from writers like Paul Zindel, Judy Blume and SE Hinton and started re-reading them. THEY ARE SO GOOD! Real. Honest. And funny. And remembering how important the characters were to me when I was a teenager made me realise that’s what I wanted to do. Write stories that snuck into a reader’s heart so they’d fall in love with them, just like I did.
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