“With their father, there’s always a catch . . .
Colt Jenson and his younger brother Bastian have moved to a new, working-class suburb. The Jensons are different. Their father, Rex, showers them with gifts – toys, bikes, all that glitters most – and makes them the envy of the neighbourhood.
To Freya Kiley and the other local kids, the Jensons are a family from a magazine, and Rex a hero – successful, attentive, attractive, always there to lend a hand. But to Colt he’s an impossible figure in a different way: unbearable, suffocating. Has Colt got Rex wrong, or has he seen something in his father that will destroy their fragile new lives?”
Sonya Hartnett has been able to capture the lives of young boys in Australia. She is able to portray them so realistically I could imagine the events happening by the language the boys used and the vivid descriptions of their actions. The portrayal of the strong female adolescent was also so realistic and the antithesis of the two seemingly weak mothers.
This book was long listed for the Stella prize in 2015 and this is what the judges had to say about the novel.
That sounds interesting and quite unusual. It’s very satisfying when an author creates such authentic voices.