Description

2024 CBCA shortlist – Older Readers

OUR HOPELESS, HOPEFUL WORLD A novel about the contours of friendship, family, forgiveness, trauma and love that explores the stories we suppress and the stories we speak – and the healing that comes when we voice the things we’ve kept quiet for so long. George’s life is loud. On the water, though, with everything hushed above and below, she is steady, silent. Then her estranged dad says he needs to talk, and George’s past begins to wake up, looping around her ankles, trying to drag her under. Everything is a blaring, blazing mess. Could Calliope, the girl who has just cartwheeled into George’s world and shot it through with brilliant, dazzling colour, be her calm among the chaos?