Kate Larkindale's 3 favorite reads in 2024

• 2023
• 2024

One of my new favourite books. You know that feeling, where you finish and you just want to turn around and start reading all over again? It doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it's breathtaking.

Interestingly, I didn't love this book right from the start. It took me quite a while to get into, and unusually, it took me almost a week to read too. But once I settled into the narrative style, and the fractured nature of the storytelling, well... it's well worth that initial struggle.

Bridge of Clay is about a family, the Dunbars. There are five sons, and at the beginning of the novel, they are living alone on the outskirts of Sydney, their mother dead and their father gone, location unknown. They are a rowdy bunch, fighting and scrapping and allowing their pets to pretty much run the household - even the old mule who isn't supposed to be inside, but somehow manages to get in whenever no one is looking.

The story is narrated by the oldest of these boys, Matthew, but the story isn't his, it's his brother Clay's. And it's his mother's. And his father's. And even the girl next door's, the girl Clay falls in love with.

It's a story of grief and love and of forgiveness and about building a bridge. It's about brothers and fathers and sons. It's about first love, and true love.

And it's beautiful.

But it isn't an easy read. The different stories unfold together, in beautifully written bite-sized chunks so no part is revealed quickly or in a linear way. The five brothers begin as one messy, snarling mess of boys and it takes some time before they become distinct, individual characters. And Matthew, the eldest, the one telling the story, takes the longest to get to know. I didn't actually feel like I got a handle on him until right toward the end of the book.

The style of writing initially felt distancing - it was like reading through a layer of gauze - but by the end, my heart was held firmly in the story's vice. Not everyone is going to like the style. It's heavy on metaphor and the descriptions, while beautiful, are sometimes too long-winded. The writing is often choppy and obscure. The whole book feels, at least to begin with, like a puzzle that needs piecing together.

There are references to other books, particularly The Oddysey and The Illiad, and a book about Michaelangelo called The Quarryman and this story mirrors themes and ideas from all three, but not in any way that's simple to follow or recognize.

But it's worth the effort. Oh boy, is it worth the effort! It's one I know I will come back to again and I'll be interested to see if the experience of reading it a second time is different, if some of the things I struggled with this time will be clearer the second time through.

I think I will be recommending this to everyone I know for a while, so I'll shut up about it here for now... Just go and read it. I want to have someone to talk to about how good it is.

I really enjoyed Kevin Wilson's previous book, Nothing to See Here, so it was a no brainer to pick this one up.

I really enjoyed this story about the power of subversive art. Frankie and Zeke were very real characters, dealing with their own problems and their own lives even as the thing they started blows up to be far bigger than both of them.

It's also a book about the power of an unsolved mystery and the lengths people might go to to find the truth. And how that truth can be both bigger and less meaningful than you might ever have thought.

The book is also very funny...

So I'd definitely recommend it.

I'm a huge fan of Abigail Johnson, and I enjoyed this one very much. The characters kind of irritated me to start with, but they really grew on me as they began to see themselves and their circumstances more clearly.

The premise is simple - two kids have to spend every other weekend with their fathers in a dodgy apartment building after their parents separate. Both hate it for different reasons, but once they meet and become friends, these weekends become the best part of their lives.

I really enjoyed seeing the way they both grew and changed over the course of the book and how their friendship grew with them. Their circumstances may have been similar to begin with, but by the end of the book they are in very different (better) situations yet you can see that their relationship has developed to a place where they don't need the shared anger and misery to bond them anymore.