BOOK MUSING: All I Ever Wanted by Vikki Wakefield.

Mim knows what she wants, and where she wants to go — anywhere but home, stuck in the suburbs with her mother who won't get off the couch, and two brothers in prison. She's set herself rules to live by, but she's starting to break them.

Now Mim has to retrieve a lost package for her mother.
Does this make her a drug runner?

Why is a monster dog called Gargoyle hidden in the back shed? 
And Jordan, the boy she sent Valentines to for years, why is he now suddenly a creep?

How come there's a huge gap between her and her best friend, Tahnee? 
And who is the mysterious girl next door who moans at night?
​
Over the nine days before her seventeenth birthday, Mim's life turns upside down. She has problems, and she's determined to solve them herself. But in the end, she works out who her people are, and the same things look entirely different.



​Read onward for a non-spoiler book musing:

I very recently finished reading All I Ever Wanted, a contemporary YA novel by Australian author Vikki Wakefield.
I thought it was wonderful.
It has a strange lingering quality, and kind of got beneath my skin. A little bit unsettling, to be honest.
 
So I was trying to figure out why I felt that way, what is it about this story that unsettles me so?
 
I think maybe there is a certain type of sadness that permeates throughout the novel, this idea that not everyone in society is on the same level, has the same opportunities or education, or can get the same things, no matter how hard they work.
It is a really sad idea, because it is so true. That is certainly not the message behind the novel of course, if anything it is more the opposite, that everyone needs dreams, everyone needs to find their place in the world.

But still. There is a real hard look at poverty in this story, and actually, when I think about it, we don’t see YA novels written from the point of view of a teen living below the poverty line all that often. Or at least not a lot. I haven’t read anything like this lately, so it kind of struck me.

​There is something stark and beautiful about the text, and the way the story is written, and something kind of painful about it too. It is quite raw and sharp, and it doesn’t shy away from this stark portrayal of how a lot of Australians live.
I would love to know exactly what inspired this novel. I think it would be really interesting to hear that story too.

I am pretty terrible at writing reviews. They always end up being more of a smattering of random thoughts than a coherent review. So I’m very sorry about that.

I am a huge fan of this author’s writing, and have been for quite a while.
I read some books because I like the ideas or the story or a character, but whenever I pick up a book by Vikki Wakefield it is always that very first sentence that draws me inwards and spurs me on. Her writing is like art. It is so sharp and vivid and visceral. So many ideas and feelings get packed into each sentence and everything works hard and portrays so much.

I really love it.

Of course it is always a personal taste thing with writing, I think every reader has something different that particularly speaks to them. I think a lot of wonderful authors really speak to me, and Vikki Wakefield is definitely one of those.

I still feel a little dazed after finishing this. And a little bit sad. But in a good way?
For any contemporary YA fans (or just anybody at all who is a fan of well-written stories) I would definitely recommend this novel.

​Read it. Go on.

:)