Emily Gale

One of us is in the dark. One of us is a bully. One of us wants to be understood. One of us loves a girl who loves another. One of us remembers the past as if it just happened. One of us believes they've drawn the future. But we're all on the same map, looking for the same thing. Year Ten begins with a jolt for best friends and neighbours Wren and Milo. Along with Hari, Juliet, Ben and Adie, they tell a story of friendship, family, wild crushes, bitter feuds, and the power of a portrait. As their lives interwine, images could bring them together, and tear them apart. FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE OTHER SIDE OF SUMMER

I Am Out With Lanterns

Jamieson

"I am out with lanterns, looking for myself"


I heard about this book at a Penguin event that Emily Gale attended and was immediately drawn in by its premise. It follows six teenagers in year ten in Melbourne, and eventually, all their stories start to intertwine. I really love multi-pov stories and this had six main characters, which is unusual for contemporary, so I was really interested in where this would go. 

I don't know how to feel about this book. There were a couple of things I really liked, like specific quotes that stuck with me, and character dialogue and stuff that really made me laugh. I also thought this included SO many things I've been wanting in YA books - like schoolkids doing bad (but teenage) things, and stuff like alcohol/sex that gets sanitised in a weird way in a lot of YA. So there were a lot of things in this book I thought were done super well.


  A terrible song is playing. The chorus is about a boy telling a girl he definitely loves her more than anyone else ever could. Negative. If she's that great, surely quite a lot of people are likely to love her as much as this dude.


But there were some things I didn't like. For one, this felt way too congested with main characters. Even though I was initially drawn in by the large cast, the execution didn't work for me. There is like, six or seven different points of view in this and it just felt really cluttered and unnecessary. I felt some perspectives weren't adding a lot to the story, and all the different subplots that came with each character weren't really tied together well enough. It felt like the author bit off more than she could chew, and this book would have just read better with less points of view. 

The pace was also an issue for me. Bits of it were quite a slog. Again, I think this is because there were so many plot lines, the entire book got bogged down in them. Quite a few subplots didn't interest me, and the ones that did I felt weren't resolved at all. This book plodded along in the middle, just to finish really abruptly in a way that didn't leave me satisfied. 

I did like how much representation there was in this, that I wasn't expecting. Milo is autistic, Wren is bisexual, Hari is queer, and there is other rep in the side characters. 

I also liked the themes this dealt with, like sexual harassment, bullying, family relationships and the cost of making art! Again, I just wish some of the themes had been wrapped up better at the end, especially the one involving sexual harassment. 

 
  She looks at me, and its the first time I've seen pain in her eyes, but perhaps it's always been there. 'I guess you know I'm queer too', I decide to use the same word as Hari, but then I want to say it my own way. "I'm bi."


Overall, I did enjoy reading this book. It had so much I think we need more in YA, and I love reading Australian YA books because they're infinitely more relatable than American ones. Unfortunately, I thought the execution of this wasn't perfect. The storytelling and pace got bogged down, and the amount of POVs just made this book feel congested. However, I WOULD still recommend it for a good coming of age YA that tackles a lot of themes - it just wasn't my favourite.

I Am Out With Lanterns

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