Untidy Towns (UQP 2017) is the debut YA novel by author Kate O’Donnell. Like all good stories for young adults, the narrative shares the adolescent angst and emotional upheaval of that liminal time between finishing high school and finding your way in the wider world, of searching for your own sense of self and identity, and of navigating relationships – the complicated bonds of family, the uncertainty and tentativeness of young love, and the fickleness and loyalties of friendship. What is special about this book is 17-year-old Addie’s voice: bright, witty and quirky, she immediately draws the reader into her interior world and we feel like one of her mates.
The book opens with Addie running away from her posh boarding school – even she is not entirely sure why, but it has something to do with expectations and responsibilities – and returning to her small home town of Emyvale. She takes refuge with her mum and much younger sister, Clover, and her grandparents, while she tries to decide what to do next. In the meantime, she takes a job helping out at the local Emyvale Historical Society and slowly begins to reintroduce herself to the friends and townspeople with whom she has lost contact over recent years. As the year marches on, and Addie struggles with her choices about who and what she wants to become, she gains a new understanding of her hometown, and a recognition of what is important.
I love the humour in this book, and I particularly love Addie’s distinctive voice. While the obstacles she faces are universal, her decisions – and the way things work out – are definitely not predictable. She is quite a character, and we feel like we are travelling with her on her journey of discovery. Like all good YA novels, this story is just as relatable to adults; we were all once teenagers, and this story submerges us back into that time as if it was yesterday.
Untidy Towns – Kate O’Donnell
