Just So Stories

Harper Collins Australia

May 2024

• ISBN: 9781460761441
• ISBN 10: 1460761448
• Imprint: HarperCollins AU
• RRP: $19.99

Oh yes, a rom-com that will have your young readers absolutely in paroxyms of delight! This was just so engaging from the very first page, and I loved every word, character and certainly, the outcome.

Jamila Dakhoul feels her life is in a complete mess. Since her family home (and farm) was destroyed by fire, she and her family have been camping out in a caravan in their friends’ backyard.

She suffers daily the ferocious daily bunfight that passes for Year 12 at her country high school. A barrage of racism and insulting commentary, plus just generally being ignored by the ‘cool crowd. She’s fed up with living cheek-by-jowl with Billy and his mums.

She and Billy were besties when they were little but now he’s taken to hanging out with her serial tormentors at school. The one friend she had, Daph, has moved away (and had also suffered horribly because of being gay) and she’s lonely as well as grieving. And she really does NOT want to create the Year 12 graduation video, on the strength of her pretty successful vlog, because her vlog is one thing -it’s a success because her followers love what she has to say and she loves giving them her views. But that’s not going to work for a Year 12 video when she wishes all of her cohort would just disappear.

Oh and then, the families are still going for their ritual camping trip to the caravan park – so let’s just add to the misery, shall we? The only saving grace in that, is that Daph will be visiting as well, along with her new girlfriend, Margot. At least, Jam will have that consolation.

Of course, what happens is both a trip down Nostalgia Alley, to a time when these young people were all happy kids hanging together every vacation, and a very unnerving discovery of different emotions, and a realisation that sometimes friends who becomes enemies can also end up being not just friends-again but lovers.

It’s just a delicious romp all round, and your readers from around 14 years upwards will adore it. It’s elegant in its prose and the voices are completely authentic. At the same time, the themes of self-acceptance, belonging, families and friends will have immense appeal.

It’s a cracking book and I was so very pleased to be asked to compile teaching notes for it. Congratulations to Gabrielle on another superb YA read. It gets a huge recommendation from me for readers from 14 years upwards.