Just So Stories

Allen & Unwin

October 2024
9781761180958

RRP: $19.99

I do know I’m repeating myself but truly, 2024 has been a bumper year for Australian MG novels – they just keep on coming. This is another one that I ate up in two swift sessions.

Thunderhead is not your usual protagonist. They are definitely in the unusual basket, they have very definite and quite diverse tastes e.g. the music they listen to. There’s the determination to be a music journalist. The somewhat gawky-ness. The constant bad luck – If a bird poops anywhere in the vicinity, it poops on Thunderhead. If Thunderhead is anywhere near the school oval, a random soccer ball inevitably connects with their head. The fact that they live with their mum and grandpa. Mum being rather hippie-like, Grandad arguably the more pragmatic. The list goes on.

Thunderhead’s high school hiccups start with their Big Secret. Thunderhead has a rare condition (acoustic neuroma) that guarantees the loss of hearing in one ear, and very likely in the other at some future point. There goes being a music journo. How can one live without music? That’s not all, Thunderhead’s best friend Moonflower is not going to the same high school, so there will be no buffer against the free-for-all jungle, survival-of-the-fittest daily grind.

Although, it looks like the grind for Thunderhead will be far from daily with constant doctor visits, long train trips to talk to specialists at the city hospital and severe episodes of being too unwell to even get up.

Thunderhead retreats to a long-forgotten band’s forum, a band that a much-missed Gran loved, and writes anonymous journal posts filled with anguish, despair and also hilarity.

Navigating the shift in friendship that is always a part of high school, whether your best friend is still by your side or not, as well as processing and mourning the loss of the sense you value so highly is a double whammy that Thunderhead finds almost impossible to bear. But by degrees, there are others to help along the way and from the most unexpected quarters.

I loved that Sophie Beer has not only drawn on her own experience of the same genetic condition and hearing loss, and so writes with an absolute authenticity, but that this narrative is set squarely in our neck of the woods -or coast, as it may be.

When I read of the beach town where Thunderhead lives, the trains to Brisbane hospitals, the Caboolture line and other resonanting references, I feel as if I know these characters and this place so well. I also love Thunderhead’s playlists (even with fictitious music) and the quirky little illustrations.

It’s a difficult review to write, without giving away too many of the secrets and twists but I can assure you that this is one fabulous and moving novel. It would make a fantastic serial read for your class, a must-have addition to your collection and a great gift for a reader in your circle. Any age from around 10 up would totally get the vibe of this one. It’s a 5 🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧 from me.