Just So Stories

Fremantle Press

August 2026

ISBN: 9781760996390

RRP: $24.99

This is 100% completely bonkers but I mean that in the most positive way possible. This is dystopia as you’ve never read it before. If you imagine – and forgive me for showing my age – humour such as that of Young Einstein or The Castle – that real Aussie kind of laconic style – or similar larger-than-life real life commentaries liberally laced with absurdism, you’ll be getting close.

I don’t know the work of Vincenzo Perrella and Dan Osborn in their other spheres of film/television/live performance but I’d certainly like to see some of it. I don’t dwell on plot details if I can help it and realistically, this one is so convoluted and intricate, I’d have no hope of putting much of it in a review but I’m going to try to give you an oversight.

Imagine an isolated uninhabited island far from any other kind of land or humankind.

Next, imagine that island was literally stumbled upon by the survivors of a shipwreck.

Then, imagine that one of that party, Hamilton Forbes-Hamilton, saw the potential for transforming himself from a nobody loser into the most powerful frog in a small pond.

With rat cunning and the power of persuasion used on the uneducated and scared remaining survivors [much like DJT really] Forbes-Hamilton established himself as a supreme leader and initiated a closed society that fed upon fear, restriction and the overweening power of the mystery being of the sea, Old Bertie – a fearsome giant squid ‘proved’ to take people and devour them.

Now generations later, 15-year-old George Jones has had enough. She’s had it up to the eyebrows with everything about and on the island in fact. Her mother was devoured by Old Bertie (assumed), leaving George a social pariah and her father slightly unhinged**, an emotional wreck and also ostracised, even bullied, by other islanders. **NB: (though he may well have been inclined that way in any case).

George is ferociously bright, unlike the rest of the islanders, and also defiant. She alone is rebellious enough to go towards the forbidden shore, always searching for the way ‘out’ and wondering what truly happened to her mother, who sailed away never to return.

When a stranger is washed up on the shore and George rescues him, she unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will turn the island’s uneventful, unimagination and unprotesting usual way of life into near-chaos.

If a stranger can ‘escape’ the dread maw of Old Bertie, there’s reason to hope that her mother did also. In the bombastic, larger-than-life Fernandez – a classic con artist – George sees her way for escape. If only she can persuade him – and if only she can abandon her father.

There is SO much more than this but trust me, it’s worth investing your time. At around 400 pages and a complex, albeit entertaining, read it would be a challenge for many students and while there are excellent resources available, I’m not so sure that many schools would take it up as a class novel for their mid-senior students.

As my super-bright Year 9 student, Emily, said ‘Miss, there’s some very sketchy language in this’ (Road to Winter, our class novel – please note, we were both fine with this – she was just surprised) but that doesn’t preclude it from being a set read, as we know. I just feel that most schools would lean towards more ‘regular’ dystopia. But this is such a great new and fresh look at the genre, that promoting it will reap great benefits.

There would be many students who love this genre and would definitely be able to unpack the layers beyond the satirical humour and caricatures. Underneath that veneer of hilarity and quirky characters are important discussion points around authoritianism, control and subjugation, identity, individuality, trust, family and grief. And I can most certainly see this as a great option for readers circles or your book club group – the discussions would be fast and frenetic! I loved it and took my time reading it over 3 nights as there was a lot to absorb and ponder.

I’m giving it a fearsome (not really) 5 🦑🦑🦑🦑🦑rating for readers around year 8/9 upwards.