#LOVEOZYA
I am going to be quite honest, I picked this book up because I saw the name ‘Cath Crowley’ and I had such a deep love affair with her previous young adult novel,ย Words in Deep Blue.ย
I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. The main plotline centres upon the friendship between Ady, Kate and Clem and the quest to findingย one’s true self with the support of honest and authentic friends.ย Take Three Girls is an exploration of friendship, identity, feminism and of the self within an adolescent girl’s life, where the pressure of society and its expectations, can drive anyone insane. More so, it talks about how cruel teenagers can be, especially in the digital age of social media.
The plotline is pushed byย the cruelty of a local gossip blog, where students post their pathetic attempts for attention. The ‘gossip’ in this sense is usually relating to the sexual exploits of young female students. Thus, there is an exploration of the expectations of girls in comparison to the expectations of boys, and how girls are just supposed to sit back and take the onslaught of absolute shit aimed at them, with a smile on their face. Basically, boys can do whatever they want, but girls need to remain a virgin, but not a prude, easy going, but not easy. It really highlights the perception of women today’s society has, and how that, in effect, is resulting in the maintenance of a patriarchal, misogynist and sexist society.
However, one bone to pick. I don’t know if I am that completely out of touch with the world and language of the teenager in 2017, but I’m not too sure they speak like that? Some of the languages is an over-exaggeration of abbreviated talk that just emphasises how unrealistic it is- what people imagine girls sound like in a conversation, I imagine; but from personal experience of high school, and experience of placement, girls do not sound the way they are written in this book. Maybe in Netflix dramas. It reminds me of mean girls. and that is the one thing I couldn’t take seriously. Following from that, some of the nicknames for the places in the book, was so out of this world, I was just in awe. I live in Melbourne and I have never heard any of these words before, and we have some strange abbreviations for things, but what this book claims Melbournians call things, I’m not too sure actually exists.
But this is just one small insignificant quarrel that I had with the book. Seriously, this book needs to be read in high schools across the world, because it has such a fundamental message and it is so incredibly important for us to arm young women and young men with the tools, to create a better society.
I haven’t gone into detail about the characters themselves because I think that needs to remain a mystery so you can pick this book up and support Australian authors at their finest.
rating: 5/5
Until next time! Happy reading!!
Allie
xx
โจ ๐ฝ๐ฑ๐ฎ ๐ต๐ฒ๐ซ๐ป๐ช๐ป๐ ๐ธ๐ฏ ๐ช๐ต๐ฎ๐๐ช๐ท๐ญ๐ป๐ช โจ 