Beautiful Monster by Kate McCaffrey
Fremantle Press, 2010. ISBN 9781921361982.
It's a very ordinary day in Tess's life. She's learning to fit
into high school, making new friends and enjoying the usual up-down
relationship
with her ten-year-old brother, Brodie. Today is his birthday so she's
trying hard to be especially nice, and is as thrilled as he is that he
has an
award for excellence to show mum, because she knows how much mum values
that
sort of thing. 'Yeah, you're just a genius for a brain-dead dead
head', she says, not knowing that within seconds, that's exactly what
Brodie will
be, the victim of a hit-and-run driver.
It takes just a few short seconds of distraction for Tess's life to be
irrevocably changed, and that of all those around her. But how do
you deal with the loss of your brother, especially when your mum goes
to a deep,
dark place that demands all your dad's attention and your friends won't
even mention his name in case it causes you pain and hurt? And
whenever you think of him, all you can think of are the nasty things
you said and
did? How do you make your life whole again, when everyone else has
gone? You try to be perfect - the perfect daughter, the perfect student
and
have the perfect body. You control those things that you can. You set
goals that you can achieve through strict discipline and willpower, and
you
have a boyfriend like Ned who encourages you to keep going, scoffing at
your efforts if you deviate. Knowing that if you didn't have Ned, you
would really be all alone and so you strive even harder to meet his
expectations. Rowing, running, studying, starving, rowing, running,
studying,
starving. And still your mum stays in her dark place. And still you're
on your
own, except for Ned. A's remain elusive, the rowing team gets a
dead-heat
not a win, and 47kg is not enough when 45kg beckons.
Is this Tess's life forever, until she, too, becomes a brain-dead
dead-head? Or is there a breakthrough? Is there a happily-ever-after
ending? This is McCaffrey's third novel and it is just as intriguing as
Destroying Avalon and In Ecstasy. She writes with a
knowledge of the
issues that
gives insight rather than just information, as anyone who has had a Ned
in
their life would know. Written in three parts, each distinct phases of
Tess's life, Beautiful Monster explores the issues of grief,
self-perception
and self-worth, anorexia and bulimia. In keeping with the
characteristics of contemporary realistic fiction, it focuses on the
people, their
problems, and their challenges allowing the reader to combine their
social
development with a greater knowledge and understanding of the world -
the epilogue
is very powerful to those who read between and beyond the lines, not
just
along them - but its situation and circumstance is sadly common enough
that
this novel could also be used in a therapeutic setting.
There are teaching notes available
but,
in
my opinion, as with many
contemporary realistic fiction titles, teachers need to really know
their students
before they set this as a one-size-fits-all study. A student may well
be in a Tess-Mum or Tess-Ned relationship already that requires
professional intervention.
Beautiful Monster was one of 11 Australian books selected by the
International Youth Library in Munich for the White Ravens 2011. This
is their annual recommendation list of outstanding international books
for children and young adults, presented at their stand at the Bologna
Children's Book Fair. The books for this year's exhibition, 250 titles
from more than 40 countries, were selected from the thousands of books
that
the library received as review copies from publishers, authors,
illustrators, and organisations from all over the world within the last
year.
It deserves it place.
Barbara Braxton