The worst perfect moment by Shivaun Plozza

‘I’m standing in the parking lot of the Marybelle Motor Lodge in Wildwood, New Jersey, and I’m dead.’ This is the startling first line of Plozza’s latest novel which pitches Tegan, one moment riding her bicycle, and then ‘bike-car-splat’, the next moment she is dead, sent to heaven. The Marybelle Motor Lodge has been meticulously recreated for her, the place that is supposed to be her happiest place . . . except that it isn’t. The Marybelle is the worst hotel, green, grimy and damp, with soggy pizza, and a dirty pool with a floating tampon. And for Tegan, it is the failed holiday where her father took her and her little sister Quinn, before they found out that their mother had left them and wasn’t ever coming back.

The mystery is how the Marybelle ever came to be posited as Tegan’s heaven. Her guardian angel Zelda insists she hasn’t made a mistake. In the challenge to identify Tegan’s truest happy moment, the reader is taken back over Tegan’s life, only to learn of the many sad disappointments that she has experienced in her short life of 16 years; the sense of loss, lost friendships, lost mother, lost identity, misery.

Plozza has found a highly original approach to exploring themes common to many in the YA genre, and the reader’s curiosity is provoked to read on. Tegan has to revisit many sad memories, but somehow the overall tone is kept light with a twist of teenage humour that is sure to draw a smile. There is also a hint of romance as Tegan is gradually drawn closer to Zelda, the bright smiling angel that she accuses of getting everything wrong.

Shivaun Plozza is an award-winnning Australian author of highly commended teen novels Frankie (2017) and Tin Heart (2018) as well as a number for middle grade readers. The worst perfect moment is another highly recommended novel.

Themes: Identity, Love, Loss, Separation, Friendships, Loneliness, Humour.

Helen Eddy