Take Three Girls by Cath Crowley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
St. Hilda’s Grammar School. Hotbed of teenage girl angst. Ady, Clem and Kate have nothing in common other than the school they attend.
At first it’s hard to distinguish the individual voices of the characters. The tone and language used for each girl is so similar that they don’t appear to have any differences, but there are enough hooks thrown out to keep you reading. Intriguing, was what I posted to the feed.
However, the further I read, the more I learned about each girl, and they began to un-homogenise. Ady, Kate and Clem are reluctantly grouped together through a random school exercise. And as they learn about each other, so do we. We begin to care. We begin to care a lot.
As I read, I was thrown back to being a teenager. On the cusp of adulthood, but without the life experience to make smart choices. To invest everything in another, only to be kicked to the curb. To be oblivious to the snide remarks while they are being made, later mortified in the realisation, and hot with shame at the implications and injustice of it all. With no voice to protest, to tell the truth, to set the story straight.
I found myself wishing that I had read this book back then. Perhaps I would have made some better choices. Perhaps it might not have taken so long to like myself for who I am, to be able to stand tall in my needy nerdiness, to stand with others in their own quirky, interesting world.
Perhaps.
Or not.
Teenagers are weird. I remember it well. Sometimes, if everything aligns in the right way, you can embrace the weirdness. Maybe not every day. But most days. In their author bio, Cath, Simmone and Fiona are described as being ‘in touch with their respective inner teenagers’. That they are, dear readers, that they are.
Read Take Three Girls. You won’t regret it. And you may also recognise yourself along the way.
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