Another novel I wanted to love, but I couldn’t really look past the writing for this one. Which is a shame because I was enjoying it for the first half. I thought it was intriguing, I was excited to see where the mystery would lead, and I felt really connected with the main character—honestly, I still did after I finished. I am not quite sure what it was about Sophia, but I was really rooting for her the whole way through, and that was certainly refreshing after reading stories about characters that are not intended to be likeable at all.

I think the main flaw for me in this book was the direction of the plot. Sophia—while I like her—isn’t really an active character in this novel. A large portion of what happens is other characters telling her the real history of Cinderella, and her lightly reacting to this information. She mostly follows them around, asks questions, and then ponders on them for a page or two before we move on. I just think she had a lot of potential to drive the story, especially for a twisted version of a classic fairytale, one of my all time FAVOURITE genres honestly.

I liked the romance, though I thought it was a little stilted at times. I still enjoyed Sophia and Constance together and their dynamic, it was pretty fun.

I have to say—the author really knows how to write atmospheric tension. This is the second work of hers I’ve read, and there is something about the way she crafts an ominous scene (almost always at night) that never fails to put me on edge. I really think she would write a horror fantasy well, because there were moments in this novel and This Poison Heart that actually increased my heart rate a little.

I will admit—I thought the world-building was the weakest part of the novel. Alongside with the politics. This novel has elements of the kind of YA fiction where I can put up with weak world-building and politics and chalk it up to: “it’s just magic.” But the first thing I always ask whenever a speculative law is created/introduced by an author is always: “but why?” And more often than I have honestly expected, that question is never really answered or even explored in a lot of YA fantasy I read.

In general, I think I do tend to gravitate towards novels that are targeted towards adult readers rather than YA despite being the exact target audience and age demographic for YA. I was reading The School For Good And Evil and Akarnae at the age of 8, and I think I would have absolutely loved this novel if I was 12.

Not for me personally, but I still got some good enjoyment out of it! And honestly that’s more important to me when reading about book sometimes. I really flew through this novel. The second worst thing I think a book can be is bad, the absolutely worst thing I think a book can be is boring.

um…okay!

I have been reading Boy Swallows Universe since the middle of April, and I am so grateful to have finally finished this book 8 weeks after I was supposed to.

This is an Australian Thriller/Crime/Lit-Fic/Magical Realism/Bildungsroman/‘Misery P*rn’ as reviewed many times on Goodreads. I’ve been studying this for my English Literature class—probably obvious given my reading tastes; I probably never would have thought to consider this book otherwise—and it’s safe to say I have had the most interesting yet vague reading experience so far this year with this novel.

For starters, I’ve noticed a pattern when it comes to media I study for my Lit class—I have the opposite problem that a lot of my peers do. Many of them hate this novel or greatly dislike previous literature we’ve studied simply because we’ve studied them so intensely that it removes any outside enjoyment and wears off any novelty the story might’ve brought them if they weren’t stressed about essays and exams for these texts. I think that’s perfectly understandable. Personally, I find that I really enjoy the studying aspect of it, and looking deeper than I ever have into these texts has catapulted how I read books and watch movies now (every time I notice a motif or thematic pattern in any other story, my fingers have been itching for a highlighter and pen). However, the downside of this is that I just have not formed a strong personal opinion on any text we’ve studied since I started this class. We previously have looked at Shakespeare’s 17th century play ‘Othello’, and Stephen Daldry’s 2000 film ‘Billy Elliot’, both of which I have enjoyed studying, but I could not tell you my personal biased thoughts on either to save my life. This was especially true for ‘Boy Swallows Universe’.

This novel is commonly referred to as the ‘Great Australian Novel’ as quoted by many reviewers and critics alike (one article even coming from one of my teacher’s previous students, who went on to become a great journalist. We were in the middle of reading printed copies of said article when I realised I had already previously read it while covering my co-workers break in the bookstore I work next to). And reading this novel, I can definitely see why. After all, it is half of the authors life, as he says in many interviews. The book is filled with purple prose, references to some of the most classic works of literature that came before, motifs, character voice, etc.

I like the very strong voice that Dalton presents us with. Eli is a very recognisable protagonist, and so are the characters supporting his perspective. But at the same time, I was so conflicted throughout the whole novel on whether I thought this was great writing technique, or if it was extremely annoying. This story is incredibly self-aware about its unconventional structure and storytelling, which is very hard not to do without irritating me personally. This book knows that it is overly descriptive at times, this book knows that it could have been written better, this book especially knows that the story and character decisions rely sometimes entirely on motifs, morals, and the overall themes of the story. I think that is my issue with this book when it comes to my personal tastes according to what I know about writing as a craft and as a pastime—there is absolutely zero subtlety in the style of writing. And I typically hate when there is zero subtlety. It usually makes me feel that the author believes the reader to miss details and foreshadowing.

In the case of this novel being self-aware about its’ zero use of subtlety, I am so conflicted about what I think of that. And what do I do when I finish a novel only feeling conflicted? I give it 3 stars. I have not had this much indecision after finishing a novel since I read The Atlas Six at the age of fourteen back in 2023. I can’t decide whether I consider this to be a fault in the novels quality, but I don’t think I like that particular authorial decision. I think it works in the context of what Dalton was trying to write—a novel sectioned by chapters that have no numbers, only titles that mirror the structure of a newspaper headline and story roughly around 2,000 to 4,000 words (by estimate)—but I just don’t know if I liked that structure. This novel is so painfully obvious about what it is that it sometimes doesn’t leave any room for inference or speculation. And even so, I still don’t know if that is a detriment to this story’s quality!!! This is the most frustrated I’ve ever felt after finishing a book, by far.

Maybe it’s just because I have to write a second comparative essay about this story to Billy Elliot and we are not allowed to bring in a cheat sheet this time this Friday.

Wish me luck.

Editing Ollie: Oh, one thing I actually know I do dislike about this novel is how it writes marginality/ethnicity into Eli’s point of view. I am perfectly aware that this novel is temporally set in 1984, and Brisbane is quite notorious for not being as progressive as other states, but it was certain descriptions of ethnic women in particular that made me go: ‘maybe we don’t need to write these kinds of stories anymore?’ In a larger context of composition, I just found it distasteful knowing this was published in 2018, and personally don’t feel that we need to include racial stereotypes and characteristics in this day and age in order to tell stories that are very much not about race, no matter if it was historically culturally relevant to their society. Call me ‘too woke’, I guess, it’s just usually unnecessary and in poor taste.

I suppose it’s not really the ‘Great Australian Novel’ without at least some undertone of racist implications.