Author: Chloe Higgins
Publisher: Picador Australia
Publication Date: 27 August
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
Genre: Memoir
Source: ARC from Publisher
In 2005, Chloe Higgins was seventeen years old. She and her mother, Rhonda, stayed home so that she could revise for her HSC exams while her two younger sisters, Carlie and Lisa, went skiing with their father. On the way back from their trip, their car veered off the highway, flipped on its side and burst into flames. Both her sisters were killed. Their father walked away from the accident with only minor injuries.
This book is about what happened next.
I received a review copy of this book out of the blue, so even though it is not something I would normally pick up, I decided to give it a go. Given the nature of the book, it is, in some ways, difficult to review, but I will do my best to share my thoughts. From the point of view of the prose, it was very readable and generally well written. However, it simply never grabbed me and, at the risk of sounding callous, I didn't 'care'. While I will gladly read biographies of long-dead figures, memoirs and autobiographies from living people have never held any interest for me, and I think that was the main problem here--nothing wrong with the book per se, but it wasn't my cup of tea. That said, I am sure many readers will adore the work and will find something in it that resonates with them, especially if they have known similar trauma. As such I am giving The Girls three stars. It was a well-written piece, just not something that appealed to me personally.
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