by Hayley Scrivenor
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2024
Publisher’s blurb
Why would my best friend want to destroy my life?
Finn and her best friend, Daphne, have grown up together in the Blue Mountains. Bonded by both having lost a younger sister to suicide, they’ve always had a close – sometimes too close – friendship. Now in their twenties, their lives have finally started to diverge: Daphne is at university and Finn is working in the Mountains, as well as falling in love with a beautiful newcomer called Magdu.
Unused to sharing Finn, Daphne starts to act up in ways that will allow her to maintain the control over her best friend she’s always relished. Then, one fateful day, Finn, Daphne and Magdu all go rock-climbing – and Magdu falls to her death. Is it suicide, or a terrible accident – or something more sinister?
Bold, dramatic and utterly compelling, Girl Falling forces us to confront the stories we tell ourselves about the people we love. Displaying all of Hayley Scrivenor’s razor-sharp skills for character, landscape and narrative, this is a breathtaking read.
Review
by Louise Cipta
This is the second book by Hayley Scrivenor who won Best Debut at the 2023 Davitt Awards as well as taking out the Best Debut award at the CWA Daggers in the UK with the fabulous Dirt Town.
In Girl Falling we meet Finn and Daphne. They have been friends since high school, their friendship bonded around the fact that they had both tragically lost their younger sisters.
When they left school, each went their different ways but remained close.
Finn met and fell in love with Magdu, a newcomer to the Blue Mountains, and her relationship with Daphne became strained. The three women went rock climbing in the mountains, where the two girls grew up, and Magdu fell to her death. Did Daphne cause this tragedy so she could have Finn all to herself again?
Whilst trying to deal with her grief, Finn starts to reflect on her relationship with Daphne and the secrets that bound them together. Daphne’s influence over Finn borders on psychological abuse, as readers discovery the lengths she will go to in order to keep Finn under her control.
Scrivenor takes us on a journey which keeps us doing double takes as the reality of the women’s stories unfold. She has an amazing talent for creating characters who are deeply complex and nuanced, and for making us care about them.
Not only does the flow of the story keep the tension strong, but it also becomes hard to look away because we need to discover the truth about Magdu. Did she fall? Scrivenor also shines a light on some issues that are still taboo for many people: youth suicide, cultural influences and expectations, same-sex relationships, and social and economic influences that are rarely talked about.
The final twist is not what I expected.
Girl Falling will generate some lively discussion in book clubs around the world.