The Beginner's Guide to Living
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Shortlisted for the NZ Post Children's Book Awards and the Victorian, Queensland and Western Australian Premiers' Literary Awards.
Seventeen-year-old Will is in turmoil after the sudden death of his mother. His father drifts and his older brother Adam stays away from home. Isolated and angry, Will begins a search for the answers he craves. He uses his mum's old camera to document the experience and scrambles to find an idea for which he can live and die. And as if things weren't complicated enough, he falls for sixteen-year-old Taryn. His final exams are looming, but how will he get through the tangle of grief and philosophy, sex and love?
The Beginner's Guide to Living is a stunning debut novel that announces the arrival of a fabulous new writer. Lia Hills has written a book about grief, ideas and experience, about those moments in your life that change you forever.
'Beautifully crafted and doesn't shy away from exploring first love, sex and drugs.' Sunday Age
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After his mother is killed in a traffic accident, high school senior Will feels nothing at first. Then, at his mother's wake, he falls in love with Taryn, the daughter of family friends ("I am the king of bad timing. Only a monster could think of love"). Pained by his loss, frustrated by his father and brother, and confused by his infatuation, Will begins to question life's meaning. His quest draws him to books from the likes of Seneca and Nietzsche, a passionate relationship with Taryn, experimentation with drugs, and some unlikely mentors. In this acutely insightful first novel, Australian author Hill laces Will's pained journey with the questions he lists in a notebook ("Do my mother's memories live in me?"), philosophical quotations, and his own memories of his mother. Almost nothing escape Will's notice (though his perceptiveness alone doesn't produce answers), and the mosaic of imagery and musings in his poetic, staccato narration offers thought-provoking ideas about grief and the universal drive to find a purpose. Although this novel begins with a death, it is a celebration of life, companionship, and love. Ages 14 up.
