Karleah Olson, A Wreck of Seabirds, Fremantle Press, March 2024, 320 pp., RRP $22.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781760996505
It seems more and more likely that a text will appear on the CBCA Older Readers Short List that teacher librarians, like me, will not have seen come past their desk as a potential purchase. We are often under pressure to purchase the popular books, the easy-to-find books and those recommended to us by booksellers who talk to publisher reps about releases categorised for young adults. We are not in the habit of (nor do we have time for) searching through adult fiction for titles for our libraries.
Which is where A Wreck of Seabirds can be found. So now there will be a rush of sales for school libraries who feel obligated to get the six books. And while it is an atmospheric, well written story, it is more likely to find a home in a senior English classroom (there’s teaching notes on the publisher website) than being passed around students as a recommendation.
We first meet Briony, a young woman stuck in her small coastal Western Australian town, frozen in time since her older sister, Sarah, went missing eighteen months ago. Briony can’t move on with her life with so much mystery and so many unanswered questions about what happened to Sarah. She runs though, and one day she finds a young man standing in the ocean. Briony is compelled to stop and talk to him, and a friendship is forged.
Ren used to be a local and is only back because his father suffering from dementia needs more care. Inevitably we find out he too lost a sibling, and it’s not too much to imagine the ways their grief brings the pair together and attraction develops.
It’s at this point another narrative voice joins Ren and Briony’s. It’s Sarah, and we are back with her on the day of her disappearance and subsequent chapters show her progress. Slowly we start to understand what happened all those months ago, and what transpires is tragic and so easily avoided. As well, we are dip into Ren’s past offering recollections of a time when he was happy – well, happier – because of course, we bear witness to the loss and guilt he suffers.
The book is described as ‘coastal gothic’. It is imbued with emotion and sweeping descriptions of the landscape that traps these characters. We want them all to break free, but that’s not possible, but for those that do, there’s hope and healing.
There is room for all types of books for older teens. This certainly deserves being one of them. I just wish publishers would give those of us who stock libraries for young people, the opportunity to be able to select it before it hits an award list.
Reviewed by Trish Buckley
