Louise Bassett, The Hidden Girl, Walker Books, August 2022, 352 pp., RRP $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781760654788
Melati wins a scholarship to an elite girls’ school in Melbourne and that move plunges her into a challenge she could not have anticipated. She tells us her story in first-person narrative. Melati comes to the school with a bad reputation and her ability to overcome this and make a fresh start is compromised right from the start when Libby, one of the rich girls at the school, takes an immediate dislike to her. Libby is the leader of a small gang of bullies but always gets away with it. In a case of give a dog a bad name – thinking the worst of someone – Melati is blamed for a number of incidents and needs to meet regularly with the school counsellor. It is during one of these that she comes across a diary, written in Indonesian, of a girl. Melati steals the diary (although she does intend to return it) and gradually translates it – she is fluent in Indonesian. This leads to a startling and terrifying discovery setting Melati on an international adventure to try to track down the girl who wrote the diary.
During a school trip to Indonesia, she meets Michael who, like Mel also comes from Melbourne and who agrees to help her in the search. The friendship between them gradually develops into something more though they never let this get in the way of their search. It is clear that, despite some mistakes, Mel is a brave and basically good girl who is willing to risk everything to save the ‘hidden girl’. She displays determination and learns to understand herself better during the search recognising too, that she has been quick to misjudge people, leading to misunderstandings of both people and actions. This is particularly true of her response to the school counsellor.
The settings – Melbourne and Indonesia – are important. The device of the school trip allows the action to move from Melbourne to the crucial setting of Indonesia where Mel meets Michael and begins her search for Devi, the missing girl. Indonesia is the home of the missing girl, and the diary drips out clues as to where she might be hidden in Melbourne.
The hunt for the missing girl takes twists and turns and leads to a number of dead ends developing the suspense in the novel. Mel must work out who to trust and overcome her fear as she and Michael work to track down the girl. Along the way, Mel – and we as readers – encounter a range of characters, some peripheral and others central to the plot. All are convincing and we see complexities in many of them that Mel at first has difficulty understanding. Is anyone wholly good or wholly bad?
Interwoven with the story of the hunt for the girl are issues of parents and relationships with them, young love, and friendship and loyalty. In a sense then, the novel is also a coming-of-age story as Mel’s maturity develops as does her understanding of herself and others.
The ending does not neatly tie up all ends and it is clear that, while that particular battle has been won, the war is far from over.
As The Hidden Girl tackles sex trafficking, a subject that is extremely unusual in YA fiction, its use needs to be handled sensitively but the book does raise awareness of this terrible crime.
Reviewed by Margot Hillel
