Little Gods in Stella Project

Jan 21, 2019 Clare Snow rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: aust-2018-pub, small-town, published-2018, birds, australia, family, australian-author, library-book, 1980s, audio-book

"As a child, trapped in the savage act of growing up, Olive had sensed she was at the middle of something."

Olive's story of finding who she is at twelve, as her childhood slips away, broke me over and over.

A baby's death reverberates down the years, and is interwoven with the complexities of the Lovelock family; small town gossip and innuendo; the hardship of drought for the farmers of the Mallee; and the consequences of forced removal of babies from unwed mothers for adoption to "good" families ...more

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Mar 12, 2018 jeniwren marked it as to-read

Received an ARC edition courtesy of Allen and Unwin.

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Jan 26, 2019 Michael Livingston rated it really liked it

Ackland has created a wonderful set of characters - Olive and Thistle in particular - and set them in a rural Victorian 1970s that felt deeply familiar. The plot didn't always feel entirely believable to me, but the unfurling of family secrets was mostly well handled. Definitely worth a read! ...more

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Mar 04, 2019 Ely marked it as did-not-finish · review of another edition

It finally happened. I had to DNF a Stella Prize book. Every year there’s at least one book that I don’t gel with, and unfortunately, Little Gods is the first one this year. I say first because I have a feeling there’s at least one other I’ll struggle with.

Little Gods is a bit of a weird situation here. Usually, I end up DNfing Stella Prize books because I don’t like the writing. A lot of the books that get nominated are literary fiction, and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not a genre I us ...more

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