Reviews

Flyaway [With Battery] by Kathleen Jennings

lillieslibraryy's review against another edition

Go to review page

2.0

An interesting, harrowing Australian Gothic, about small town secrets, fairy tales and stories. 

I was immediately drawn into this story and so curious about what really happened. The reveal was shocking, but I felt quite disconnected and confused. I feel audio wasn't the best option for this novella as it felt so disjointed and narration was confusing. 

This was interesting but disappointing. It makes me want to explore more Australian Gothic and see what else this genre has to offer.   

mekenq's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

spenkevich's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

Does your town have an urban legend? I’ve always been fascinated by the way a story can, like a snowball rolling down a hill, gain in velocity as it is passed along and grow in menacing mass as details soften into murky dread and possibilities. But what horrors and terrible events lend themselves to legends that perpetuate through the ages? Flyaway from Australian author Kathleen Jennings is a darkly immersive journey into Australian folklore and frights as a young girl discovers that the haunting tales whispered around her town might have such sinister truths at their heart. It is folk horror at its finest and reads like an Australian Gothic as the pain of the past haunt the present. Jennings’ prose spirals through haunting figurative language and surreal imagery that pulls the reader along through this beguiling tale as if the novel were a ferocious fairytale forest instead of words on a page. Full of mystery and surprises with brief stories of folklore interwoven with the main plot, Flyaway is alive with fairytale sensibilities as in this tale about generation trauma and uncovering hard truths that are swept under the rug only to return more frightening than ever.

Strange, what chooses to flourish here. Which plants. Which stories.

I’d like to thank Ceallaigh and her excellent review for guiding me to this eerie tale. The story revolves around teenage Bettina Scott who, with the help of two former friends she sometimes thinks of as enemies, is trying to discover a mystery of her family’s recent past when a threatening message written on her fence is followed by an ominous threat that arrives in the mail. Flyaway is best enjoyed with as little knowledge of the plot as possible going into it, and the narrative does—admittedly—begin rather obfuscating though this is all by design. The book garners comparisons to [a:Shirley Jackson|13388|Shirley Jackson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1550251468p2/13388.jpg]’s [b:We Have Always Lived in the Castle|89724|We Have Always Lived in the Castle|Shirley Jackson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1704229774l/89724._SX50_.jpg|847007] for a similar gothic atmosphere, ominous dread and unreliable narrator with Bettina being a successful successor to Mericat with her social standoffishness and glaring gaps in personal history while her thoughts are continuously assailed by the voice of her mother chastising her manners and encouraging “ladylike” behavior. It can be tricky to follow at first but hang in there. It is a worthwhile fumbling through the narrative dark because around halfway there is a brilliant moment that suddenly blows aside your confusion like the dispersal of a fog, the seemingly disparate pieces slide into place, and the larger picture comes gloriously into focus. It is like those cartoons where a character walks into the mouth of a beast mistaking the teeth as trees and only gains clarity of their surroundings as the jaws snap shut…

I tried to be anxious, but the earth and the grass and the evening breeze surrounded me, as if I had been set into a socket of the world for which I’d been designed.

Beyond the personal struggles of the teenage cast, there is a larger scope making this just as much a story about this secluded Queensland town and the long feuds, neighborly distrust and legends that linger through generations. Runagate is from a distric ‘somewhere between the Coral Sea and the Indian Ocean but on the way to nowhere, there was a district called – oh, let’s call it Inglewell’ and exist as if in a state of decomposition. The folklore is brought to life through brief tales threaded into the larger narrative, weaving magic and dread into daily reality until it becomes entirely engulfed in the fantastical as a surreal landscape shot through with sorrow. An entire school vanishes into the trees, a bottle might grant wishes, shapeshifters and other terrors with teeth might thrash in the underbrush. It is teeming with Australian folklore and there are some real creepy beasts such as the Megarrity, which I kept misreading in my head as Mega-Gritty though it would make sense if Gritty made his way to Philly after terrorizing the Australian forests for centuries.
Untitled
The town itself is framed as ferociously as the folklore with Jennings’ prose crafting the land as a sentient beast and the trees and creatures that crawl amongst them are characters on their own. ‘Trees like lanterns, like candles, ghosts and bones,’ trees bleeding resin, trees that cloy the decaying buildings and rot of Runagate and seem a testament to the permeating sadness of its atmosphere, trees as omnipresent lurking threats that separate the town from the rest of Australia like the mythical forests of fairytales.
Trees towered hard as bronze in still sunlight, and stirred like a living hide in the rolling advent of a storm. If you were born to Runagate with all its fragile propriety, its tidy civilisation, its ring-fence of roads and paddocks, wires and blood, there was nothing else in the world beyond but tree.

The sense of isolation is thick, both literally and figuratively as divisions between neighbors run deep with the three principal characters coming together as if totems for the legacy of these families. Gary Damson is a particularly well-fixed character in this theme coming from a family of fence builders that for generations ‘keep up fences, walk boundaries.’ Bettina, on the other hand is a legacy of disaster juxtaposed to Trish and the Aberdeens who uphold social norms and status quo. As the story descends into dread and weirdness, they begin to realize the legacy of lore might be more than tall tales to chill you around a campfire.

Memory bleed and frayed there, where ghosts stood silent by fenceposts.
Fable and fairytales often exists as warning or guidance through the dark forests of life. As Folklorist [a:Jack Zipes|41698055|Jack Zipes|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] writes ‘Fairy tales since the beginning of recorded time, and perhaps earlier, have been a means to conquer the terrors of mankind through metaphor.’ Here we find that the tales betray dark secrets and a legacy of betrayals and debts, violence and abuse that cannot remain silent in the past. ‘Truth was shifting the way the land had when we drove: trees sliding behind trees.’ writes Jennings and the reader begins to question if Bettina’s narration is confused because she has pushed aside painful memories, and is the truth transforming into terrors that haunt the countryside demanding confrontation. Under the stones of stories we find the violence of patriarchy and colonialism, the sins of greed and grief perpetuating themselves down through generations as trauma grips people's hearts and in turn they commit emotional and physical violence as a sense of control over others. This is a story with teeth and the wails of those who have been bitten.

If all those stories mean anything, they mean sometimes people do just disappear. And maybe they can be found.

An incredible little novella that, while confusing at first, pays off in the end, Flyaway embodies the spirit of fairytales and has a few of its own to tell. There is a familiar story at the heart of this, though which one is a major reveal late in the novel I won’t spoil, and this works as a haunting Australian gothic tale that probes the darkness of the human heart. Sharp and sinister, Flyaway is a real treat.

4.5/5

Through the soles of her feet and hands, through her skin, the land sang to her: dark and silver, the bones of the world.
Untitled

emmaaaad's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated

4.75

celiapowell's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

This was just gorgeous - such a very Australian story, the setting felt deeply familiar and so beautifully realised. The story has legends and fairytales skilfully woven throughout it that felt truly enmeshed in the landscape - if you love stories based on fairytales, this is the book for you.

ceci_bookgremlin's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

Gripping prose and deeply curious folklore. I was confused the entire way through, though I suspect that that was intended.

entanglednovels's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I need to purchase a print copy to re-read so I can annotate and re-visit this book because wow!

out_with_lanterns's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

sylviatp's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5