lavaplant's review against another edition
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Ohhhhhhh this is excellent
gwenaellelebail's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
phoeeebeee's review against another edition
4.0
Laurinda - Alice Pung
A wonderful, Australian, young-adult novel that looks at the joys and pains of teenager-hood and high school. Lucy Lam gets into an exclusive private school, Laurinda, on a scholarship, and soon finds herself caught up in the all-powerful clique, 'The Cabinet'. A genuine, heart-felt story, 'Laurinda', is one of the few books about being a teenage girl that gets it right.
A wonderful, Australian, young-adult novel that looks at the joys and pains of teenager-hood and high school. Lucy Lam gets into an exclusive private school, Laurinda, on a scholarship, and soon finds herself caught up in the all-powerful clique, 'The Cabinet'. A genuine, heart-felt story, 'Laurinda', is one of the few books about being a teenage girl that gets it right.
vas_17's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Xenophobia, Violence, Toxic friendship, Sexism, Racism, Racial slurs, Lesbophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Fatphobia, and Bullying
tcmaree's review against another edition
5.0
“I never tell them about our lives. You know why? It is not because I am ashamed. It is because some things are just good, too good to be judged.”
kblincoln's review against another edition
5.0
4.5 stars, actually.
One of the oldest stories told as success for Australia, USA, and Canada: Immigrants come to a mainstream white multicultural society, immigrants work hard, success follows.
But does working hard actually get you out of hourly, sweatshop work? Does success mean you have studied Edwardian art or that you can donate enough money to have buildings named after you?
With a slightly confusing conceit (the main girl seems to be talking to a past self) this book narrates the invasion of an elite, white girl college prep school by their inaugural diversity scholarship student: Linh Lam from working class neighborhood mostly of Asian (where Malta students are the high achievers) immigrants whose most education-minded parents send their kids to Catholic schools.
Linh/Lucy wins the scholarship and is offered entree to Laurinda where a trio of rich white girls (the Cabinet) reign supreme under the benignly ignorant eye of a strict Headmistress. These girls bully teachers and students alike and get away with everything because their parents donate money. Linh leads a double life for a while: helping her mom with sewing piecework and looking after her baby brother at home and trying desperately to live up to the Laurindian ideal at school.
It's two different, foreign worlds that can never come together: because if they do, her whole life will come apart at the seams.
Mostly, however, the story is an internal monologue of getting by, how far Linh/Lucy will go to fit it, and a constant losing and regaining of herself in Laurinda's halls. I felt where Linh/Lucy capitualted and was a guilty bystander was brutally honest, and her few places of rebellion (passive rebellion such as just not showing up at Saturday sports) and a few more aggressive rebellions were believable. I also like that there isn't an easy HEA at the end...because that made it feel closer to true life.
Kudos for writing a book where white folks are called out for trying to "nurture" and "cultivate" those that are less fortunate, for showing dignity in hard work and conservative aspirations, and for portraying a characters who must code-switch and reinvent herself in difficult ways as you cheer her on.
Definitely engrossing to read just as a YA book about mean girls in a high school as well as great conversation fodder about class and racism.
One of the oldest stories told as success for Australia, USA, and Canada: Immigrants come to a mainstream white multicultural society, immigrants work hard, success follows.
But does working hard actually get you out of hourly, sweatshop work? Does success mean you have studied Edwardian art or that you can donate enough money to have buildings named after you?
With a slightly confusing conceit (the main girl seems to be talking to a past self) this book narrates the invasion of an elite, white girl college prep school by their inaugural diversity scholarship student: Linh Lam from working class neighborhood mostly of Asian (where Malta students are the high achievers) immigrants whose most education-minded parents send their kids to Catholic schools.
Linh/Lucy wins the scholarship and is offered entree to Laurinda where a trio of rich white girls (the Cabinet) reign supreme under the benignly ignorant eye of a strict Headmistress. These girls bully teachers and students alike and get away with everything because their parents donate money. Linh leads a double life for a while: helping her mom with sewing piecework and looking after her baby brother at home and trying desperately to live up to the Laurindian ideal at school.
It's two different, foreign worlds that can never come together: because if they do, her whole life will come apart at the seams.
Mostly, however, the story is an internal monologue of getting by, how far Linh/Lucy will go to fit it, and a constant losing and regaining of herself in Laurinda's halls. I felt where Linh/Lucy capitualted and was a guilty bystander was brutally honest, and her few places of rebellion (passive rebellion such as just not showing up at Saturday sports) and a few more aggressive rebellions were believable. I also like that there isn't an easy HEA at the end...because that made it feel closer to true life.
Kudos for writing a book where white folks are called out for trying to "nurture" and "cultivate" those that are less fortunate, for showing dignity in hard work and conservative aspirations, and for portraying a characters who must code-switch and reinvent herself in difficult ways as you cheer her on.
Definitely engrossing to read just as a YA book about mean girls in a high school as well as great conversation fodder about class and racism.
allieeveryday's review against another edition
3.0
This book is like the movie Mean Girls, but if Mean Girls was set in Australia at a private junior high school, and the Plastics were "good girls" who were actually crueler and sneakier and one of them was really racist, and new girl Cady was an immigrant.
So like, the first half of this book was more about the transfer of Lucy from her old junior high to Laurinda via a scholarship to the private school, and trying to make friends in a new setting, and the viciousness of these mean teenagers who like, got a teacher to quit and steal things from their peers, and general bitchiness. At one point I thought, damn I do not miss high school. I was more of a floater in school, I generally got along with most people, but I remember stupid teenage drama, and probably one of the circles of hell is being trapped as a teenage girl forever.
The second half is more about Lucy's involvement withthe Plastics the Cabinet, and how they work to manipulate her and make her feel simultaneously like a charity case the school took on, and also less-than for not following blindly everything they think or say, and the process of finding your own voice, standing up for yourself, etc. This half had a lot more elements of being ashamed of where you come from, dealing with other people's perceptions of yourself and your worth based on the things you have or don't have, and there's also a sneaky undercurrent of "but we're not racist!" from a lot of Lucy's classmates and their parents that just really sucked. Something later in the book was described as being like a spider bite, where you know it hurts but you can't prove it because there's no mark, and a lot of the meanness in this book is like that.
Being a young teenager was well-described, in that a lot of complaints about YA seem to be about the characters behaving uncharacteristically for teenagers, but you're in Lucy's head and mostly see her at school or with her family. There's a section specifically where she's like, at this age you might know how you feel, but you don't yet have the communication skills to connect how you're feeling with bigger concepts, and so you're frustrated by not being able to properly communicate the way you want to — which was just a lovely way of putting it, especially against the backdrop of having to translate for her parents, who don't speak much English, but little is said about their own communication concerns, because they're generally in a community where they know other people who speak the same language as they do, so it's just ... less concerning (from Lucy's perspective anyway).
Anyway, long story short, I'm glad I read this, I enjoyed it and I'm probably going to be thinking about this for a couple of days. 3.5 stars.
Read Harder: #ownvoices set in Oceania, and an epistolary novel
So like, the first half of this book was more about the transfer of Lucy from her old junior high to Laurinda via a scholarship to the private school, and trying to make friends in a new setting, and the viciousness of these mean teenagers who like, got a teacher to quit and steal things from their peers, and general bitchiness. At one point I thought, damn I do not miss high school. I was more of a floater in school, I generally got along with most people, but I remember stupid teenage drama, and probably one of the circles of hell is being trapped as a teenage girl forever.
The second half is more about Lucy's involvement with
Being a young teenager was well-described, in that a lot of complaints about YA seem to be about the characters behaving uncharacteristically for teenagers, but you're in Lucy's head and mostly see her at school or with her family. There's a section specifically where she's like, at this age you might know how you feel, but you don't yet have the communication skills to connect how you're feeling with bigger concepts, and so you're frustrated by not being able to properly communicate the way you want to — which was just a lovely way of putting it, especially against the backdrop of having to translate for her parents, who don't speak much English, but little is said about their own communication concerns, because they're generally in a community where they know other people who speak the same language as they do, so it's just ... less concerning (from Lucy's perspective anyway).
Spoiler
There's also this beautiful few sentences about how Lucy identifies and identified herself that changed between her old school and new school that really surprised me, as part of the device for this book. It's subtle and doesn't change much, but it was also really good.Anyway, long story short, I'm glad I read this, I enjoyed it and I'm probably going to be thinking about this for a couple of days. 3.5 stars.
Read Harder: #ownvoices set in Oceania, and an epistolary novel
sabrinac's review against another edition
3.0
I’ve been meaning to get around to this book since I was in middle school, and although it wasn’t bad at all, I think I would’ve enjoyed it much more back then (when I was the target audience)
bestdressedbookworm's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this. There was a lot I couldn't relate to, I have never been to an all girls school, im not of any Asian decent so culturally this was different. But I feel like after reading this I get a sense of what that would be like for someone to tackle. I enjoyed the relationships and the drama because it felt authentic. Sometimes I feel drama in books is very forced for plot developed or to fill a gap. This felt true to nature based on the environment that was being described. Thoroughly enjoyable.