A review by loosetoothfool
Island Time by Georgia Clark

funny hopeful medium-paced

3.5

this was a sweet fun story, perfect for my holiday reading :) I enjoyed this more as it went on! the drama of secrets being exposed at the end was so tense and real, the characters were all very flawed people struggling with hiding things and what they wanted, at times it was so stressful to read but I think it was fun and ended in a way where I was very pleased and happy to see where every character ended up. I really enjoyed seeing unlikely relationships forming and I think all the characters were really well done. must say I really did not enjoy the mum character Jules, but it was such an accurate depiction of the kind of woman she was, who thought of herself as a perfect mum but actually didn't fully accept her kids queerness and put her own pressures onto them. she really made me quite annoyed. another thing is the indigenous aspect of this book, set on a fictional island off Queensland's coast, and talks a lot about indigenous land, culture, knowledge etc, in a way that at times seemed like the white author, and her white characters, was trying to connect more with it more than they really have the right to, idk that's just my opinion, i know in the acknowledgements she talks about the aboriginal people she closely worked with and consulted when writing the book, but some parts still felt a bit inappropriate, in the way that she as a white author doesn't have the authority to be sharing certain things about culture, and also the aboriginal character in the book was always willing to openly share his culture with the white visitors to the island at times in a way that didn't feel too realistic and a bit tokenistic/not the realest of characters. i just hope that there was very close consultation, respect etc given to aboriginal people. overall I did enjoy this book! didn't care as much about Jules storyline just because I didn't like her heaps as a character and her love story. I did get frustrated at times with how stupid these characters were acting, but it made me want to keep reading! there wasn't too much time spent in certain characters stories that I was getting bored, good pacing. overall a perfect holiday book!