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Bonesland

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Shortlisted for the 2017 Text Prize

As soon as I finish school I'll have the car packed. I'll thunder past the dull cardboard boxes that Banarang calls shops, I'll skim over the Bridge Street potholes without feeling a bump and I'll fly up the freeway, bound for the city and civilisation.

Bones Carter is done with Banarang and his backwater existence. There's not much to do but hang out with his friends, make bad rap music and count down the days until the end of school and the beginning of his new life in the city.

Then Naya comes to town. Brilliant, black and beautiful, she wants to change the world. She thinks Bones is a well of untapped potential. Bones thinks she's delusional—but she makes him feel more hopeful than he has in a long time.

Bonesland is a wild ride through the small-town agonies of adolescence, packed with sex, drugs, love and hip-hop.

Brendan Lawley is a writer living in Melbourne. Bonesland is his first novel.

'This amusing, poignant coming-of-age story deftly addresses some of the issues facing today's teens, from mental health to social media, and puts a fresh spin on a familiar message about the value of being yourself.' Books+Publishing

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    • Books+Publishing

      April 13, 2018
      Sixteen-year-old Bones Carter has a lot going on. With his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, anxiety, germ-phobia, separated parents and regular harassment at the hands of his older brother Trav and school bully Chase Barnes, it’s little wonder Bones doesn’t pay much attention when American exchange student Naya arrives at his high school in Banarang, Victoria. While his mates Jimmy, Tyson and Leon immediately try to get into Naya’s pants, Bones reckons she’s an overachieving do-gooder. But as he gets to know Naya, he realises he’s got her all wrong—and that she makes him feel more alive than he ever thought possible. This lively, big-hearted novel by debut author Brendan Lawley was shortlisted for the 2017 Text Prize, and evocatively captures the adolescent experience in all its awkward, emotionally intense agony. Lawley’s male characters may be a bit much for some readers; with their trumped-up tales of sexual escapades and over-the-top slang, these teenage boys don’t hold back. But the brash dialogue and vivid sense of time and place give Bonesland energy and authenticity, and Bones’ more measured first-person perspective helps ground the narrative. This amusing, poignant coming-of-age story deftly addresses some of the issues facing today’s teens, from mental health to social media, and puts a fresh spin on a familiar message about the value of being yourself. Carody Culver is a Brisbane-based freelance writer and editor

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  • English

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