I'm a picky reader. If a book doesn't grab me by the first page or two, I will ditch it and find another. This book grabbed me. Its easy reading, well written style was so smooth I forgot I was reading sometimes and this allowed the story to simply unfold. This is my favourite kind of reading.I'm not sure if it is Armstrong's first book, but the characters were very believable - their histories and inter-relationships all rang true. The men's voices were believable 'don't start', 'I don't know', 'I was confused'. There were no men hankering to talk about their feelings - which I always find a little suspicious in TV scripts.I had a few sticking points: 1. Who was the narrator? I would have liked it to have been the 14yo girl. Instead it was the omniscient observer. I would have preferred the voice to have been the girl's.2. There wasn't a lot of light or brevity in this story. It was classic secret and lies family drama. Surely there had to be a funny story or two in there?3. A bit of repetition: water rising; constant rain, mud, running through mud and water. Running through the forest. More running through the forest. Hot grass. Hot grass? I grew up in a hot place, I can never remember the grass being hot. Bitumen yes; Sand definitely. But grass? Yet to be convinced on that one. It is tiny, but distracted me from my absent minded reverie.There was one cracker of a line, page 118: The aunt, Julia, says to her niece Allie, who is trying to piece together the stories her mother told her: 'You know, sometimes the stories we tell are not for other people, they're for us. We're really telling them for ourselves.' Loved this line. A simple observation. A piece of truth.Re the storyline, (without it being a spoiler), when the secret is revealed, there are a whole swag of people who didn't act. Perfect book group discussion question: 'Who should have acted? And why?'.If these small issues: more light; a clear narrator and less repetition had been addressed, I would give this book four stars.
