By Christine Yunn-Yu Sun
Lili Wilkinson is one of Australia’s finest authors of books for children and young adults.
Her novel A Hunger of Thorns – winner of the 2024 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Writing for Young Adults – is a captivating tale about missing girls who don’t need handsome princes to rescue them.
The story is dedicated to “every good girl who has a wild girl inside”. It begins by quoting Irish-Indian poet Nikita Gill: “They won’t tell you fairytales of how girls can be dangerous and still win. They will only tell you stories where girls are sweet and kind and reject all sin. I guess to them, it’s a terrifying thought, a red riding hood who knew exactly what she was doing when she invited the wild in.”
It’s worth keeping this quote in mind because A Hunger of Thorns is set in a world where magic is deemed dangerous and illegal, and those who defy the law are sent to detention camps
where their magical life force is drained to make commercial products, synthetic and disposable potions, spells, charms and illusions that make life convenient and beautiful.
And this is a world where all girls are endlessly lectured about what is expected and appropriate, where they are made civilised and demure, unwrinkled and unstained, their voices
disciplined, destined to become good wives and productive consumers.
As the first-person protagonist Maude confesses: “I cry out for every girl who was told to comb her hair and wash the mud from her face. To keep herself contained. To be ashamed of her voice, her hair, her flesh. To be quiet and good and nice. Girls are not nice. Girls are wild and fierce and powerful, and I will not let anyone take that away. Not ever again.”
Maude is determined to find her childhood friend Odette, who appears to have been lost in an abandoned electrical power plant. Here the magic is lush and primitive, thriving and throbbing in exuberant trees, maliciously spying roses, carnivorous plants and mycorrhizal bacteria that connect it all together. There are also magical girls and a terrifying monster.
To counter all this, the only weapon Maude has is her stories, for she is a gifted storyteller.
In her words: “To me, telling a story felt exactly like doing magic – reaching for invisible threads and weaving them together to make something greater than the sum of its parts.” She soon realises her stories are so good that her characters come to life.
Like all good stories, A Hunger of Thorns is complex and full of unexpected plot twists as Maude discovers her true powers.
One particular focus is the importance of family and friendship, where strong yet less-than-perfect female characters go to great lengths to rescue each other.
Another memorable feature is the nature itself, which, like magic, cannot be contained.
Like roses always growing out of their pots, nature ultimately strikes back.
Stories are pure magic, and this one is exquisite and compelling.
Highly recommended.
