Book Review: Maggie's Going Nowhere by Rose Hartley #BRPreview

Maggie's Going Nowhere

by

Rose Hartley

Publisher: Penguin Books Australia 
Imprint: Michael Joseph
Publication date: 7th January 2020
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 352
RRP: $32.99 AU
Format read: uncorrected paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Better Reading

Maggie Cotton’s life is a hot mess.

In one day, she’s dumped by her boyfriend, disinherited by her mum, and kicked off the three-year degree course she’d stretched to a decade. And that was before she received the letter saying she owed the government $70,000.

But that’s no reason to grow up, is it?

With a decrepit 1960s caravan to call home, Maggie has to prove to her mother she can survive without a safety net, stop her loyal best friend Jen from marrying a scumbag, and convince her sexy workmate Rueben that she’s not a walking disaster. For someone who’s spent her life avoiding hard work, she sure can move mountains when she’s got a little motivation – just don’t ask her to move the caravan.

In Maggie’s Going Nowhere Hartley has taken a character that would normally be unlikeable and given her endearing qualities.

Maggie doesn’t like to conform to societal standards. She has been living off her mother, her boyfriend and Centrelink for the past ten years whilst she idles her way through what should be a three year Uni course.

When she gets kicked out by her boyfriend and kicked off her Uni course she is disinherited by her mother until she can prove that she is capable of supporting herself. I loved her mother’s tough love and Maggie was so funny trying to weasel a meal out of her mum without letting on she had no money to buy food.

Maggie is a brazen no hoper but it is hard not to love her. She knows how to laugh at herself and doesn’t take life too seriously. She is assertive and always speaks her mind assuming her friends would prefer the truth no matter how objectionable. She says she doesn’t care what people think of her but deep down we can see that she does.

I thoroughly enjoyed Maggie's Going Nowhere. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments as Maggie fumbles her way through this belated coming-of-age story. 

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My rating   5/5

 This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge

and book #37 in the Australian Women Writers challenge

photo credit: Goodreads

    

Rose Hartley is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Adelaide with her cat, Doris, and her 1962 caravan, Cecil. Maggie's Going Nowhere is her first novel.