The Unexpected Mess of It All by Gabrielle Tozer

Title: The Unexpected Mess of It All

Author: Gabrielle Tozer

Genre: Young Adult

Publisher: HarperCollins Australia

Published: 1^st May 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 352

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: A very funny and fraught ‘enemies-to-will-they-won’t-they’ romance between family friends Jamila and Billy.

Jamila Dakhoul wants to escape her life.

Forget everything.

Forget that her only friends are strangers on the internet.

Forget that she’s stuck in a caravan after a fire destroyed her family’s house.

Forget that Year 12 is a brutal hellhole where bullying is an Olympic sport.

Forget Billy Radcliffe once and for all.

But as Jamila tries to untangle the messy threads of her life on a weekend away with her family, it becomes clear that she can’t outrun her past, no matter how hard she tries …

A coming-of-age story about falling apart, starting over, and the people and places you can’t live without from the award-winning author of Remind Me How This Ends, Can’t Say it Went to Plan and The Intern.

~*~

Jamila Dakhoul just wants to escape her life. She’s eighteen, in year twelve, and living with her parents and younger brother in a caravan in the backyard of Billy Radcliffe – the one person who has been in her life since she was a baby. But she doesn’t want to be there anymore. She wants to forget about everything from the fact that her only friends are strangers on the Internet, to the fire that destroyed her family home, and the bullying hellhole of Year 12 – where everyone seems determined to stick the boot in for the tiniest things ever. And to top it all off, she just wants to forget about Billy Radcliffe – it’s all a big mess that she can’t cope with. But then a long weekend away with her family at the local camping grounds and holiday park changes things – and Jam learns that she can’t outrun her past – it’s part of her and to move on, she needs to embrace it.

Jam’s story is one that teens on the brink of major changes – going from Year 12 to university, changes within their family, or changes within a friendship group, or who have found themselves unexpectedly falling in love with the person they never thought they would – will find relatable. It has a universality about it that speaks to a wide range of experiences amidst some specific experiences – the trauma of losing your family home, for example, that reflect the tumultuous lives we lead at all ages, but that perhaps affect teens and young adults the most – especially when they’re already in a position of changes at school and feelings of isolation. She’s just hanging on – and when she runs into Daph on the weekend, things start to change. Jamila is grounded, yet Daph is determined to make this weekend special for everyone, and brings back many of the activities they used to do as kids.

Armed with a Polaroid camera, no phone, and her imagination, Jamila and her friends make it a weekend to remember – with lots of bumps along the way involving a party, a dare competition and finding out who she can really rely on. What I liked about Jamila is that she came across as genuine and kind, a bit lonely, and rightly angry with people like Grace McKenna. But at heart, she was the kind of person people can trust, the person who is gentle and kind to everyone, and who doesn’t lash out much. She came across as knowing what she wanted but not being able to verbalise it, something that I, and other readers can relate to. We know how we are feeling but sometimes putting it into words, or verbalising it can be hard. Getting into Jamila’s mindset, and how she was responding to the trauma of the fire whilst everyone else’s lives just went along as though nothing had happened ensured the novel was powerful and evocative. It gives readers insight into how people respond to something like that happening in a small community and what this means for everyone. I think Jamila being allowed to have her grief and worries, and find out about growing into herself was a key part of this novel.

I also liked how the novel used technology that teens will relate to, and used older technology that might seem retro, but for Jamila, the Polaroid camera, the camera and film, the low-tech existence was fun and refreshing, allowing the characters to flourish without relying on a phone or the Internet – a kind of reset to really find out who they are. For Jamila to grow and see how she can use her talents, and what it means to be a good friend, to fall in love, and find ways that she can open up, where she previously felt like she couldn’t.

Friendship seemed to be front and centre throughout the novel with a diverse cast – Jamila and her family are Lebanese and Billy has two mums, and they are such fun to be around and get to know, they’re a family as well as friends. I loved this aspect, as it reflected a reality of life that is often missing from literature, and these characters allow LGBTQIA people and Lebanese people to be seen for the wonderful people they are, so readers who are part of these communities can relate to characters, and these characters also have worries and things going on that everyone can relate to – and this is what I feel makes them powerful characters in a story that has so much to offer, and lets readers know that they can be themselves, that they should celebrate who they are, and that friendship can be found in unlikely places at times.

This fun novel reminds us that nostalgia can be fun, and shows that growing up is complicated – whoever you are, and that sometimes, you need your friends to help you untangle the messy threads of life, and you can do this whilst rediscovering friendship and love, and standing up to the bullies. Another great YA novel from Gabrielle Tozer.