Thunderhead by Sophie Beer

Title: Thunderhead

Author: Sophie Beer

Genre: Contemporary

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 29^th October 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 384

Price: $17.99

Synopsis: Captivating, memorable and deeply funny, Thunderhead is a heart-squeezing and hopeful illustrated middle grade novel about music, disability, friendship and fandom – beautifully told with humour, art and joy. Perfect for fans of Wonder and Lenny’s Book of Everything.

When I listen to music it speaks to me, fills up my soul until I’m bursting with the rainbow-sprinkled, breathless, blush-red joy of being ALIVE.

Meet Thunderhead: awkward, music-obsessed and a magnet for bad luck. Their favourite things in life are listening to records and hanging out with their best (and only) friend Moonflower. But Thunderhead has a big secret. And when Moonflower moves schools, they’re faced with the reality of surviving the wilderness of high school alone. Make new friends? NOTHANKYOUVERYMUCH. As two big life events approach, Thunderhead posts playlists and heartfelt diary entries as an outlet to try to make sense of their changing world, to try to calm the storm brewing in their brain and to try to find the courage to unfurl their heart.

Drawing on Sophie Beer’s own experience of hearing loss, this indelible illustrated middle grade novel about music, disability, friendship and fandom is immediately engaging, utterly authentic and entirely unputdownable.

~*~

Thunderhead is awkward, obsessed with music, and has a lot of bad luck. There are many things that Thunderhead loves, but their favourite things are listening to records and hanging out with Moonflower – their best friend. But Thunderhead has a big secret – they have two tumours in their brain – NF2. The tumours are affecting Thunderhead’s hearing, and coupled with Moonflower changing schools and making new friends, Thunderhead is about to face high school alone. As Thunderhead explores high school, new friendships, and facing a major operation, they’re trying to make sense of this new world through music playlists. These playlists are meant to be empowering, songs that speak to Thunderhead as they navigate an impending world of losing half their hearing.

Thunderhead is told in wonderful, heartfelt prose as the main character recounts the days leading up to the main event of the book through a series of posts to an old internet forum navigating their feelings about school, music, health, and friendship, and what it means to feel different inside, but look normal outside. Thunderhead is based on Sophie’s own experience with a similar tumour and subsequently being tested for NF2. Throughout the book, Sophie describes Thunderhead’s experiences with doctors, surgeons, neurologists, MRIs and coming to terms with the disability affecting them. A disability that is invisible, and has very few visible signs, apart from Thunderhead’s dizziness, balance issues, and ongoing nausea, coupled with hearing loss that are the only signs that something is wrong. And quite often, are only obvious to Thunderhead, their mum and Pop.

NF1 and NF2 are invisible, neurological disabilities that typically consist of benign tumours on nerve endings. The manifestation differs in each person with NF; however, it will always be about the nerves somewhere in the body. Thunderhead’s tumours are benign, and they have NF2 – which is the rare form of the disease – 1 in 25,000 people in Australia are affected compared to 1 in 3,000 people in Australia for NF1. The benign tumours are called neurofibromas. As someone who has NF1, this book captured much of the experience for me, particularly with the dizziness, the balance issues, MRIs and specialist appointments. It was realistic and powerful, and didn’t shy away from how this can make people feel. Disability representation in middle grade and young adult fiction is starting to become a big area that is explored, and in this instance, the exploration of hearing loss that mirrors Sophie’s experience is a key element. it give the book its heart and soul, and allows anyone who has had similar experiences to see themselves represented.

Sophie described the MRI experience so accurately, and pulled together her experience and interviews with other people who have NF2 and their experiences to create this fantastic novel. It’s the first novel I have read that has ever mentioned NF in any way, and it captured the experience brilliantly. This novel is a fantastic representation of a rare genetic condition, and it is filled with positivity and realism. Thunderhead is allowed to be themselves and explore who they want to be as a friend, and what their real interests are. It is a novel about disability, music, and friendship, and what it means to find yourself, to come to terms with a new reality that you can’t change, and what it means to be a friend and part of an accepting community that will be there for you no matter what. It’s a novel that readers of middle grade will love, and that children and adults with NF and disabilities will relate to. The constant medical appointments will resonate, because Thunderhead speaks about it so honestly and openly. It’s refreshing, because it shows that what people feel about their disability is complicated, because it makes up so much of their identity. It’s something that can’t be changed, but that the person adapts to in their lives. Thunderhead’s NF won’t go away, and it will always affect them in some way, but this is the disability representation we need in middle grade books. We need more of this representation in adult books as well, because all readers deserve to see themselves in the books they enjoy reading.

I loved this book, because it was lovingly and thoughtfully created with personal experience and excellent research. It’s one of those books that I couldn’t put down, and that comes to life vibrantly on the page. It’s full of heart and soul, music and joy, family and friends. It will make you laugh, cry, and cheer, and get into your heart and soul. Feeling seen and understood in the books you read is a powerful thing, and we need to have more awesome disability representation like this.