The Edge of Everything by Miranda Luby

Title: The Edge of Everything

Author: Miranda Luby

Genre: Contemporary

Publisher: Text Publishing

Published: 29^th April 2025

Format: Paperback

Pages: 320

Price: $22.99

Synopsis: When a rare and highly endangered bird flies into Lucy’s bedroom window, she feels it’s a sign. Of what, she’s not exactly sure, but maybe it means she’ll get her life back on track after the sudden death of her brother a year ago. Maybe she’ll find some meaning in the randomness of existence and work out her place in it all. Maybe she’ll find a way to stop the wild stunts she’s been pulling with Jacinta just to keep her thoughts from spiralling for a few moments.

She takes the injured bird to a local wildlife sanctuary, and there she meets Ben. He’s cute, a tiny bit flirty, and he cares as much about the bird’s survival as Lucy does. He could be the distraction she needs. But when unrelated events collide, Lucy realises things are not going to be that simple.

Miranda Luby’s second novel is a heartfelt portrayal of grief, a tender romance, and a tribute to a very special Australian bird. A celebration of life in all its randomness and wonder.

~*~

Life hasn’t been the same for Lucy since her brother died. She’s lost friends, people have acted like she needs to be treated cautiously, and her parents are acting like everything is okay. Nobody notices – or asks – Lucy how it really feels. She’s at the end of high school, with no idea where she is headed, and drowning in grief. Finding her place in the world without Charlie feels impossible…until a rare native bird – a plains wanderer, flies into her window.

Lucy takes it to the local wildlife sanctuary, where she meets Ben – and spending time with him, her new friend Jacinta and the injured bird could be the distraction from grieving she desperately needs. Something to remind her that life is worth living, and that she isn’t stuck in an ongoing rut of grief. But things start to unravel and collide as Lucy navigates the summer leading up to the first anniversary of her brother’s death and all the firsts that will come with it.

Miranda Luby’s second novel is a gentle exploration of grief and our responses to it, whilst navigating tricky feelings about friends, family and potential partners. Grief is hard for anyone to handle – I don’t think anyone really knows how to cope with grief, and this book does a great job of showing that it’s hard for all of us. That we all deal with it in our own way, and through the young adult voice, it shows that grief can fracture families and friendships or alter how we behave. In Lucy’s story, this leads to lots of misunderstandings, lots of confrontations over things she’s not ever thought of doing before. It’s power is in its ability to show that Lucy’s reactions can happen at any time during the grieving process. Because it is a process, and understanding that is what helps people get through it. Expecting people to deal with it in a certain way never works, nor does walking on egg shells around grieving people. Lucy’s feelings are front and centre in this book, and she’s allowed to navigate these raw emotions, though she feels like she is performing being okay or performing grief at times.

Navigating grief is explored differently every time I read it. Each book deals with loss of a family member, and often at a key time in a child or teen’s life, when they’re aware of things changing and life changing. This is different depending on the age of the child character, but it always comes back to the understanding that we all have death in our lives and that everyone learns how to cope with grief in different ways. Young adult books have been doing this in a touching and evocative way. It captures the heart of grief and the heightened emotions that come with it, as well as the ways that people work to make things normal…to make sure life moves on and that nothing has changed. It also speaks to shifts in cultural movements and ideas, and societal responses to climate change, animal rights and shifts in the political environment and how people see what things can mean to different people. It is a touching examination of friendship, grief and connection with a touch of romance amidst it all. It’s a lovely, gentle novel that has heart in everything it does and celebrates the little things that make us who we are, and allow us to embrace what we need to in life to move forwards when we feel like we are stuck.