Maisy Hayes is Not For Sale by Allayne L Webster

Title: Maisy Hayes is Not For Sale

Author: Allayne L Webster

Genre: Contemporary YA

Publisher: Text Publishing

Published: 2^nd September 2025

Format: Paperback

Pages: 336

Price: $22.99

Synopsis:  I often sit and dream with all my might, but nothing’s happened. Yet. Maybe I’m not wishing hard enough. Maybe I’m not very good at believing it. It feels like I spend all my time dreaming, waiting for the life I was supposed to have to appear.

Maisy Hayes is doing it tough. There’s never enough money, even for the simple things like having a decent breakfast. Her friends have given up inviting her out. And then there’s her sister’s serious illness, her overwhelmed mum, and her latch-key kid brother. It’s a lot. Maisy never hears from her dad—not now that he’s got a fancy life in a different city with his new wife and kids. Why would he care?

Maisy’s angry. She feels ripped off. And she’s a first-class expert at hiding it—at making excuses, at covering her shame, pretending it doesn’t exist. But pretending will only get you so far…

When Maisy’s dad insists she go and stay with him and then lavishes her with spending money and extravagant gifts, it’s everything she always wanted.

So why doesn’t it feel right?

Maisy is forced to question what she really wants—and she must find the power within herself to make it happen.

Maisy Hayes Is Not For Sale is a heartfelt coming-of-age story about hardship, coping with anger and frustration, and being true to yourself.

~*~

Maisie Hayes is doing it tough. She feels stuck, she never hears from her dad, and between that and living in poverty with her mum and siblings, she hates her life. Hates having to make up excuses for not being able to go out, for not being able to have the things she needs for school. They’ve spent the past eight years in poverty, without help from Maisy and Luka’s father, and unsure what will happen if Liam’s father decides to come back. There’s never food in the house, and Maisy feels like her mother is more concerned with her best friend and her kid at times.

But she can hide it from everyone at school. She knows what to say when she has to say no to parties and social events, trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. Bobbie sees her though, sees how similar they are and for the first time, Maisy feels like she can trust someone with the secrets she’s never been able to talk about before.

One day, Maisy’s dad comes back into her life. He whisks her and Luka to Melbourne for the school holidays. He buys them phones, new clothes, computers – things that they have needed for school.  But even as he does this, Maisy feels like something isn’t right. It’s another side of the coin of monetary extremes, and now, Maisy isn’t sure where she fits in or what she wants. But she knows it’s not living with nothing, nor is it having everything. But what will she do when she gets home and everything that feels like it is going right, like it is getting somewhat on track, starts to go wrong?

Maisy spends the first half of novel hating what she has or doesn’t have. It’s isolating having to refuse to socialise all the time, especially when everyone around you can do it so easily and without worrying about if they can afford it. Maisy is fourteen and she sees and notices more than people realise. Everyone tells her that she’ll understand when she’s older. But I think Maisy understands from the beginning. She knows things aren’t fair, she knows that not being able to have the basics isn’t right, and she has dreams that are shattered as she learns what it is like having money and how her father is trying to prove himself, trying to make himself look better. It’s a fraught novel at times, because Maisy’s sister has a heart condition that most of their money goes on, and living off scraps and benefits is a reality that Maisy and many people face for any number of reasons.

This insightful young adult novel explores a different socioeconomic pathway, where the rich and poor, the haves and have-nots are represented. And it reveals that maintaining a certain image to keep up with whatever people expect you to. And being a teenager, Maisy is caught between loyalty to her family and wanting to fit in. Caught between hearing two different versions of what happened between her parents and who is to blame. It’s not an easy answer, of course. There are way too many layers for it to be an easy fix, for everything to work out well and always work out the way everyone wants. But something about Maisy’s trip to see her father ignites something in her and a realisation that money won’t solve all her problems. Sure, it might help some things. Like having the essentials, but having the best of everything is not quite what Maisy needs.

This book grapples with the realities of class and poverty, of fractured families and creating new connections with people you didn’t think you would get along with. And it’s about what we do when people make assumptions about us, or when they don’t realise that our lives are different. Everyone in this novel is flawed. There’s no single right answer either. Everyone is right at times, and everyone is wrong at times. It’s a story about human imperfection and finding out what works for us as people. About how we react to things and how we decide to deal with it in the moment. It’s dealing with things in the moment that have the powerful and emotional impacts that this novel needs to have to send a powerful message about being yourself. About being true to yourself and not letting anyone change that or tell you how to feel.

A fantastic coming-of-age story that reflects on family, friendship and the power dynamics that everyone experiences throughout their lives.