- Most Popular Audiobooks
- New Audiobooks
- Kids Audiobooks
- Teen Audiobooks
- See all audiobooks collections
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
—Yves Rees, Australian Book Review
A breathtaking, sliding-doors, will-they-won’t-they love story and a tender epic that explores the weight of a choice, the love of community and how joy is found in even the darkest corners.
Newcastle, Australia, 1972. On a sticky summer night, a choice must be made: To give in to queer desire or suppress it? To venture into the unknown or stay the course? In alternating chapters, we trace the two versions of a life that follow.
In one, a teenage girl is caught kissing her neighbor and is kicked out from her home. She lands at a queer communal home in Sydney called Uranian House, where she meets the people who will forever become her family. Meanwhile, in the second, a teenage girl pushes down her lustful dreams of her best friend and eventually makes her way to a university in Sydney to study English literature.
During pivotal moments, the physical space between these two women closes—like when they each meet the first great loves of their lives in 1977 at a protest, or when, almost a decade later, they are both rushed to the hospital with only a curtain between them. Through the AIDS crisis—and from classrooms to art galleries, beds to bars and hospitals to homes—we witness these two lives shadow each other until, finally and poignantly, they collide.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
June 3, 2025 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780593852736
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780593852736
- File size: 1162 KB
-
-
Accessibility
The publisher provides the following statement about the accessibility of the EPUB file supplied to OverDrive. Experiences may vary across reading systems. After borrowing the book, you may download the EPUB files to read in another reading system.
Summary
This ebook features mark-up that supports accessibility and enables compatibility with assistive technology. It has been designed to allow display properties to be modified by the reader. The file includes a table of contents, a defined reading order, and ARIA roles to identify key sections and improve the reading experience. A page list and page break locations help readers coordinate with the print edition. Headings allow readers to navigate the ebook quickly by level. Images are well described in conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Colors meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA contrast standards. There are no hazards.
Ways Of Reading
Appearance of the text and page layout can be modified according to the capabilities of the reading system (font family and font size, spaces between paragraphs, sentences, words, and letters, as well as color of background and text).
All content can be read as read aloud speech or dynamic braille.
Has alternative text descriptions for images.
Conformance
The publication contains a conformance statement that it meets the EPUB Accessibility and WCAG 2 Level AA standard.
The publication was certified by Penguin Random House LLC.
This publication claims to meet EPUB Accessibility 1.1 WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
Navigation
Table of contents to all chapters of the text via links.
Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation.
Additional Information
Page breaks included
High contrast between text and background
Color is not the sole means of conveying information
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
December 1, 2024
Hardcastle (Below Deck) makes their American debut with this coming-of-age story that has already won the Kathleen Mitchell Award in Australia and been optioned by Sony for a TV series. The book relates the mirroring of two lives across a similar timeline, as they almost intersect and then profoundly collide. Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2024 Library Journal
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-
May 1, 2025
One night in Australia in 1972, a teenage girl's life story bifurcates into two ""limbs."" In limb one, she has sex with the girl next door and is violently ejected from her home by her parents. In limb two, she dreams of the act but suppresses her desire and conforms to social norms. Hardcastle (Below Deck, 2020) chooses the perfect metaphor for their story, because though the two limbs diverge, they remain attached to the same body. As the two versions unfold, one a marginalized, queer existence and the other a married, heteronormative life, they also parallel and converge in touchstone moments: love, sex, loss, and the AIDS epidemic. Of the image of her body in a wedding dress, the protagonist says, ""It is two things at once . . . I imagine another picture, another story, unfolding somewhere else."" Vivid and poignant, with flashes of the experimental and poetic, the novel serves as a record of queer life in Australia in the '70s and '80s and asks us to consider how and why we love.COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-