Rosa is in a correctional facility. Her partner in crime has vanished.
There wasn’t supposed to be a crime, let alone the string of them Rosa has been imprisoned for. Left to deal with the fallout alone, her counsellor suggests she write about it, maybe explain what really happened?
Rosa begins her story, speaking directly to the reader with a flick back to when she was in Year 7 and her life unravelled. Her grandparents had lived with them forever but when Pop passed away and Nan went into a home, her parents realised there wasn’t much holding them together anymore.
Rosa went from happy with friends to a girl who just wanted to be invisible.
It was Akeesha who saw her, sorting out a bully in her brash, fiery, confident way.
Ever since, they’ve been friends, Rosa still quiet and more tag-a-long than equal, but feeling better about herself now in high school.
One night Rosa and Akeesha are hanging out with Akeesha’s boyfriend and his ‘boys’. It’s never fun for Rosa, as usual just going along with what’s happening.
This includes getting in Arnold’s car with Akeesha as she steals it from under his nose. It is supposed to be payback for his treatment of her lately, but quickly turns into a road trip of crime, violence, freedom, self expression, and release from expectation of parents, teachers and boys.
Girls in Boys Cars isn’t an adventure / road trip story, it’s more than that. Rosa is telling you her story, with all the little side trips a real tale takes. She’s not sure where to start and is concerned about keeping your interest, eg. whether she should add the sex bits.
She does mention this but as with the rest of her story, she’s disillusioned by it. She reveals her slow metamorphoses from invisible nobody to friend of popular girl, Akeesha. This is an unequal friendship but still one she is moulded by.
The road trip emboldens Rosa, helping her discover her true self, all the while as Australian bushfires redden the sun and smoke drifts closer.
Written for all the girls who aren’t ‘seen’, this is a thought-provoking novel about pressures and expectations put on girls by many who surround them. Friends, boyfriends, peers and even family.
Author – Felicity Castagna
Age – 15+
(2021, Pan Macmillan, Adventure, Betrayal, Crime, Family, Friendship, Growing up, Peer Pressure, Expectations, Road Trip, Bush Fires, Australia)