Let's Never Speak of This Again
Megan Williams
Let’s Never Speak of This Again
Megan Williams
2024 CBCA Older Readers Honour Book
Ella and I have been best friends since grade one. We can spend hours talking about everything and nothing. We know each other's greatest fears, things that irrationally annoy us, and ideal career if money and skill weren't an issue. If there was only one Hartford Bakery brownie left in the whole world and it was somehow in my possession, Ella is the only person I'd consider sharing it with.
Life is pretty good for sixteen-year-old Abby. Okay, her grandma doesn't remember things anymore, her relationship with her mum is increasingly strained and she accidentally kissed her cousin's cousin on the weekend, so things aren't exactly perfect. But everything is manageable with her best friend, Ella, by her side.
And with Ella's brother, Will, interesting and attentive, on the sidelines.
When new girl Chloe arrives, Abby is pleased to be the one to show her around, to welcome her to the group. But Abby doesn't imagine Chloe fitting in so well or quite so quickly. And before long Abby is feeling just a little left out, a little unsure of Ella's friendship. In a moment of anger and confusion she wishes something bad would happen.
When it does-with tragic consequences-everything shifts again. And Abby has to face her own feelings and work out what friendship really means.
Megan Williams' brilliant debut Let's Never Speak of This Again is a tender, moving story laced with humour, about friendship, about the things that test it, and about what matters most.
Review
Aurelia Orr
Megan Williams’ debut novel, which won the 2022 Text Prize, is an authentic, gorgeously written story about friendship, teen angst, grief, and discovering one’s identity and independence.
Abby’s life is good. No, she may not be popular, and her best experience with boys so far was accidentally kissing her cousin’s cousin (not blood-related!) at a wedding. But Abby’s life is still fun, with sleepovers and watching The Bachelor with her friends, dodging her mother’s helicopter habits, and simply surviving high school.
But things start to change. At a party she is too drunk to remember, a boy kisses her, and Abby is confused as to whether she wanted to be touched or not. The new girl, Chloe, joins their friendship group, and Abby feels she is losing her best friend, Ella, to Chloe. The thought of Ella leaving her sparks a bitter jealousy inside that makes her wish for something bad to happen to Ella – until it does, and nothing is the same again.
This novel is a bittersweet eulogy to growing older, people changing, friendships growing and breaking apart. With the dawn of adulthood just a few years away and the dusk of childhood a few years ago, teenagers are stuck in this bewildering period where innocence is replaced with angst and confusion about their identity, their sexuality, and their place in the world, which Williams explores with ardent humour and heart. This is not a book you’ll be able to say goodbye to easily. For ages 15+.
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