She lives in Adelaide with her cat, Doris, and her 1962 caravan, Cecil. Rose Hartley is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia via Better Reading for providing me with a copy of Maggie’s Going Nowhere for #BRPreview. Who would have thought that this would end up a five star read for me? Highly recommended and I sincerely hope this one gets adapted for film or TV. Maggie’s Going Nowhere is addictive and entertaining, I read it in a day, laughing and shaking my head all the way through. In essence, this novel is about Maggie’s coming of age – very late coming of age – but it also touches on some Australian contemporary themes of importance: homelessness, the struggle to find work if you have no skills or a prison record, and the utter ridiculousness of dealing with Centrelink – Maggie’s experiences sure brought back some memories from my own student days of dealing with that organisation. Nevertheless, every now and again, I am utterly surprised and delighted by a book and enjoy every single sentence of it, as was the case with Maggie’s Going Nowhere. I’m not usually one to like a character who typifies the very definition of a no-hoper, much less one who is an over-entitled bludger with zero tact and no ambition whatsoever to improve their lot in life, preferring instead to blame others for her problems whilst holding out a hand for a spare fifty. For someone who’s spent her life avoiding hard work, she sure can move mountains when she’s got a little motivation – just don’t ask her to move the caravan. With a decrepit 1960s caravan to call home, Maggie has to prove to her mother she can survive without a safety net, stop her loyal best friend Jen from marrying a scumbag, and convince her sexy workmate Rueben that she’s not a walking disaster. And that was before she received the letter saying she owed the government $70,000. In one day, she’s dumped by her boyfriend, disinherited by her mum, and kicked off the three-year degree course she’d stretched to a decade. In Maggie, Hartley has created one of those indelible characters of whom we must thoroughly disapprove and yet cannot help but love.’ Karen Joy Fowler
If you enjoy Fleabag, you’ll adore Maggie!
Maggie’s Going Nowhere is a fierce and funny debut introducing a thoroughly relatable and offbeat heroine.
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