The Convent (Maureen McCarthy, A&U)

Maureen McCarthy is one of Australia’s best-loved YA authors, and her latest novel The Convent tells a compelling coming-of-age story about fate, choices and family secrets. Nineteen-year-old Peach plans to spend the summer working at a café in the old Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne, looking after her troubled younger sister and avoiding her ex-boyfriend. But Peach soon discovers that the convent was once home to three generations of women in her family. As she unravels their stories, she must reassess everything she knows about who she is. McCarthy’s narrative moves between past and present, vividly capturing the lives of Peach and her forebears, and revealing fascinating truths about the harsh reality of life behind convent doors. Some of the action borders on sentimental, and Peach’s first-person voice is grating at times—she’s too self-absorbed to become wholly sympathetic. But McCarthy tells such an absorbing tale, full of buried secrets and family drama, that these faults can be overlooked. The experiences of her female protagonists have particular resonance as each attempts to find her place in the world and face the consequences of her choices. The Convent is a well-crafted novel with broad crossover appeal: adults are likely to get as much out of it as teenagers.  

Carody Culver is a bookseller at Black Cat Books in Brisbane and a PhD student

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews