The Yearbook Committee (Sarah Ayoub, HarperCollins)

4 February 2016 Unlocked content from the archive. Books+Publishing

Five very different Year 12 students find themselves on the Yearbook Committee for their prestigious private school. Some are loners and some are popular, but all are facing their own battles: bullying; peer pressure; divided loyalties between two cities; a dream-destroying injury; a mother incapacitated by depression. At first, the committee is a disaster, but as the year goes on each of them begins to bring their own skills and interests to the task, and friendships are formed. But the pressures they face can turn to tragedy in a moment. The Yearbook Committee is a mostly hopeful coming-of-age story. The prose and characterisation are a little pedestrian, but there are heart-warming moments of loners coming together and people learning to stand up for themselves. A tragedy at the end of the book establishes the real stakes of the characters’ struggles, but it doesn’t entirely work emotionally: it feels a little like a shock afterthought to an already-completed story, despite the foreshadowing in the prologue. The Yearbook Committee should appeal to middle- and upper-high school fans of realistic contemporary fiction who don’t mind some tragedy in their stories.

Jarrah Moore is a primary literacy editor at Cengage Learning Australia

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