Tearing Myself Together (Anna Whateley, A&U Children’s)

Anna Whateley’s raw, authentic representations of neurodivergent young women in Tearing Myself Together offer the kind of windows and mirrors that are still too rare in Australian young adult fiction. Drawing on lived experience, Whateley (author of the CBCA-shortlisted Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal) explores the endurance required to navigate a society that often lacks understanding and support for people with invisible disabilities. Seventeen-year-old Hilzy is trying to finish her secondary education without parental or financial support, sharing a precarious home life with her older sister, Max. Their situation worsens when Hilzy loses her job at a pizza restaurant because she is labelled “clumsy”, rather than recognised as autistic and living with ADHD and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, an incurable and painful connective tissue disorder. Max becomes her sole support after Hilzy’s best friend, Imogen, reports concerns about her wellbeing to social services. Whateley does not gloss over the disruptive and debilitating reality of life with invisible disabilities, nor the failure of the Australian healthcare system and the systemic gaps faced by those living in poverty. Yet moments of care – such as a bulk-billing GP who goes above and beyond, Max’s fierce devotion, and the gradual repair of Hilzy and Imogen’s friendship – infuse the novel with hope. The reconciliation between the girls, grounded in shared experiences of neurodivergence, invisible disabilities and care, is deeply moving and life-affirming.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Ilona Urquhart has a PhD in literary studies and currently works as a children’s and youth services librarian on the Bellarine Peninsula. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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

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