Alyssa Brugman’s first novel Finding Grace was shortlisted for the2002 Children’s Book Council Award for Older Readers.  I will be very surprised if Walking Naked, her second novel, does not do the same.  I know I’m always telling you to go out and read this book and that, but Walking Naked is a book from which most teenage girls, their teachers and their parents, will learn invaluable lessons – lessons about priorities, about communication, about the cost of individuality and about true friendship.

I am not usually a great fan of realist novels.  I am usually quite drained after reading them – give me a fantasy, however demanding, anytime, but Walking Naked was something quite different.  It contains some of the funniest passages I have read, and students and teachers alike will cringe at the accuracy of some of the school scenes.  Having read Walking Naked I will never be able to think about a class English novel in the same way.  It is also a gut-wrenching book and I found myself weeping spontaneously and uncontrollably.  Such is Brugman’s masterful ability to manipulate her readers, without the story becoming preachy or clunky in its execution.

The two main characters of the book attend the same school but live in different worlds.  The friendship between Megan, who is second-in-charge of the coolest group in the school and Perdita, who is a gifted social outcast, is surprisingly real.  Brugman works hard to present as many aspects of Megan and Perdita as possible so that we can understand the complex nature of their friendship.  The other girls in Megan’s group are harshly drawn stereotypes but strangely this device worked for me.  The over-simplification of these girls creates a dangerous landscape against which Megan secretly begins her friendship with Perdita.  The stereotypes reinforce the shallowness of Megan’s previous friendships and tempt her to engage in a friendship with no easy answers. 

Brugman’s deliberate intention was to ‘write a novel about playground politics’.  Her strong desire to plot a story about sly emotional bullying, as opposed to the more up-front physical or verbal bullying often tackled in novels like this, sends home very strong messages about how easy it is to push people over the edge. 

This is not a novel with a happy ending, but its optimism lies in the fact that it is about second chances, and sticking around long enough to cash in those extra lives.   Highly recommended.

Other books by this author:
Finding Grace (Allen & Unwin, 2001)

Review by Sarah Mayor Cox

© 2002 Sarah Mayor Cox