Alice Bliss is a great kid. She is 15 years old and lives with her loving parents, Angie and Matt, high school sweethearts who still hold hands, and her precocious eight-year-old sister Ella who says things like ‘I’m reaching my limit with you, Alice. Just so you know.’ They live in a small town where people still care about each other and are ‘good at doing things that really matter’. Her Gram has reinvented herself after the death of her husband and runs a cafe lifted straight from the pages of Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes where Alice delivers bread every morning on her bicycle. She helps her father in their vegetable garden and walks her little sister to school every morning with her best friend Henry, whom she has known her whole life. All of this is more than a little too saccharine for my liking but Alice Bliss does develop into a compelling coming-of-age story.

Alice’s father Matt decides to go to Iraq because he wants to contribute – ‘I don’t think we should just send our kids to this war’ – and he does his best to prepare Angie and Alice for his departure: insurance policies, lists of phone numbers and cash reserves. Alice bears the brunt of his absence and steps up to keep the household running while her mother throws herself into her job. Alice’s behaviour is somehow too mature and not of this age, so it is something of a relief when she finally confronts the loss of her father. This is Harrington’s debut novel and she tries to address an overwhelming range of issues but her prose is easy to read and you can’t help but love Alice Bliss.

Justine Douglas is manager of Readings Port Melbourne