In-human: Anna Dusk

In Tasmania’s Oatlands, teenager Sally Hunter is becoming painfully aware of her new body and blossoming sexuality. But this is not an everyday tale of adolescence: Sally’s form and world is stretched and changed by her transformation into a werewolf, something unexpected, beautiful and bloody. The antithesis of Twilight’s sparkles and whimsy, Anna Dusk’s visceral writing style captures the reader like no other, with all the gore and brutality of death and murder coming to light as Sally unleashes her new self on the town.

Both poetic and gritty, the characters’ laconic speech and the way time and reality are twisted with Sally’s new outlook come together and bring you immediately into her life. In her dysfunctional family, her mother is drinking herself blind to Sally’s changes. Her friends are saturated with desire, and some are possibly hiding secrets of their own. Dusk’s talent for immediacy vividly portrays Sally’s initial confusion and sickness, and later, the eventual acceptance and love she has for her new form. Visually striking and undeniably confronting, In-human is an incredible read.