The Minnow by Diana Sweeney

I like the way that YA fiction tackles the overwhelming events that scar each passing year, offering young readers a way in through a character they may identify with. The Minnow, which won the Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing last year, follows teenager Tom (real name Holly) a year after she’s lost both parents and her sister in a flood. As if that were not devastating enough, she’s now pregnant by a man old enough to be her father. Abuse heaped on top of tragedy is a brave place to start a novel. Fortunately, Tom has a couple of escape routes.

She finds physical refuge with a loyal friend, Jonah, who’s also lost his family but is a rock for Tom. In other ways she’s cared for by her spirited grandmother and a high-school teacher. But what defines the novel are the unreal elements of Tom’s life. She has lucid conversations with her dead grandfather and unborn child (the minnow), and they are as much a part of the cast as anyone living.

The structure may lack clear signposts but I think the story is more interested in mood and symbolism than dramatic plot. This is an aftermath story, showing how people move on. The prose ably reflects Tom’s shock and disbelief at what has happened, and the tone rarely undulates, like Tom’s surface stoicism. This may keep the reader at arm’s length at first but will hopefully win their admiration in the end.


Emily Gale