DISCLAIMER: I was given a digital ARC copy to review from Ylva Publishing.

Recensione in italiano qui: http://thereadingpal.blogspot.it/2016/10/recensione-20-heres-thing.html

Here is the thing: there's nothing,
nothing, better than the feeling you get when you discover you managed to
capture exactly what you wanted to capture.


Here's The Thing is a book that I didn't like, at first. Yes, the summary was interesting and the premise good, but Zel wasn't a person I would have talked to, to be honest. I hated Prim, and I wanted Zel to be with Stella.
Zel complained too much about how she missed New York and that she didn't like Sydney, but in the end the only link she had to NY city was Prim... With whom had endend badly.
In Sydney she instead found a group of friends made of Stella, Michael, Anthony, and Ashani.
During the reading I had to change my mind on everything. The characters got better and in the end I kind of pitied both Zel and Prim. It is difficult to understand one own's feelings, even more if one is LGBT and consequently "out of the norm". And that's kind of what the book is about: the desire to love and be loved, without being forced, without labels.
You can enter in the story because it's like if Zelda was in front of you, telling you her story: a thing that I enjoyed quiete a lot, because then you enter better in the character's head, and you understand much more Zel's conflicting feelings... And, going on with the story, you see the other characters as she sees them, the good and the bad.
All in all I think it was a great read, and I recommend everyone to read it. I would willingly read another book by this authoir, as I liked her writing style! ( )

At the start of this book, it seemed like it was going to be a standard slice-of-high-school-life thing. Well, not quite standard, since for one thing, lesbian heroine, and for another, set in Australia (even though I am Australian, America still tends to be everywhere in fiction). But really, it ended up mostly being a story about art. I'm not an arty sort of person, but I still loved the journey Zel's projects took me on.

"Here's the thing: I've never really got dance, but I also didn't know until now you don't really have to. You just watch it. And if it's good, it makes you feel it."
That's what Zel said after the first time she saw Stella dance, and it sums up my experience with this book too. I don't really get dance or photography, but when I leaned into the story, it made me feel it.

I felt a connection to Zel's tendency to be drawn toward difficult people and become their friend through patient stubbornness. Both because I am a difficult people (I'm very quiet, like Stella and Antony), and because I'm drawn to them as well (I tend to befriend people who are loud and 'annoying'). I like what she had to say about friendship and romance and awkward collisions of need between people.

I also loved the bit about refugee rights. That's a cause I've been passionate about for a long time.

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review) ( )