Laurinda is a story of identity and conflicting desires. Floaters didn’t exist here: you had to attach yourself to the bottom of some massive Friend Ship like a clinging barnacle, and if you were at the bottom of the ship, you had to go wherever that ship sailed.Īt Laurinda the girls are outwardly well behaved, but underneath their politeness, theirs is a world of subtle, complex rules where ‘mistakes meant annihilation’. And these rules are strictly enforced by ‘a trio of girls so powerful they were collectively known as “the Cabinet”.’ When the Cabinet take an interest in Lucy she knows she should feel grateful, but she doesn’t agree with their behaviour and can’t help feeling that their interest in her is only skin deep.ĭoes Lucy really want to fit in if it means joining the Cabinet? How is she supposed to embody the Laurinda spirit when she has to help her mother with her sewing and babysit her little brother instead of playing sport and joining the debating team? Most importantly, can she enjoy the opportunities Laurinda has to offer while still remaining true to herself? … Back at Christ Our Saviour, it was okay to drift in and out of friendship groups, so long as you weren’t a backstabber or someone with an annoying habit like a tendency to squeal in a high-pitched voice or lie pathologically about your boyfriends… At Laurinda it didn’t happen like that. But the girls at Laurinda have never been to Stanley, and Laurinda is nothing like Christ Our Saviour.

But before Lucy can start thinking about university and her future career, she has to survive Laurinda.Īt her old Catholic school, Christ Our Saviour, Lucy was a leader among her peers. Fitting in was easy because even though her friends didn’t all share her cultural background, most of their parents were also new to Australia and they’d grown up in working-class Stanley, just like her. They see Lucy’s scholarship as her ticket out of the western suburbs.

Margot McGovern reviews Alice Pung’s YA novel, Laurinda.įifteen-year-old Lucy Lam can’t believe her luck when she wins a scholarship to Laurinda, one of the city’s most exclusive private schools. And her family couldn’t be prouder: having arrived as refugees from Vietnam a decade earlier, her father is a factory shift worker and her mother fills illegal sewing orders for designer brands in their back shed.

Laurinda by alice pung