Stay with Me (Maureen McCarthy, A&U)

Tess came to Byron Bay as a lost 17-year-old and met a guy who looked like a rock star. When he started to hit her, she was already in too deep, and now he says that if she tries to leave with their three-year-old daughter, he will find her and kill her. On the run, relying on the kindness of a stranger to reach the estranged family she left in Melbourne, Tess is sure she will never be safe again. Stay with Me is told in three time frames: Tess’ present-day escape, her relationship with the charismatic and abusive Jay, and the complicated love and deep family rifts of her childhood. The portrayal of abuse is sensitive and thoughtful, and Tess’ escape is often thrilling. The characters are vividly real, including three-year-old Nellie, and there is a beautiful sense of place. But the book seems to run out of time to properly bring its threads together. The thematic parallels with Tess’ great-grandmother, committed to an asylum by her husband, feel unfinished, the family reunion rushed, and the final confrontation unsurprising and not as cathartic as it could have been. Despite this, Stay with Me is a powerful and sympathetic story that will speak to many older YA readers.

Jarrah Moore is a primary literacy editor at Cengage Learning Australia