We Didn't Think It Through

WINNER: 2024 MARION ACT Book of the Year, Books for Older Readers
WINNER: 2024 Readings Young Adult Prize
SHORTLISTED: 2024 NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature
SHORTLISTED: 2024 NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Indigenous Writers' Prize
NOTABLE BOOK: 2024 CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers
SHORTLISTED: 2024 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, Young Adult Literature

Just look at that list of awards! And yet when I picked up a copy from the shelf at the Athenaeum, there were no stickers on it and I was completely unaware that We Didn't Think It Through by Gary Lonesborough was such a lauded novel.

Having read it now, I'm not at all surprised that it's garnered so many plaudits. We Didn't Think It Through takes us into the world and mind of a young First Nations man (Jamie is sixteen) who is teetering on the very edge of becoming lost in the justice system. Impulsive and drifting, Jamie takes part in a fateful car theft and is sent to 'juvie.' He's angry, he's sad, he's resentful, he's lonely. But there's also something thoughtful and tender inside Jamie that a few key relationships can draw out and build upon to turn him from the path he seems set upon following.

Jamie is a totally relatable kid who's been dealt a hard hand by life so far -- taken from his parents, living in a dead end town where First Nations kids aren't given second chances. But he does have some good things on his side: a loving foster family, a caring older brother, a teacher who sees his potential, a friend he makes in juvie, a social worker who takes the time to connect with him over poetry, and parents who are flawed, but do love him. The way ahead may not be easy for Jamie, but by the end of the book, you get the sense that he's going to make it.