Full Review

Grace is a gifted violinist, but her mum wants her to focus on getting good school results, not an uncertain career in performance. Crux is an aspiring street artist, who has promised his dad he’ll only paint in his garage until he’s older – it’s illegal for him to carry spray cans underage. They both long to spread their creative wings, but don’t want to disappoint their families. And then lockdown happens. Crux sees a viral video of Grace secretly playing a violin in an abandoned tram and spray paints her image on a wall. She sees it and reaches out to him, and they form a bond. Can they overcome family disapproval and Covid to reach for their dreams?

I really enjoyed this novel – much more than I expected to. I thought it would be ‘worthy’ and a bit boring… but it was actually really fun to read, with plenty of playful features (like the Covid chorus of social media posts at the start of each chapter), and a lovely romance. I also loved reading about Grace’s family dynamic, with her go-getting, somewhat controlling mum, and the three perfect daughters who start breaking out and asserting their own choices and identities. Watching how the author brings Grace’s and Crux’s stories closer and then intertwines them was enjoyable too. The message about the importance of art and creativity is a life affirming angle on the pandemic lockdowns. At times, I thought the theme was perhaps hammered a little too hard – but overall I found this a great read, both literary and accessible.

Verdict: Page-turning pandemic verse novel.

Title: Grace Notes

Author: Karen Comer

Cover: design and additional internal typography by Astred Hicks, Design Cherry; cover and internal art by Karen Farmer (@karen_farmer)

First published: Hachette Australia, 2023

Length: 327 pages

ISBN: 9780734421722

Awards: Winner: 2024 CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers category; shortlisted for the 2024 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards for the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature; shorlisted for the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for Young Adults; shortlisted for the 2024 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing

Other: Teachers’ Resources available from Karen Comer’s website

Genre: contemporary realistic fiction; coming of age; romance

Representation: nothing obvious. An extremely minor character is LGBT.

Suitability: years 7-12.

Fyi: domestic violence (subplot); set during Covid pandemic and lockdowns; illness and death of elderly relative; drunkenness (minor character); relatively minor teenage disobedience; family tension

Themes: the importance of art; individual dreams vs family expectations; coming of age; love; safety vs risk; resilience (see teachers’ notes)

Literary features/tropes: Grace Notes is a verse novel, so it’s rich with imagery and symbolism, particularly about art and music, with evocative line breaks and spacing. It’s told through the alternating first person perspectives of Grace and Crux. The novel is introduced by epigraphs, and each chapter is prefaced by a “Covid chorus” of statistics and social media posts, illustrating people’s responses to Covid and lockdowns as the pandemic progresses. It’s quite multimodal, with the verse, social media posts, line breaks/layout, text bubbles, different fonts and a couple of little illustrations. See teachers’ notes and some pics below:

Cover notes: I like that we can see the picture Crux painted of Grace playing the violin (sans face mask). I think I heard Paul Macdonald say that the cover also won a CBCA award, but I can’t find any details about it online.

NSW syllabus: good wide reading choice for all high school ages. It’s suitable for study: would make a good English text for years 8 or 9. Because it’s a verse novel, it’s rich in meaning and literary techniques, but it’s also highly accessible, with lots of white space on each page. All students can feel like they’re making rapid reading progress, which can make a big difference to their enthusiasm levels! It’s also about people their own age (the main characters are fifteen), and features the ever-popular alternating narrative perspectives – particularly good for co-ed school study, as it features both male and female protagonists and perspectives.

If you like this, try: other verse novels, e.g. The Simple Gift by Steven Herrick or Sister Heart by Sally Murphy. Other books about individual dreams vs family expectations, e.g. Two Can Play That Game by Leanne Yong. Other sweet YA romance novels, e.g. Love and Other Great Expectations by Becky Dean. Other novels about the creative process, e.g. One Song by A. J. Betts. Other books about Covid lockdowns, e.g. I Miss You, I Hate This by Sara Saedi.

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