As Lily tries to figure out whether or not to attend she considers the past, as she remembers it. Irreparably it seemed until out of the blue she receives a note from Eva asking her to an exhibition opening: a retrospective of her father's work. Lily is telling the story from a distance of 30 years, looking back to the interwar years and the most intense friendship of her life that was somehow broken. For a while it feels like an idyll, but there are tensions beneath the surface, which are bound to surface. This bohemian existence expands as other like-minded artists join the household. Lily rapidly becomes just one more female child about the place. The children, Eva her older sister Beatrice and the youngest girl Heloise, are allowed to roam freely while their parents focus almost exclusively on their art. They have the big house, with the sprawling grounds.

Why wouldn't she? Their life is everything her family's isn't. The girls fast become firm friends, to the exclusion of all those around them and it isn't long before Lily is spending more time at the Trentham's than she does at home. BOOK REVIEW: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE EAST BY XIAOL.Lily comes from an ordinary suburban family, but on her first day at a new school she meets Eva: the super-confident middle daughter of artist Evan Trentham.

BOOKSTAGRAM SPOTLIGHT: 10 SHORT BOOKS I WANT TO READ.BOOK REVIEW: ASTROPHYSICS FOR PEOPLE IN A HURRY BY.

If you're a fan of historical fiction, female friendships and coming of age stories, this is a must read. There's something about this that just captivated me, and although the story drags a little bit in the middle, this was so enjoyable and a book I imagine I will be think about a lot for a long time. Getting to see Lily live in this house and experience everything that goes on there is just amazing. I especially found the friendship between the main characters (Lily and Eva) to be really interesting, because it captures two girls growing into women, which is often a very intense and slightly painful experience.Īlthough we know this is set in 1930's Melbourne and we get glimpses into the art world of that era, what creates the true atmosphere is the house most of the story plays out in it's captured so wonderfully and vividly. The characters in this book are just fascinating and getting to see the dynamic of the different relationships is astonishing, it's so well captured. I thought this was such an interesting and compelling story, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

The strays emily bitto review