Cirrus@Austlit

'Two young women, brought up to expect conventional lives, are thrown together in unexpected circumstances. Each has suffered a devastating loss that challenges their belief in life and themselves. It’s rare to come across a work of deep psychological insight conveyed with such verve and lightness of touch.

'Kelly sweeps the reader into the lives and passions of her two central characters and into the bustling city streets of Sydney in the 1920s. A powerfully moving book that sparkles with vitality.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Adelaide. Summertime. 1985. Fourteen-year-old Frankie is struggling to make sense of her older sister Justine's admission to hospital with anorexia. But growing up is harder than it seems, and as the summer passes, Frankie has to try to make sense of her own life, too.

'Years later, looking back on her sister's illness from the perspective of adulthood, Frankie reflects on its effects on herself and Justine, and on how it shaped the women they became.

'A quiet, nuanced study of sisterhood and a portrait of the long-term effects of anorexia on a family, Ravenous Girls powerfully explores the chasms that lie between adolescence and adulthood, sickness and health, and intimacy and loneliness.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.