The Best Thing

A new edition of Margo Lanagan's brave, exhilarating novel about the passion and pain of teenage love, sexuality and childbirth. A book for adult readers as well as young adults.Shortlisted, Ethel Turner Prize, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 1996I'm like a person being tossed up in a blanket - all around me people are gripping the edges and laughing and throwing me up, getting right into the game, while I fly and fall above their heads, too scared to tell them to stop.Mel's life is chaotic. At school her ex-friends have ganged up on her, at home her parents have lost touch with her and each other. Pug is the only good thing - loving him, in his untidy room scented and shadowed by frangipani, she finds passionate fulfilment. But his world is so different from hers - can they possibly make it together? And can she let him in on her overwhelming secret?Learning to accept herself and him and the new life growing inside her is painful - but being Mel, she...