The author does a good job of addressing the various issues within Australia of immigration, race relations, and gentrification. Overall I liked this book but found that the style where it was kind of like the chapters were their own vignettes with a connecting theme (her father’s death) made me feel a bit disconnected from the story.

Just when I was completely fed up with millennial auto fiction along comes Friends and Dark Shapes. I thought this was a more deeply felt story that what I have been reading lately. The main character is dealing with real world grief over the death of her father and the break up of her long term relationship. While there was still the worry over making ends meet in a gig economy these characters were more concerned with honestly making their way in the world.

Kavita Bedford's debut novel is a standout amongst the recent glut of navel-gazing millennial novels (no shade; navel-gazing and self-absorption has been encouraged in us from the time we were brought home as the center of the universe to our parents' houses with backyards and garages, which they purchased on hourly wages and no college educations in the eighties, while they give us their smug advice that we should stop renting and just buy, like it's a matter of putting up $500 and extending a handshake). The reason Bedford's novel is different is that rather than avoiding grown-up duties, chronicling days of drugs and drink and sex, she interrogates the circumstances of these restless days. It's not that we don't want to grow up, she seems to say. It's that we can't. How can we set down roots if we can't afford it? How are we expected to behave like grown-ups when we're pushing thirty and living with roommates? This isn't a choice we made; the ladder's up and we're on our own. And we're blamed for gentrification, as if we're the ones with the money tearing down institutions and erecting condos. But we're just the tenants. I can guarantee you that the vast majority of the condos which replaced your "favorite" bar that you went to once in 2003 are not owned by millennials. We just pay their mortgages.

But I digress. Bedford's novel is told in tens of mostly-short chapters and divided into the seasons of the year. At the pit of the peach is the death of the narrator's father a year earlier. Bedford's vignettes have a Cusk-ian (a comparison that I've relied on way too heavily as of late, but the fact remains that Cusk may be the single most influential writer on the types of contemporary novels I read) quality of narrative dialogue that is struggling a bit to find its voice, which lends itself to the dread of the unknown - the "dark shapes" - that permeate the novel.

“We take solace in whatever small thing we can, because at our core, we are all scared of losing the things we have”.

I literally weeped when this novel ended. Its the first book in a long time....that I wanted to immediately, begin at the beginning and start reading a second time.
It’s the type of book that keeps you up late at night. The writing is strong, delicate, thought provoking, relatable, and beautiful.
I don’t think I can fully articulate how this novel emotionally resonated with me.
It explores many issues: how life shapes us...
...... through politics, religion, aging, wars, magnolia trees, friends, fears, loneliness, unbearable unspeakable‘s, Shane, grief, memories of old friends/families and times lived instead in the past, busy lives, work, obligations, parties, cooking, eating, drinking, talking, discussing, connecting, celebrating small or insignificant moments, dating, temporary living experiences, sipping tea, Sunday night dinners, orphan Christmases, mocking people, traveling, trappings of modernity, technology and progress, things we have control over and don’t, medias sensationalism, the government, shark mitigation, superstitions, dreams, secrets, worries of the unknown future, racism, etc.
BUT....it wasn’t exactly the above issues - [explored through young adults becoming more independent - or letting go of expectations from both within and external society’s pressures].....it was SOMETHING ELSE ....that I loved so very much: Things harder to put in words.

The characters grappled with who they were - who they were becoming - what they missed - what they desired ....and how to become their true selves.
Personally, I think some of the hardest years in a person’s life is the *twenties*. Even if having completed college...have landed secure jobs...I’m not sure 20- and even most 30 years old yet...feel anchored in our fast changing world.
For me, my twenties were painful - lonely years. No matter how many meals I shared with friends, ‘loss’ and ‘loneliness’ was a shadow that never left me.

The characters in “Friends and Dark Shapes” created a type-of-family with each other...’shared-housing’ .... They had Sunday dinners together... and genuinely respected one another.
Yet....
they each had individual struggles navigating their lives. Mum’s and Dad’s were not nearby security nets.
The housemates were Niki, Sami, Bowerbird, and .....we never learn the name of the narrator.
They had their sets of friends, jobs, and hobbies. They all liked art.
Niki painted, Sami ( ha), paid to appreciate everyone else art, Bowerbird played guitar, and our narrator did some writing.
They each dealt with ( a certain amount), of loss, fears, grief, loneliness, shame, values, and desires. Their feelings of their temporary transitory lives, created an aching yearning for connections.

The main characters were almost thirty years of age — educated —
‘housemates’ in Redfern.... an inner city suburb of Sydney, Australia.
I absolutely loved the setting.
A few of my favorite people on Goodreads live in Australia. I’d love to visit one day.

I smiled big time when I read this sentence...( thinking me, me, me)
“I would love to see Sydney as a stranger, for the first time. Be like a tourist and drive down from the city and see that magical dip of the ocean, and the frangipani trees hugging the coastline, and the surfers riding waves as smooth as oil, and think, maybe here my life could change”.

I enjoyed getting to know the characters in “Friends & Dark Shapes”.
*Sami* wanted to quit his job in law, but he didn’t know how to tell his parents, who came from Palestine. His parents already didn’t understand his living situation.
“Try explaining a ‘share house’ to Palestinian parents, he says, and how I live with women that I cook with, and share a bathroom with, but who I am not married to”.

*Niki* came from a Cambodian family. Her dad escaped the Khmer Rouge. He was always so silent when she was growing up and she never understood why.
When Niki grew up, she wanted to be around noise.
When she was sixteen, she was picked as a model. It was her ticket out of a small backward coastal town in South Australia. She traveled to Tokyo, and Milan, and London .
There were young girls from all over the world who all started to look alike with their tiny waif starved bodies.
Nikki left that world of glamour—had enough— but she had nothing to show for it and had to start all over. She said she was one of the lucky ones because she had parents who were able to support her.

I ‘do’ wish the narrator ( whom I liked), was given a name ... not that it was a problem for me while reading...but when I want to talk about a book with a friend, it’s easier if I could just give her a name.
We meet several supporting characters - too - friends of friends.

There are so many gorgeous sentences...stimulating, provocative, rousing, and refreshing.
“I wake up each morning, he says, and it’s feminism, and porn, and one night stands, and Tinder, and rape culture, and politicians who hate abortions, and my girlfriend who had one and said it felt like a vacuum cleaner inside her, and shit, man, I feel dizzy, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to act anymore, you know. I feel like a schizo. I love hanging out with boys at Jubilee Park, and popping pills, and half my friends are girls, and we get high together, and that one night my friend asked for my help, because she trusted me, so I hugged her, and we were both drunk and I touched her hair, and it turned into more, and she sort of said no, but she also kept going, and then afterwards when she cried, I wondered if I was wrong.
But I have to shake away the site or I will go insane . . .”

Sami wanted to quit his job in law, but he didn’t know how to tell his parents, who came from Palestine. His parents already didn’t understand his living situation.
“Try explaining a ‘share house’ to Palestinian parents, he says, and how I live with women that I cook with, and share a bathroom with, but who I am not married to”.

Niki, came from a Cambodian family. Her dad escaped the Khmer Rouge. He was always so silent when she was growing up and she never understood why.
When Niki grew up, she wanted to be around noise.
When she was sixteen, she was picked as a model. It was her ticket out of a small backward coastal town in South Australia. She traveled to Tokyo, and Milan, and London .
There were young girls from all over the world who all started to look alike with their tiny waif starved bodies.
Nikki left that world of glamour—had enough— but she had nothing to show for it and had to start all over. She said she was one of the lucky ones because she had parents who were able to support her.

Our narrator remembers words from her father... contemplates....
“It has never been that clear to me, my dad went on, who the real enemy is in any war. During the Second World War people at least felt they were defending their own country, standing up for Australia, which I can understand. But this is so different. Young people from our own country want to join foreign wars to fight against the west. At some point, we have to turn inwards and look at ourselves, and our own country, and ask how we got to this point. How is it we have young people here who want to fight against us? And that’s something no one wants to think about”.

“It feels like everyone is screaming at each other these days, so certain of their position, and I am not sure that what we need is another opinion”.

Beautiful...honest...real people...resonates....
....an outstanding debut by Kavita Bedford, an award-winning Australian-Indian writer.

Thank You, Netgalley, Kavita Bedford, and Europa Editions