I understand this is required reading in schools Australia as it presents the 'Australian experience'. I was clearly missing parts of the underlying story and found it rather gloomy. The character development is excellent as you become invested in, and learn to understand the main characters. The lack of quotation marks when speakers are speaking was somewhat confusing to me. I often had to retread to figure out if a passage was a thought or a spoken dialogue between characters. This book provoked a great deal of discussion in our group.