Boozer, brawler, ladies’ man – nineteen-year-old Harris Derwent is not a good guy.
His one attempt to play the hero – helping out his old flame, Rachel Watts – has landed him in hospital. Now injured, broke, and unemployed, he’s stuck back in the country, at his father’s mercy. Harris needs to pay off his dad’s debts, and fast. But working as a runner for a drug cartel is a dangerous path – especially if Harris agrees to narc…
Here it is, the review where I shamelessly drop that I've now met Ellie Marney twice. We talked about pens. I felt cool by association.
No Limits has its own backstory (how meta!) about a publishing company that didn't want to take a risk on a book about older characters that dealt with the ice industry in rural Australia and an author who was too awesome to give up. I could talk about it forever, but I'm not going to, because Ellie Marney did it better.
So instead of repeating what everyone else has already said better, I'm going to ramble on for a while about how this book made me feel.
Feeling 1: I feel like I know Harris. I mean, he's from Woopwoop (Australian for middle of nowhere) and I'm firmly cityfolk, but I think I went to school with him. Or maybe I'm related to him. I can't clearly explain how much it meant to me to see an Australian on paper who was a real Aussie instead of a person watered down for American consumption. Or the inverse, played up excessively until it reads like the fake accent you hear the token Australian on TV use. There aren't a lot of books that hit this sweet spot for me, but this was one of them.
Feeling 2: I swear I put this book down ready to go out and end the drug industry. All 5 feet 4 inches of me were moments away from storming down to Mildura to keep amoral businessmen from preying on the desperate. Then I remembered that I cry when poked too roughly and I sat down again.
Feeling 3: I love a good romance between a lovely girl and the heartbreaker guy who's never let emotions get involved in a shag. Especially when said heartbreaker is the one who falls head first. Just feed me previously-tough guys being bowled over by the strength of their adoration for the rest of my life, thanks.
Feeling 4: I have to get every person I possibly can to buy this book. Not just because it's sweet and sexy and real. Not just because it talks about important issues. But also because, when I was at the launch party, I saw and heard people telling their friends that if she could do it, maybe they could too? Someone I knew from university told me Ellie had inspired and encouraged them to self-publish their own YA novel, now they'd seen that she could produce a good quality product, maybe they could too. So, please buy No Limits. And then, please buy more Australian YA. Maybe one day you can buy mine too.
#LoveOzYA
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