SuitabookMy Tiki Girl
Jennifer McMahon
- Reading
- Consider reading alongside the child, checking in around the accident, sexual material and homophobia. Afterwards, discuss which changes feel chosen, which are pressured, and how the book’s ultimately hopeful direction affects your response.
- Themes
- Grief and guilt: Maggie’s mother has died in a car accident, and Maggie attributes responsibility to herself. The story places grief and guilt at the centre of Maggie’s alienation and possible change.
- Love and outsider identity: Maggie and Dahlia, both portrayed as outsiders, develop a friendship that becomes romantic and sexual. Their relationship is presented as central to the characters’ growth, while surrounding homophobia introduces conflict.
- Identity, behaviour and social pressure: Dahlia’s friendship leads Maggie through new identities and outrageous behaviour; the girls also face school alienation and homophobia. The narrative appears interested in experimentation and transformation, but its judgement of particular behaviour is unclear.
- Worth knowing
- Be prepared for bereavement, self-blame connected with a fatal car accident, sexual content within the romance, swearing, mental illness in Dahlia’s mother and painful homophobia.