Hello everyone and welcome to a new book review Flames by Australian author Robbie Arnott. I believe this book is part of the Year 12 English curriculum in our Victorian Education system here in Australia.

I have to apologise in advance for the LONG explanation I share in this review. This book is magical realism so there's a lot of symbolism in it but I know I'm BARELY scratching the surface with it.

For students who are studying this book in school, I’d be interested in your interpretations of the themes in it so please share your thoughts because I have a sneaking suspicion, like any book, we will have our own interpretations and reflections about it based on our own ideas, values, experiences, backgrounds...

Flames is written in short chapters with different writing styles (sometimes I think the author was simply just trying to practice different writing genres - ha ha! - but it somehow all seems to work together) and there's also different perspectives of both humans and "gods". Personally, I found there's a lot to take in and try to understand.

At the heart of Flames, this book is about grief and relationships between human and; human and humans with nature. The destructive force of some male characters with the nurturing and regeneration of nature with other female characters too reminds me of Yin and Yang ☯️ of life and nature.

In this video, I try to explain my thinking - which admittedly, is still muddled (sometimes books do this to us - and frankly, it's good that they do this) - by showing my notes that I made to try and "piece together" the story.

I know I haven't done Flames justice but this is MY interpretation of it. Those far more articulate than me may see more in the story.

I saw elements of other stories, books, and even movies that may have inspired the author. Somehow as I read the book, I "saw" a melding of these in the one book and it seemed quite prevalent. Also there's a part of the book that simply didn't make sense to me - it felt that it 'had' to be put in there because of diversity and inclusivity but overall, it doesn't detract.

Over to you.

Have you read this book?

What did you think about its themes and symbols?

How would you explain this book?

For the record, despite it being "magical" it was highly engaging reading and I think it's because of the different writing styles and perspectives. It kept you guessing. It was enthralling reading throughout).

(What I also enjoyed was doing YouTube searches to learn more of the Tasmanian forest mentioned in this book but there's no way I'd take a walk in it by myself because it looks eerie)...

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