Favourite Books of 2017

Hello Darling Readers,

It’s that time of year again – looking back on the books that accompanied me on the journey this year. And, truth be told, 2017 has been a rollercoaster. A real doozy.

Donald Trump and all that that entails has been ludicrous and dangerous, mostly. #MeToo probably best encapsulates the lowest-lows and triumphant (fight-back) highs of the year. Australia is still spitting all over the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers, and we spent millions of dollars deciding people’s worth by straw-poll … we won, but at what cost?

‘Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology’ released this year, and it has been my honour to go round talking about this book and the supportive movement behind it. The cherry on top has undoubtedly been when the Anthology was voted for in the ABC Book Club’s finale episode as a reader-favourite, landing at No. 3 on the ‘Five of the Best’ list! I cannot even begin to thank you all enough for the #LoveOzYA love you’ve shown us!

And, personally, I became an Auntie this year! He’s only been here for a few weeks, but already I’m thinking of the bigger picture – and how I’m so lucky to be working as a literary agent now, and someone who will have a little bit of a say in the books Harrison and his generation will be reading. Maybe. Hopefully. And how I really don’t want to disappoint them, and I want to ensure they all have a book to recognise themselves in.

Below are some of the books that I certainly saw myself in this year – and appreciated having in my life. But it has been a tough one, and honestly – some days or weeks I didn’t feel like delving into a book, or working on a review. Sometimes it was just too hard, with all that was going on. And I gave myself permission to have recreational-reading ruts (because of course, the other part of this is I’m now reading a lot more in my working life).

I also eased up on myself for not reading ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that was new and fresh from *this* year. And I’m glad. Because I got to (finally) discover for myself, the wonders of Toni Jordan – and I absolutely inhaled her backlist. Ditto the sheer delight of Georgette Heyer. And I found a new middle grade favourite in 2008 book 'My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park' by Steve Kluger. Part of this was also remembering that I love my local library, and the solace it brings – the books it gifts me.  

I also pushed my reading boundaries this year – by reading some non-fiction (which I *never* normally do!) and absolutely falling in fascinated love with three of them. I’m also slowly getting into audiobooks (that aren’t just re-reads of my old favourites) and I found a whole new level of enjoyment, to memoir in particular.

So – yes – overall maybe I didn’t read quite as many books this year (manuscripts are a whole other story) but I gravitated, I think as we all do, to the ones I needed to read this year, to help me on my way. And I thank them for finding me.

… of course – part of my finding them was thanks to bookshops. Whether they were my steadfast locals (hello Farrells, Robinsons & Readings!) or the ones I stumbled across (like the *incredible* international bookshop at Denpasar airport!) – I am forever thinking of this quote from Adam Gopnik, in an essay of his, titled; ‘When a Bookstore Closes, an Argument Ends.’

At a minor level, once a bookstore is gone we lose the particular opportunities for adjacency it offers, determined by something other than an algorithm. It is rarely the book you came to seek, but the book next to that book, which changes your mind and heart.

So without further ado – here is a brief list of the books next to that book, which ended up being good friends to me in 2017.

Enjoy!

****

'The Good Daughter' by Karin Slaughter

Slaughter is my favourite crime-writer, and this latest stand-alone from her may even be pretty high up on my list of All Time Favourite Crime Novels. A heart-hurting slice of Georgia dark, from a crime-writer who has managed to pivot into family drama with such fine characterisations, that I find myself in awe of an author I already considered a favourite. I will only say that I’d have liked more courtroom drama – but I’ll quietly hope we get more, should this book prove to be the first in a series …

'Beautiful Messy Love' by Tess Woods

I absolutely adored this book, and gobbled it up in two days. I was actually surprised that I connected so viscerally with both couples and their stories – especially because one romance, between med-student Lily and the very tricky coupling with a grieving ex-husband Toby, sounds absolutely shocking in theory … but on the page, Woods teased this couple out with so much heat and sensuality, it was hard not to fall for them and root for them, even as all their biggest problems and obstacles were still painfully obvious. It’s romance that packs a punch, tender and thoughtful with a fantastic hot-streak. Tess Woods has now leapt to my auto-buy list, and I cannot wait to read more from her!

‘Devil in Spring’ The Ravenels #3 by Lisa Kleypas

Pandora is most definitely a throwback to Kleypas’s archetype ‘Wallflowers’ heroines – the shy but brilliant young lady with quirks and secrets. Her background is both tragic and admirable, and it’s easy to see why Gabriel is fascinated enough to warrant getting to know her better, only to fall in love with her … And Gabriel takes after his father as one of Kleypas’s better rakes. He’s thoughtful and kind, secretly feeling the pressure of his family and title and in need of someone like Pandora to keep him on his toes. It does feel really, really good to be back in the reading groove with Kleypas, who is one of those authors I come to rely on for a once-a-year release and guaranteed good read. And ‘Devil in Spring’ was a good way to get back in the groove.

‘Trust’ by Kylie Scott

Sexy and smart, very gritty and ... did I mention, sexy? It explores trauma, body-positivity, social classes ... and the central romance is strong and complex. Kylie Scott described it as: 'The Duff' meets 'Die Hard.' Sort of. Less Nakatomi Plaza and more mini-mart. I LOVED it!

‘Breath of Fire’ (Kingmaker Chronicles, #2) by Amanda Bouchet

I have been meaning to get my thoughts down about this series (first book was 2016’s ‘A Promise of Fire’) but then I just end up delving into the books, having a rollicking good time, and being unable to come up with anything except OMG I LOVE IT! I have been recommending these books to friends though, and will continue to do so. It’s fantasy-paranormal and very romance-heavy and just flat-out brilliant. Seriously – this series if up there with Patricia Briggs’ ‘Mercy Thompson’ and Ilona Andrews’ ‘Kate Daniels’ for me.

‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ by George Saunders

This was so very deserving of the Man Booker win. Totally. I already loved George Saunders, but this book almost made me fear him  … so sharply brilliant and intimidating is this book; it honestly felt like a turning-point in modern literature to read this masterpiece.

‘Fence’ #1 by C.S. Pacat, illustrated by Johanna the Mad

It’s the first instalment in a young adult comic-book series by Australian author Pacat, about the competitive world of high school fencing and featuring an M/M romance. This could have almost been too decadently good to be properly enjoyed, but honestly – it’s downright fabulous and fun. I cannot wait for more!

‘The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue’ by Mackenzi Lee

As I read this book, I swear, all I could hear was the soundtrack to Sofia Coppola's 'Marie Antoinette' movie - in particular, New Order's 'Age of Consent' song. Something about this book just had that cavorting, saucy & sumptuous feel to it ... This is 100%, hands-down a favourite YA book of 2017 and a new favourite in general for me. It was SUPERB. Brilliant romance, mystery, genuinely *fun* historical fiction that managed to feel thoroughly modern and subversive even as it's so deeply immersed in the historic period. Must, must, must-read. I cannot wait for ‘The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy’ coming in 2018.

‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’ by Gail Honeyman

Very rarely does the adult-literary hype machine work on me, and compel me to go out and buy a buzzed-about book to read … but in the case of Honeyman’s debut, I’m glad I succumbed. It’s intricate and warm, there’s a little romance and a lot of heart and it’s an all-round FEEL GOOD, thoughtful read.

‘Tash Hearts Tolstoy’ by Kathryn Ormsbee

First of all – I adore this cover. I know lots of people *hated* it with a fiery passion, but it honestly made me laugh AND – sit up and take notice. And I’m glad I judged by that cover, because this one packed a wallop. Mental health, LGBT rep, cancer … there were so many ways that Ormsbee could have potentially overdone it with this book – but she wrote something so tender and true, honest and funny. It was honestly just a fantastic coming-of-age read for me.

‘The Hate U Give’ by Angie Thomas

I loved getting my heart broken/mind opened by this book. All the praise it received this year was entirely earned, and cannot be underplayed - this really is one of the "Must Read Books of 2017" ... heck, it might even be one of the most important YA books of this decade. And it was my great honour to participate in a Melbourne Writers Festival event with Angie Thomas this year, and discover she’s as kind in person and so utterly deserving all the success.

'The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women' by Kate Moore

This is my favourite book of 2017, I’ve decided. Hands down. ‘The Radium Girls’ was an important book for me to read – a story I am so grateful to now know about. But it is not a story that ends in 1938 (and not just because to this day the women’s bodies are projecting radioactivity from their graves). Rather – it’s a testimony to ongoing battles; to hold big businesses accountable (not give them bigger tax-breaks) and to never put profit before people. The legacy of these women is one of speaking truth to power. Which they did – with their dying breaths.

‘No Way! Okay, Fine.’ by Brodie Lancaster

This was a cathartic, compulsive and capricious read - I was laughing one minute, then welling up the next. It's a love-letter to pop-culture, a thrilling ode to the "little things" that matter, and the stories that raise us. And a smartly observant look at how the osmosis of story and consumption creates our communities. I loved it. Utterly, thoroughly LOVED it!

‘No Limits’ by Ellie Marney

This is modern Australia for so many growing up on the periphery right now, picked apart with exquisite and smart insight from one of Australia's best crime and YA writers. A novel of bruising empathy and excitable romance - with so much potential for a subversive new crime series, I'm practically salivating just thinking of the possibilities.

‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ by Maurene Goo

A young adult romance with a focus on the young protagonist’s obsession with Korean “K” dramas, and a storyline that becomes just as outlandish as those she relishes watching? Yes. Yes please.

‘The Woman Who Fooled The World: Belle Gibson's Cancer Con’ by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano

‘The Woman Who Fooled The World’ is an attempt by the two journalists who first broke the story to wade through all the horseshit – and what they’ve come up with is a deeply fascinating and infuriating examination of not just one woman’s deception, but a confluence of users and abusers who have a lot to answer for. They examine rising social media alongside misinformation and – yes – “fake news”. They dig deep but still find little information on the woman herself, who remains a bit of an enigma for the journalists throughout … what saves the book from being a frustrating half-take though, is their spreading the blame (/horseshit) around and laying it at the feet of an industry that has conflated “health” and “beauty”, the rise of Insta-celebrities as snake oil salesmen, and profit over common sense. They also lay a hefty load of blame at their own door – on a new landscape of journalism that’s more interested in getting clicks than checking facts, and being first instead of being right.

‘MoralPanic 101: Equality, Acceptance and the Safe Schools Scandal (Quarterly Essay#67)’ by Benjamin Law

I will warn that this is a powerful read. If you’re like me and this all hits very close to home, it’ll definitely make you cry. But, look – the final chapter is called ‘The Kids Are All Right’. Because they are, and will be. Because no matter the outcome of this marriage equality survey, or the hate-filled propaganda of those who fear change … it’s already here – in the young queer kids Benjamin Law speaks to, and the communities who are supporting and striving to understand them, instill respect for them.

'How Not To Be A Boy' by Robert Webb

I learnt a lot about Webb that I didn’t know, but has actually given new dimension to his writing and comedy for me – and actually, the creative process generally. Extraordinary to know the heartache and bullshit he went through, to be the kind of man he is today – who can confidently say that society’s male constructs are codswallop.

‘Hamilton's Battalion: A Trio of Romances’ by Courtney Milan Author, Alyssa Cole, and Rose Lerner

This has been a year in which I read some really, truly bad Hamilton-inspired novels (*cough* Alex & Eliza *cough*) but ‘Hamilton's Battalion’ made up for all the bad by being really, ridiculously good. Hamilton and Co. don’t really appear except as guest-stars, because it’s very much more about “love in the time of Hamilton” – but if the musical got you interested in the American Revolutionary War as a setting and time-period, then THIS is the romance book for you.

‘Seven Stones to Stand or Fall’ by Diana Gabaldon

I love that the ‘Outlander’ TV show is going from strength to strength, and I am waiting OH SO PATIENTLY for No. 9 ‘Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone’ – but in the meantime, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of ‘Outlander’ short-stories. Some have appeared in other Anthology publications, but my favorite was one written specifically for this collection. “A Fugitive Green” is all about how Harold Grey (Lord John’s elder brother) came to meet his wife, Minnie – and it is SO. HOT. and sad and lovely and just this story alone, made the entire book worthwhile for me.

‘The Harper Effect’ by Taryn Bashford

This is the #LoveOzYA debut from Bashford, and I was so looking forward to reading a YA! Tennis! Romance! … I am so glad it 1000% fulfilled all my expectations. I have always thought the world of competitive tennis is a great one to set a YA series (and I did enjoy one from 2013, by Jennifer Iacopelli), but Bashford’s takes it to a whole other level. It’s a little bit 2004 movie ‘Wimbledon’ meets the writing sensibilities of Liz Tigelaar.

'Ballad for a Mad Girl' by Vikki Wakefield

Vikki Wakefield is one of the most creative and daring authors writing for young adults today. Ballad for a Mad Girl is an Aussie YA Gothic tale that smartly uses the supernatural to explore the depths of grief and growing up, and the pain to be found in both. This is a caring and keening novel, creepy but tender and wholly marvellous.

'The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women' by Kate Moore

I heard about UK author Kate Moore’s 2017 book ‘The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women’ because it won the prestigious Goodreads Choice Award for History & Biography. A quick glance at the blurb (and there’s a very condensed version of the story from Buzzfeed) and I was intrigued by this chapter of history, that does indeed sound like an episode of ‘Stuff You Missed in History Class’. 

I am not a big non-fiction reader, however – least of all of books such as this, that run to 480-pages. But I decided to give this one a go, and I am so glad I did. This is now – quite possibly – my favourite read of 2017. An infuriating but necessary read that feels like the most apt and thoughtful way to send-off 2017. The year that a serial sexual abuser was inducted into the White House, #MeToo rang out across the world and there’s a sense that many people are waking up to injustice.

Moore’s book, in many ways, highlights how far we’ve come – but also how long we’ve been fighting.

In 1898, Marie (and Pierre) Curie developed the theory of radioactivity and techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium and radium. In 1901 when ‘The Radium Girls’ opens its prologue chapter, French physicist Henri Becquerel is transporting a glass vial of radium to London in his waistcoat pocket – where he will eventually discover an inflammation of the skin, right where the vial was pressing. By then it’s too late however, for in a Paris hospital radium has been successfully used to treat a case of lupus … thus, its proclamation as a wonder-element would begin and radium therapy (particularly in the fight against cancer) would herald it as an elixir of Biblical proportions.

The book then leaps to 1917, and will by the end take readers through to 1938 … and even beyond, in a manner of speaking. Its focus, however, is on the booming wartime and then post-war business of ‘radium dials’ – watches and clocks with the numbers and hands painted in radioluminescent paint, so they’d glow green in the dark. These dials were painted by ‘Radium Girls’ – an entirely female workforce of young women (some even pre-teen) who signed up to help the war-effort, and then later found prosperity in one of the last booming businesses to survive the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and Great Depression … these women hand-painted the dials with fine brushes – brushes they were instructed to press between their lips to keep the fine point, then dip in radium, paint the dials, and repeat the process – lip, dip, paint – through to the companies producing millions of clocks and watches a year. The story initially focuses on the first business – United States Radium Corporation – based in New Jersey, but eventually swings to the Radium Dial Company built in Ottawa, Illinois a few years later.

These Radium Girls – who would daily become covered in the radioluminescent paint as they sat working diligently at their work-stations – were nicknamed “ghost girls” for the way they glowed in the dark, eerie and beautiful.

These women had no cause for concern in ingesting the radium paint – for the world had fully embraced radium as a wonder-cure and catchall product. It was used in toothpaste, beauty products, and drinking coolers – there was even "Radium Brand Creamery Butter” advertised (though because of its expense, it’s hardly likely all of these products contained traces of radium – still) it was a booming business. Some may even say, it was among the first “wellness industries” created. Furthermore – the Radium Girls, upon induction to their dial-paining work – would watch their forewoman scoop up a glob of the radium paint with a spatula and lick it off, to show how harmless it was (it could – they were told – even be considered a free healthcare treatment!). Some companies even sold granules of used radium paint to schools and crèches – for use in their sandpits, since it had the same consistency.

But within a few short years, something odd begins happening to the dial-painting workforce of women. Their teeth start falling out, and their gums don’t heal, but ulcer. Eventually their jaws start loosening, and then disintegrating – in one case; a dentist is able to lift out a honeycombed jaw from the mouth of a girl with no instruments but his bare hands. Doctors and dentists are perplexed – they suspect “phossy jaw”, first discovered as a common ailment of the match-stick industry, and use of white phosphorus. But they can find no evidence of the women coming into contact with such a substance. Syphilis is then assumed, in at least one patient who eventually dies from her injuries – particularly as she was a woman living alone, and all that that implies.

But then other women start complaining of pain in their legs, arms, backs – in their very bones and joints. The medical industry is completely perplexed – especially as the only thing connecting these women is their work at the Radium Corporation, and – as everybody knows – radium is perfectly harmless. There is no such thing as radium “poisoning”. Even when they started dying, one by one, radium was slow to be recognised as their cause.

The story unfolds – and over the course of 400+ pages we meet the men and women who became both champions and villains in this saga. We see the role unions and humble workers played as sleuths, piecing together a medical puzzle and corporate cover-up. Doctors in the pockets of radium companies, willing to outright lie and steal. Radium bosses, who knew the dangers and preferred to keep their big profit-margins than save lives. A young, inexperienced attorney willing to take on a civil lawsuit, and become champion for these women. And the women themselves, who refused to go quietly – even as they knew they were dying and would likely reap no benefits from their lawsuits, but who wanted these companies to be held accountable. Women who wanted to make sure no others would suffer as they now were.

I’m reminded of the true-crime book ‘In Cold Blood’, and criticism Truman Capote had to weather when he pioneered the nonfiction genre into the mainstream. The main one being from critics who said it wouldn’t sell, because readers knew how the book would end – with the execution of convicted killers, Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith. Still, to read ‘In Cold Blood’ is to read a potboiler that’s no less thrilling and heartbreaking for piecing together the events that lead and follow tragedy, and knowing how it will all conclude. I’d say the same of Kate Moore’s ‘The Radium Girls’ – when the foregone conclusion for modern audiences is to read with slack-jawed incredulity at the ways the 19^th century carelessly handled (what we now know to be) one of the most dangerous substances on the planet.

At the end of the day, ‘The Radium Girls’ perhaps works so well because Moore still presents the story as a procedural. She knows full well that readers know who the killer is, and the cover-up that won’t stay buried. But she still takes us through its paces, letting the tragedy unfurl in “real time”. In this too, I’m reminded of one of the greatest films of the last ten years (in my opinion), the likewise investigative procedural 2015 film, ‘Spotlight’ – about how the Boston Globe uncovered the decades-long history of church sexual abuse in their city, but would eventually lead to a worldwide investigation. This story is also positioned, knowing that their audience are aware of who the villains are – but works to show how the puzzle was pieced together, who the players were.

At first I wondered why this story hadn’t been adapted for film or television before. Indeed, parts of it had such a pace and substance that echoed movies like ‘Silkwood’, ‘Erin Brockovich’, and ‘Norma Rae’. And not just for those being about women against industrial and capitalist regimes – but for being about poor people who are expendable in the eyes of corporations. Why didn’t I know of the Radium Girls story beforehand – especially when it’s so universal? Not just about American labour reform, but really the story of how the world came to truly understand one of the most revolutionary discoveries of the 19^th century – radium. But as the book goes on – broken down into three parts, spanning from 1917 to 1938 – it becomes apparent why this story, however compelling, would be difficult to dramatise.

The players keep changing. Heroes emerge, only to die. Pointlessly, painfully, and young (most in their early-20’s) – no matter how heroically they faced their end, there is no cure for radium poisoning, especially when the substance has a shelf-life of 1600-years.

I can’t quite recall, but I think in this book Moore mentions at least 50 women specifically – and of those, about 25 take the stage in some capacity to pull our focus. Certainly it feels like there are two heroes who shine slightly brighter – Grace Fryer and Catherine Wolfe Donohue – for the leadership roles they took on amongst their group of poisoned friends, leading class-action lawsuits and refusing to back-down in the face of insurmountable odds. But these women (it’s no spoiler to say) do die. They leave behind a powerful legacy, but they die tragically nonetheless.

The timeline also splits between the New Jersey case against the United States Radium Corporation, and Ottawa’s Radium Dial Company. For this reason, I think a television series would be the best format for an adaptation (and I certainly hope there is one) – although I could see a movie taking inspiration from a film like 2002’s The Hours.  

Then there’s the fact that some of the events seem too unreal and abhorrent to be believed. But they’re true. Like a doctor in the pocket of Radium Dial stealing bones of a deceased girl at autopsy, so they couldn’t be tested for radium. Or a husband of one of the afflicted women, getting into fisticuffs in the middle of the street with her old manager – who still refused to admit any wrongdoing, even when one of his former employees came to him after having her arm amputated due to a radium-caused sarcoma on her elbow.

This year – 2017 and the year of #MeToo – was an interesting and infuriating one in which to read the book. A book in which nobody initially believed women. They were gaslighted – deliberated and cruelly – and told to disbelieve their own bodies, their own decay. Doctors lied to them, big corporations became frustrated when they didn’t die quick enough. Towns turned against them – particularly during the Great Depression – when the women were seen to be troublemakers, hell-bent on taking jobs away from their struggling towns.

After all, Radium Dial had long been a valued employer. With the country in the middle of its worst-even economic depression – what some were now calling the Great Depression – communities were even more protective of the firms that could give them work and wages. The women found they were disbelieved, ignored, and even shunned when they spoke out about their ailments and the cause.

Sound familiar?

I was reminded of something the author Gillian Flynn wrote, for TIME Magazine that stuck with me – that gnaws at me. She wasn’t just talking about sexual abuse, but the whole goddamn system. The patriarchy and the powerful (one in the same) and their treatment, their views, of women – when she wrote;

I feel humiliated and angry. They hate us. That’s my immediate thought, with each new revelation: They hate us. And then, a more sick-making suspicion: They don’t care about us enough to hate us. We are simply a form of livestock.

That never feels truer than in this book – which shows just how expendable women were in the eyes of the corporations who killed them.

One may think that the story of ‘The Radium Girls’ is antiquated – look how far we’ve come, in understanding the rights of workers, and of holding big businesses accountable! But this story is still happening today – somewhere, somehow.

Look at the Grenfell Tower fire in June of this year – started by hazardous cladding that was installed to make a block of public housing flats in North Kensington more appealing to residents in wealthier surrounds. The Flint (Michigan) water crisis began in 2014, and is still unresolved – an entire town in the United States of America has been without clean drinking water for nearly five years now.

‘The Radium Girls’ was an important book for me to read – a story I am so grateful to now know about. But it is not a story that ends in 1938 (and not just because to this day the women’s bodies are projecting radioactivity from their graves). Rather – it’s a testimony to ongoing battles; to hold big businesses accountable (not give them bigger tax-breaks) and to never put profit before people. The legacy of these women is one of speaking truth to power. Which they did – with their dying breaths.

5/5

-->

‘The Woman Who Fooled The World: Belle Gibson's Cancer Con’ by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano,

From the BLURB:

Belle Gibson convinced the world she had healed herself from terminal brain cancer with a healthy diet. She built a global business based upon her claims. There was just one problem: she'd never had cancer.

In 2015, journalists uncovered the truth: this hero of the wellness world, with over 200,000 followers, international book deals, and a best-selling smartphone app, was a fraud. She had lied about having cancer — to her family and friends, to her business partners and publishers, and to the hundreds of thousands of people, including genuine cancer survivors, who were inspired by her Instagram posts.

Written by the same multi-award-winning journalists who uncovered the details of Gibson’s lies, The Woman Who Fooled the World tracks the 23-year-old's rise to fame and fall from grace. Told through interviews with the people who know her best, it unravels the mystery and motivation behind this deception and follows the public reaction to a scandal that made headlines around the world.

The Woman Who Fooled the World explores the lure of alternative cancer treatments, the cottage industry flourishing behind the wellness and ‘clean eating’ movements, and the power of social media. It documents the devastating impact this con had on Gibson’s fans and on people suffering from cancer. Ultimately, it answers not just how, but why, Gibson was able to fool so many.

‘The Woman Who Fooled The World: Belle Gibson's Cancer Con’ is an Australian non-fiction book by journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, who broke the story of Belle Gibson’s multilayered fraud back in 2015 for The Age newspaper.

I didn’t know who Belle Gibson was when her “cancer con” story broke a couple years ago. I don’t follow any wellness bloggers and I can’t cook – so I was entirely remote from her Instagram/App/Cookbook world. But when she was exposed to be a fraud on multiple counts – chief amongst them that she lied about having brain cancer, and donating her followers’ money to various charities – I, like many others, became fascinated by the story. I bought the Women’s Weekly edition featuring her explosive interview where she finally admitted that she didn’t have cancer. This was where I got a lot more background information about who Belle Gibson actually *was* and what she had been peddling. And my overwhelming thought was; how did anyone believe her in the first place?!

My disbelief about Belle (and the entire wellness world she had sprung up from) was best summarized by this piece by Richard Cooke for The Monthly when he wrote; “It is weird that this startlingly transparent load of horseshit was carried as far as it was…”

‘The Woman Who Fooled The World’ is an attempt by the two journalists who first broke the story to wade through all the horseshit – and what they’ve come up with is a deeply fascinating and infuriating examination of not just one woman’s deception, but a confluence of users and abusers who have a lot to answer for. They examine rising social media alongside misinformation and – yes – “fake news”. They dig deep but still find little information on the woman herself, who remains a bit of an enigma for the journalists throughout … what saves the book from being a frustrating half-take though, is their spreading the blame (/horseshit) around and laying it at the feet of an industry that has conflated “health” and “beauty”, the rise of Insta-celebrities as snake oil salesmen, and profit over common sense. They also lay a hefty load of blame at their own door – on a new landscape of journalism that’s more interested in getting clicks than checking facts, and being first instead of being right.

I owe thanks to Carly Findlay for raving about, and recommending this book. I was a little wary of reading something that was just about Belle Gibson – we have all been touched by cancer in some way, and I just didn’t think I had the strength to read 319-pages of the authors deconstructing her hurtful lies. But I trusted Carly’s enjoyment of the book, so gave it a go myself and I am so glad I did.

It is particularly pertinent and important that Donelly and Toscano link Belle Gibson’s deception to wider consumerism and industry failings. Like the billion-dollar Swisse Vitamins business which has been proven to be nothing but a long-con (yet they still have celebrity endorsement – Nicole Kidman!). There’s a subtle link between a rise of access to information, the spread of misinformation and a general distrust of science, doctors and “Big Pharma” as a result (in this I would have liked an entire chapter devoted to the anti-vaxx movement that I see being intricately linked to “wellnesss”). Belle Gibson thrived in this environment, and we let her.

The authors repeatedly point out that the likes of Belle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lola Berry, Jordan Younger, and the late Jessica Ainscough all have several startlingly obvious features in common;

For the most part, this new breed of wellness gurus is white and female, young and attractive, engaging, and media-savvy. Some are yoga teachers, or personal trainers, or martial-arts instructors, but scant few have any qualifications that equip them to give health advice. What they do have is an Instagram account.

It is key that majority of the people the authors mention in the book are indeed young, female, thin, and moneyed. It takes money to live healthy. A lot of it. This is why socioeconomics and obesity are often intricately linked – it’s also how the likes of Belle Gibson and Jessica Ainscough were able to peddle “alternative treatments” – because they looked good doing it. It made the story that much sexier, and easier to sell. No matter how much it stunk.

Speaking of Jessica Ainscough – the “wellness warrior” who rejected medical cancer treatment in lieu of things like juice cleanses and coffee enemas and subsequently died at the age of 30 (after briefly trying a return to traditional medicine in her last months, to no avail) – is almost a secondary story in ‘The Woman Who Fooled the World’. Her story and Belle’s are similar – save for the fact that Ainscough really did have cancer – but both women peddled alternative, cancer-curing treatments to hundreds of thousands of followers (some themselves in vulnerable positions due to their own health) that were nothing more than dangerous quackery. The authors are almost careful not to be too critical of Ainscough though – since her story had a truly tragic ending, that included her mother dying of cancer two years before she did, and all because upon diagnosis she likewise refused medical treatment and chose her daughter’s holistic path. A great commentary piece by the late Sam de Brito is highlighted in the book though, and well worth a read.

‘The Woman Who Fooled the World’ at times reads like a long gossip column – particularly for the Melbourne socialite and pseudo-science set who Gibson surrounded herself with. There’s also an extensive look at the roles Penguin and Apple played in legitimizing Belle’s fame and unscrupulously perpetuating her holistic lies. In this – Apple has the most to answer for (though they never will); they were very quick to capitalize on Belle’s rise, common-sense be damned. To an extent, Apple vouched for Belle so that Penguin felt more secure in signing her … but to that I say; you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. 

The last half of the book gets pretty wild – when Belle’s lies get international attention and her world unravels … and her mother steps into the picture. Here is offered a brief but important insight into the sort of childhood Belle probably grew up with – and the one part of her convoluted narrative that might ring true. The authors themselves talk to Belle’s mother, and they get impressions from two more journalists who interviewed her and her husband (Belle’s step-father). This family unit is like a cross between ‘Struggle Street’ and ‘Shameless’, and suddenly it’s easy to see where Belle learnt to tell lies with such ease … 

And finally, Donnelly and Toscano examine the media’s role in letting Belle’s horseshit waft. They unflinchingly look at a new newsroom culture where there’s half the people doing twice the work with paper-thin deadlines. But it’s no excuse – and the number of media outlets who happily let the likes of Belle Gibson and Jessica Ainscough peddle their snake-oil sales is atrocious and part of the toxic culture that let them thrive.

Overwhelming I was reminded of Harry Houdini, while reading this book. I’m a bit fascinated by the magician and stunt-performer, particularly his later-life devotion to debunking spiritualists. In 1913 Houdini’s beloved mother died, then throughout the 1920’s a post-WWI rise of spiritualism sprung up around grieving families desperate to reunite with their loved ones. Psychics and mediums suddenly become a booming business around the world. Houdini was just as desperate as so many others to communicate with his departed loved one, and so attended séances and meeting with psychics. But here he was –the world’s greatest illusionist and stunt-performer and he easily saw through the deception – and then devoted the latter half of his life to proving these people to be scam-artists, preying on the desperate and grieving. That’s what Donelly and Toscano (a couple of modern-day Houdini's!) are trying to do with ‘The Woman Who Fooled the World’ – highlighting the noxious false hope of wellness bloggers, when they peddle alternative medicine that’s not complimentary to traditional treatments, but replacing it. Much like spiritualism – the deception comes at the intersection of death and hope, and that’s why people are so vulnerable.

It’s a fascinating book and I do highly-recommend reading it not just for the way Belle Gibson’s infuriating story unfolds, but for the bigger industry discussion around “health and beauty” and distribution of information.

5/5