Title: Just a girl
Description: Layla is only 14. As she sits in bed with a laptop, her mother Margot sleeps in the next room. But what separates them is more than just a wall. It is every mother's nightmare. Layla cruises online. She catches trains to meet strangers. And Margot never suspects. Not even when Layla brings a man into their home. Margot's caught in her own web: an evangelical church and a charismatic pastor. Pastor Bevan preaches to the faithful, reeling them in to his tangled conceits with podcasts and twitter. Meanwhile, downtown, a man opens a suitcase and tenderly places his young lover inside. This book tears into the fabric of contemporary culture. A Puberty Blues for the digital age, a Lolita with a webcam, it is what happen when young girls are forced to grow up too fast. Or never get the chance to grow up at all.
Subjects: Australian fiction, Man-woman relationships, Fiction
Time periods: 21st century