Blurb

A complicated friendship. A roadtrip in a stolen car. The stories that define us. And two funny, sharp, adventurous young women who refuse to be held back any longer. Rosa was never really trying to hurt anyone, no matter what they said in court. But she's ended up in juvenile jail anyway, living her life through books and wondering why her best mate Asheeka disappeared.

The author says...

Where did the idea for Girls in Boys Cars come from?

There is such a long tradition of male road stories – think Jack Kerouac’s On The Road (which I loved as a teenager!) but there are so few stories about women and girls. Boys on the road are looking for adventure, women always seem to be running away and driving themselves over cliffs like Thelma and Louise. I wanted to write something where girls get to be the agents of their own kind of road story even if it’s complicated and everyone else is always getting in the way.

Enjoy Felicity Castagna's video trailer for "Girls in Boys' Cars", commissioned by The Parramatta Artists' Studios and produced by Ricky Tana and Dylan Mungunay.

The CBCA judges say...

This is a sophisticated story written in the first person. It delves into cultural and sexual expectations, how these change people’s perception of you, and how wearing all these burdens can push you to break. The characters' search for escape and visibility demonstrates the consequences of the experienced injustices and degradation. The metafictional structure is not lineal, reflecting the haphazard way we remember events, an effective and unusual method of revealing the characters' circumstances. The emotional journey each of the main characters experience feels authentic and the development of their characters is strong. The author has accurately captured the female anger towards a society which is still failing them.

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