Book Review June Martinborough Star

“Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts” by Josie Shapiro.  Winner of the inaugural Allen and Unwin Commercial Fiction Prize.

The title attracted me immediately – I wanted to know what kind of state ‘everything is beautiful and everything hurts’ was referring to.  I turned to the first page and was dropped straight into the last five minutes before the start of the Auckland marathon and the thoughts inside Mickey’s head as she waits for the starters gun.  Running, of course.  If you have been a runner, or even merely thought you might like to be a runner, the story of Mickey Bloom will resonate with you long after you have finished reading it.  

Chapters alternate between the stages of the marathon, as Mickey runs it and the story of how she came to be running this race at all. 

Mickey is the youngest of four kids growing up in a small Taranaki town.  Her mother, a nurse, worked all the hours god gave her while her father started a new family in Auckland, gone before she could form any memories of him.  Mickey wasn’t good at a lot.  She didn’t read because the words danced around on the page, their meaning blurred before she could grasp it.  However, this is the story of Mickey’s life as she discovered running.  She is good at it, a natural and it gives her a feeling she has never had before – pride in her own achievement.  But the road to the starting line of the Auckland marathon is not straight or smooth.  

A well written, moving novel that had me cheering for Mickey as she ran, willing her to win, not just the races but in life.  I read this in a weekend and loved it.  Available at your local bookstore.

Brenda Channer