The Beginners Guide to Living by Lia Hills

She looks good for a corpse. Except she never wore green eye shadow, was never this still. Her ribcage has been cracked open – you can’t see anything, it’s all been cleaned up, but I can imagine them beneath her dress, the tracks of stitches that will never heal.  

Will has every reason to question the world and the meaning of life. He is in his final year of school when mother dies tragically, leaving him – with a grieving father and restless brother – to pick up the pieces of his shattered life and somehow carry on. Woven throughout the novel are the questions that Will asks himself in order to understand his world and cope better with the death of his mother. They are addressed through Hills poetic prose and a series of photographs Will takes with his mother’s beloved camera. Just one of the things that sets this novel aside from the rest.

The Beginner’s Guide to Living is longlisted for the Gold Inky