All I Ever Wanted by Vicki Wakefield

Mim knows what she wants, and where she wants to go—anywhere but home, stuck in the suburbs with her mother who won’t get off the couch, and two brothers in prison.

She’s set herself rules to live by, but she’s starting to break them.

Now Mim has to retrieve a lost package for her mother. Does this make her a drug runner? Why is a monster dog called Gargoyle hidden in the back shed? And Jordan, the boy she sent Valentines to for years, why is he now suddenly a creep? How come there’s a huge gap between her and her best friend, Tahnee? And who is the mysterious girl next door who moans at night?

Over the nine days before her seventeenth birthday, Mim’s life turns upside down. She has problems, and she’s determined to solve them herself. But in the end, she works out who her people are, and the same things look entirely different.(from publishers site)

All I Ever Wanted is blurbed by two of my all-time fave Aussie YA authors:

‘One of the most memorable YA books I’ve ever read. Original, real, startling and beautiful.’ Cath Crowley (Graffiti Moon) 

‘In a tarnished world, Mim is tough and sweet and true. Utterly charming’ Fiona Wood (Six Impossible Things).

Okay, I nearly feel like my work here as a reader/reviewer is done as I fully (crazily) endorse both those statements.

All I Ever Wanted captivated me from the first few pages. I adore Mim, she’s tough and brave and bold despite her fears and failures. She’s smart and funny and fierce and looking at her world through her eyes was just gorgeous. She has strong convictions and secret dreams and is spirited in that Josie Alibrandi way (Melina Marchetta).

The prose in this book (!)

[pauses for a moment]

Absolutely, genius-like, divine.

I am billing it as a mix between Cath Crowley’s Graffiti Moon and Leanne Hall’s This Is Shyness (both amazing-brilliant-wow books to be blended up with).

It is, in some ways, a gritty read but without it feeling gritty. It’s like a diamond in the rough kind of read ~ all tough on the outside but absolutely shining and beautiful at its core.

I love books like this: original, unpredictable, delightfully strange, completely real and shining with hope. It felt utterly Australian. The characters are unabashedly flawed and all the more lovable for it.


I haven’t said much about the plot ~ honestly, I liked reading it having no idea what to expect from it ~ but for those of you who need more a teaser ~ here’s a blurb from author Vicki Wakefield talking about her teen experience that inspired Mim’s story:



As a teenager, I always had one leg dangling over the wrong side of the tracks. When I was seventeen I went to house-sit for a friend who was an unmarried teenage mother. It was a half-house in a lost street in a forgotten suburb – just like the book.

It wasn’t hard to dredge up memories of that month – I lived in a perpetual state of fear and desperation. I dared myself to stay there. During the day the street was deserted; at night it was alive and menacing and I was terrified. Law seemed to exist outside of that street, but by the end of the month I was braver, wiser and I’d changed my mind about some of the residents. The people who lived there didn’t have money or material things – but what they did have was pride, a sense of community and bucketloads of humanity. (taken from her author page @ Text)

I am sold on Wakefield’s debut and she has entered my ranks of hallowed Aussie quthors and auto-buy, must-reads.

And YES ~ I did reference Melina Marchetta, Cath Crowley and Fiona Wood all in one review for this stunning debut :)

All I Ever Wanted has been longlisted for the inky's (wooT!) 

Fingers crossed it will make the cut into the short list :)

Go forth and read it ;)

More reviews:

The Book Gryffin

Emily Reads (A Lot)

All I Ever Wanted @ goodreads

All I Ever Wanted @ Text Publishing (including preview of first chapter)