“…a boutique with shop girls as thin as straps of liquorice. One had a long ponytail and wore a miniature black dress and retro high heels. The other wore flares ruffled from the knees down and her hair in a sharp quiff that put Justine in mind of a shark fin. These women would be the type, Justine thought, to factor in the calories in the sugar coating of their contraceptive pills”

Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls is the second book by Australian author, Danielle Wood. It is a collection of loosely connected stories, in many of which Rosie Little stars; in most others, she makes an appearance. Somewhere in each story, there is an inset piece which contains an observation or a piece of advice from Rosie on a topic central to that story.

The chapters cover Virginity, Truth, Travel, Beauty, Art, Love, Commitment, Marriage, Work, Longing, Loss and Destiny, and are filled with humour, much of it black, as well as some magic, and all have a cautionary theme, hence the title. The book won the Sydney Morning Herald’s 2007 Best Young Novelist of the Year award, and small films have been made of two of the tales.

Rosie (or more correctly, Danielle) does have a way with words: “There was nothing to do. The hours we had to kill would die slow, painful deaths. Surely, I thought, the expression ‘terminal boredom’ was used for the first time in an airport closed down for the night”. This one is clever, funny, sometimes sad and even a little thought-provoking.
3.5 ★s