Customer Reviews

Pip: The Story of Olive

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This engaging narrative takes place in suburban Australia, following the unusual Olive Garnaut, who is just entering Year Seven in school. Olive has wide set eyes, pale skin, and white-blonde hair; the girls at school aren't always very nice. Olive's mother, Mog, is a rather successful career woman and is rarely at home. This leaves Olive with a lot of responsibilities. She has her own credit card for groceries, and her own mobile phone, which her best friend, Mathilda absolutely adores. Things are mostly fine, but when suddenly Mathilda allies herself with the school Queen Bee, Olive finds herself out of place. It is fortunate that this is when her twin sister, Pip, appears. And Pip is everything Olive is not. Where Olive is polite and shy, Pip is brash and outspoken. Where Olive is reserved, Pip is spontaneous. So when Olive mentions their long-lost father, WilliamPetersMustardseed, it is Pip that insists they embark on a journey to find him. Funny, sweet, devastating, and wicked, Pip: The Story of Olive is a book with characters that are so alive, you soon feel that they are your oldest friends. Sprinkling a modern Australian landscape with bits of magic realism, Kim Kane's first book will enchant you from page one.

The first time I read Pip: The Story of Olive, I really disliked it and thought it was weird. It got hidden away on my shelf for quite along time, until finally I decided I should try it again.

Now, this is one of the elite few "comfort books" of mine--books that I can read again and again and again and I will always love. Pip: The Story of Olive is funny, but also beautifully written--

"Olive stepped in front of the last mirror and started. Its surface was almost alive; it was like looking up, through goggles, at the silvered underbelly of the sea's skin. Olive's reflection rode on crests across the face of glass, breaking into pieces if she moved even the tiniest inch. She held her breath. The mirror swirled and twirled, flickering with fragments of splintered rainbow and molten silver, pulling and warping her body. It was as if she had melted, melted into a pool of liquid crystal and molten glass."

Kim Kane does a wonderful job making the story almost seem believable, even though parts of the plot are actually a bit surreal and hard to explain. The book is wonderfully original, although it involves a twin the main character never knew she had, it's not at all cliche. A plot summary:

Olive Garnaut (Gar-no) is 12 years old, living with her mother, Mog, in a large house full of what Olive calls "crap-knacks", in Australia. Olive's father left Mog before Olive was born, and although Olive yearns to know what he was like, he is somewhat of an off-limits topic with Mog. All Olive knows is that "he was too liberal with his love" and, his name is WilliamPetersMustardSeed.
Somehow, when Olive looks into a mirror on the beach, she is mysteriously "twinned", and...enter Pip. Pip is the spitting image of Olive, but their personalities are nearly opposites. Pip knows no boundaries. When she decides that the girls are going to track down Olive's father, there's nothing Olive can do but go along with her.

Pip: The Story of Olive is a lovely book that I really recommend.


Enjoy!
~Ava~