[facebook]
[retweet]

Being Jade is a near faultless, emotion-rich portrayal of love, family and the clarity brought by grief.

From the moment he sees her across the school yard, Banjo Murphy loves Jade. Though they come from vastly different backgrounds with potentially divergent futures, Jade and Banjo marry and have a family. But settling down is not within Jade’s ability and Banjo must confront how much he is willing to sacrifice for the sake of the passionate and elusive woman he cannot live without.

From the outset we learn Banjo has died. Unable to leave Jade, even in death, he hovers around her, observing and remembering, and at times peeking into her past through her memories, gaining insights he never had in life. The narration is shared by his youngest daughter, Lissy, whose unconditional love for her mother has made her blind to the truth. What she does when she discovers that truth is startling. At times Belle’s prose is lyrical. With a few careful sentences she can elicit emotion that leaves you breathless with anger or clutching a balled-up tissue. Jade is painted with subtlety and compassion, revealing a complex woman, darkly sensual and restless, driven to seek love in all of its facets. It would be easy to see her as selfish – even her grief is a messy, inward thing that drains those around her – yet Banjo’s love is a precious gift, stable and sure, to which she has clung throughout their tumultuous life together. Jade is a woman whose spirit cannot be held, no matter how light or loving the tether.

Being Jade is an incredibly moving tale that will make you ponder at what point individual needs give way to the needs of loved ones.

NB: Thanks to Simon and Schuster Australia for my review copy of Being Jade