Title: Tiddas

Published: Simon and Schuster AU March 2014

Status:

My Thoughts:

Tiddas is Anita Heiss’s fifth novel, an engaging story of friendship, life, love and five strong women.

The tiddas (sisters) are lifelong friends having grown up together in Mudgee. Now approaching midlife, each lives in and around Brisbane providing each other with support, love and friendship. Over a period of a year we are witness to their lives, their relationships with one another, and with themselves and with others, as they each journey towards a personal epiphany about what they value in each other and themselves.

These are women we can likely relate to in one way or another, smart, savvy, socially aware, they are varyingly wives, mothers, daughters, cousins, in law’s and of course tiddas. Each of the friends are distinct characters, struggling with their own issues, Xanthe is crushed by her inability to fall pregnant, her obsession placing strain on her marriage and her friendships. Izzy, on the verge of becoming Australia’s ‘Oprah’ and who has never expressed a desire for a child, is horrified to discover she is unexpectedly pregnant. Veronica’s self esteem has crumbled in the wake of her husband’s desertion for a younger woman and Ellen, who has always been content to play the field, is questioning her aversion to commitment. Finally best selling author, Nadine is drinking far too much, alienating her tiddas and her extraordinarily patient husband with drunken tirades she barely remembers the next morning. They variously evoke admiration, sympathy and laughter and I thought their personal journeys, and their sisterhood, to be portrayed realistically.

Three of the women, Izzy, Xanthe and Ellen are Aboriginal and their cultural heritage plays a large part in the novel. I did sometimes feel a little overwhelmed by Heiss’s socio-political agenda, the emphasis on Aboriginal issues is integrated in some contexts, such as the women’s book club discussions and the way in which the women related to their family and their mob, but I thought it came across as intrusive, even preachy, in some instances.

Tiddas is a slight departure from Anita Heiss’s chicklit backlist, including [book:Manhattan Dreaming|7760054] and [book:Avoiding Mr Right|6453492], that each focused on a twenty something single woman searching for love. I personally appreciate the maturity of the characters, and their conflicts, in Tiddas.

An engaging, warm and amiable novel this is a lovely novel. I enjoyed spending time with the Tiddas, just as I do with my own friends.

I published a Q&A with Anita Heiss earlier today, CLICK HERE to read it!