Jade was determined to be true to herself and her nature, regardless of the consequences, but it often seemed that she never really grasped just how deeply her behaviour touched her family.

There is so much to say, but I don’t want to say too much so I am a little lost for words. It is easy to judge, and judgement is something Jade has been faced with her entire life – often without cause – but as we are dragged deeper into the story we see that there is more to all of this than has ever been recognised before.

It is only as the story unfolds that we truly get to know Jade in a way that no one person has ever done before. Jade is a character that it is difficult to be sympathetic to and the depth of her depression at Banjo’s passing could easily be taken for a guilty conscience that finally caught up with her way too late. We enter the story near the end and fill in the details through memories. Kate Belle draws us a picture of their marriage and their relationship, beginning quite sketchy and slowly filling in the details until everything looks completely different. She was taken in by Banjo’s parents after the death of her mother and the two married young.īanjo and Jade could not be more different, from their appearances to their personal codes they share nothing except their love and later their children. Jade never knew her father and was raised by her drug addicted, prostitute mother. We meet her through Banjo as a troubled teen, always the outcast and too tough to show she cared. Jade is a complex character, vividly drawn, and hard to settle on a reaction to. The interesting part of this is that our first person narrator is the newly deceased Banjo, it is very different to read a book told by a spiritual onlooker who can not affect the world he observes. This novel is told from two perspectives, one in the first person and one in the third so it was quite easy to follow. The Yearning received some fabulous reviews so I was excited to see Being Jade come across my desk.Ĭompelling and confronting I found Being Jade addressed quite a taboo subject with compassion and really opened up new perspectives for me. Being Jade is the second novel by Australian Kate Belle.

The Yearning by Kate Belle