West Girls by Elektra Kasalidis

In West Girls, Woollett examines the intersection between class, culture, and gender in Australia and how these constructs define and constrain female identities. By crafting characters of diverse upbringing, she suggests that female misery, hatred, self-loathing, and suffering are symptoms of a male-dominated culture, where power and control are the ultimate goals. 

Within a patriarchal society, an individual’s ability to access power depends on their inherent attributes of class, gender, race, religion and beauty. This is an extreme and dangerous shift in human evolution, away from societies built on balance and collectivism, producing an overwhelming assortment of current and impending dooms. 

The novel’s characters, who reign at the top of the hierarchy – mining magnates, mining heiresses and WAGS – exist in isolated bubbles of privilege and power. When they feel threatened by women who fail to maintain their appearance or anyone who challenges power, they make racist, homophobic and misogynistic remarks to reinforce their own superiority. 

The loneliness and dissatisfaction experienced by the privileged characters of “West Girls” exposes the patriarchy’s inability to truly satisfy any life driven by competition, greed and consumption.

The novel highlights how deeply embedded these colonial systems are within Australian society and identifies how this corruption has penetrated our internal worlds. These dominant structures shape an individual’s sense of success, relationships to others, school experience and family life. 

The media and big corporations reinforce ideals surrounding beauty standards, self-expression and hierarchy, perpetuating damaging aspirations and instilling self-doubt in each vulnerable generation. Throughout her life, Luna Lu encounters this subliminal messaging in magazines, on billboards, in the modelling industry, and later social media. She is encouraged to prioritize her appearance over academic success. Beauty is equated with power in the world of “West Girls”, and the characters sacrifice their authentic selves to obtain a glimpse of the luxury and freedom it promises. Whilst initially exhilarating and fulfilling, beauty is ultimately finite and grotesque, easily corrupted, leaving hollow, discontented people in its wake. 

Appeasing the male gaze creates hostility and competition between women, something that is both governed and criticized by men and is designed to fuel big corporations. An economic model of growth is based on a dissatisfied population.

The novel’s very fabrication is an act of defiance against the patriarchy, documenting female-centric narratives filled with complex characters who can be cruel, vacuous, submissive, and manipulative, but also loving, sensitive, observant and resilient. 

As the colonial system’s harmful nature becomes apparent within this text, characters feel disempowered and imprisoned. As a reader, I felt compelled to consider alternative social structures. I think that as Australians, it is necessary to reckon with the colonial past that has founded this broken and unsustainable system and look to First Nations peoples for solutions. In the face of climate change and an endless string of social, political and economic problems, Indigenous Australian culture is in many ways superior to the current Western model, as the blueprint for the oldest continuous culture on the planet. In fact, it completely subverts patriarchal values, promoting interdependency between genders, emotional embodiment, the sharing of lore, and care for Country and community.

Thank you. 

West Girls by Emelia Koop

Replete with an agonising stagnancy that renders characters sordid and self-regarding, Laura’s vignette Ecstasy of Gold follows Luna Lu in her relationships, identity and career in the modelling industry.

The immediate appeal of the story is its vivid complexity, Ms. Sibley and I often spoke of how real it felt, how known it seemed- Everything about the story reeked with familiarity- the town of Bullion California and the character of Fleur who identifies as a Gryffindor yet is too afraid to take the tube- completely immersive, driving readers to understand narrators they’re positioned to dislike. The striking colour and movement imbue the characters, setting and narrative of the story further contributing to the novel’s vibrancy and cohesivity.

Yet, in creating this palpable realism, Laura creates something far more powerful than art, as instead, she crafts connection. While, in moments or perhaps entirely we resent Luna Lu’s selfishness and superiority as she refuses to stoop to the level of TAFE and relentlessly criticises her roommates- we, at the very least, come to understand her. We become Luna and Luna us- for although she is jealous and furious – stuck in an infinite grapple for recognition and beauty- her condition is imminently human. It’s funny because whilst in her ‘ah-mazings’ and her ‘nauhhhs’ and her complete dismissal and criticism of others’ Luna is characterised as shallow, she represents the depth yet the subtly of some of the most prevalent issues women face today.

In Luna’s relationships with women, Laura exposes the internalised misogyny that permeates modern womanhood- she explores the complexity of motherhood and of friendship, one of my favourite reviews calling the novel a ‘mirage of all the inventive ways in which women love and hurt one another’.

Amongst this, within two pages of the short story, Laura is able to successfully capture some of the most detrimental issues that pervade the modelling industry- the novel through Lunas obsessive consumption of absolut vodka and diet coke seeks to unpack eating disorders, through her flatmates scary Russian boyfriend who calls every thirty minutes it depicts coercive control and through young boys who claim all models are idiots, the novel reveals how women’s voices are marginalised- their industry unstable, their beauty fleeting and their insecurities enhanced by a social paradigm which suffocates them.

Yet, despite their inner complexity, the stories remain drilling and grotesque- Laura discreetly infusing them with meaning. Indeed, she capitalises on this complete inertia and hopelessness to demonstrate the constancy of these issues. For whilst we live in an age which plasters body positivity adds across billboards and celebrates acne, our reliance on and our desire for beauty remains ever-present. Its completely debilitating in these stories, and while Luna presents a desire to escape a society in which her value is governed by her appearance- writing poetry about powerful women, women with holes in their faces- she never does- because to do the work, to make the change, to reject this shiny, yet internally poisonous world of physicality is exhaustive and it is harrowing. And as readers, we experience this fatigue and this helplessness that Laura creates so effortlessly- we look at the jagged rocks and the broken bones and the splattered brains these beauty standards create, and we, much like the characters of West Girls, turn a blind eye, we turn a blind eye and we choose beauty. 

One of the beautiful things about Laura’s writing is how she managed to encompass everything being a woman means and feels like. Cecilia Xu

West Girls by Issy Hunt

I’d like to start with an image that struck me from West Girls as moment of devastating decision, as one of the protagonists commences her final exams. 

“English was my first exam. My best subject. Reading the essay questions, I felt as if I were standing at a cliff’s edge. And while I knew I could hold my ground, I chose the jagged rocks, the broken bones, the splattered brains. I chose beauty. I’d choose it again.” Ultimately, she purposefully flunks the test in order to pursue a modelling career. 

This image rocked me with its sadness, and it was only after further contemplation that I realised why: this situation is not unimaginable. In a world where impressionable young girls consume the falsities of social media, “To choose beauty, to choose it again” is not natural, but it is widely taught.

In Laura’s West Girls, seemingly disparate women are joined by this thread of beauty, submitting themselves to its violence, its “jagged rocks” as a devastatingly intentional choice. This is a book where characters search for connection and meaning, but tragically, turn to the wrong sources to find it. When reading Laura’s book, I was struck by the frankness of its deliberation of beauty and race. For example, one of Laura’s central characters, Luna Lu, builds a modelling career through racial impersonation, commercialising her ambiguous ethnicity so she could “gallivant around Europe pretending to be Asian”.  

Another thing that stood out to me about Laura’s work is her vignette-building of a model’s world; a world centred around the material. A fellow model’s bullet journal, for example, outlines goals such as “loose 1 stone… be more beautiful every day!”

But the outstanding centrepiece of Luna Lu’s story is her relationship with school-peer and fellow model Caitlyn B, or CB. This relationship is suffocatingly symbiotic; Luna wishing “for our insides to match, to feel the same things she felt”. Yet, her toxic infatuation for CB does not fully fulfil Luna, as they have no connection, no shared values, but rather, only superficiality ties them to one another.

Yet, through the stagnancy and exhaustion of the modelling world emerges a small glimmering of hope, which tethers Luna to a more stable reality. This reality is based on ideas, not the superficial. From the “one bedroom shithole in Alphabet city”, where she is staying for a modelling gig, Luna writes “frighteningly, frighteningly good poems, full of women with holes in their faces.” It’s as if Luna is trying to reconcile the modelling world – which steals from women, leaving them with physical holes in their bodies – and her love for English where meaning and deep emotion can be explored. 

While at times a sad portrait of the realities of our world, I believe that West Girls can also be read as a call to action, telling us to keep close the things we love. In our Stella Society, we too analyse and even try to write “frighteningly, frighteningly good poems”, championing ideas that rises above a world that still contemplates women through an objectifying lens.   

I thank Laura for bringing us West Girls. Laura’s novel raises some of the defining questions of our modern age, which must be faced with the same honesty, the same attentiveness as her book itself. 

West Girls by Emily J. Wu

I am as much of a fantasy book fan as any other, but there’s something compelling about the real, rawness of West Girls, so unabashed in its exposé of the good, the bad, and the ugly of girlhood.

As in the real world – or what Cady Heron might call ‘Girl World’ – jealousy runs rampant throughout the book. For me, though, I think Caitlyn B does it best. She’s “pretty-pretty”, says Luna, but Caitlyn is not immune to co-comparison and envy. Like every other girl on Earth, Caitlyn is gripped by the deep-rooted need to be something special. I can’t count on one hand the number of times she calls Luna “lucky”. And reading it makes me cringe – Luna is white, after all, but Caitlyn still covets her looks as something “exotic”. Of course, as soon as ‘exotic’ crosses over into ‘foreign’ – that is, someone genuinely Asian, Caitlyn is unimpressed, and outright racist. It’s for this reason that, as far as characters and personality go, I have to say Caitlyn’s not my favourite, and in fact I don’t rate Luna either. But watching them go back and forth between each other – friendship and jealousy and degradation and lust – is really interesting, and causes the characters to become more real in my eyes. It’s fascinating that I can feel such dislike – no, it’s closer to scorn – for a character’s attitude, and still find mirror shards nestled in the pages, reflecting ‘characters’ from my own world.

In particular, I’m struck by how Caitlyn and Luna seem to simultaneously want each other, want to be each other, and want to beat each other, in any sort of comparison they can think up. Since opposites attract, two north poles will repel each other by instinct, blinded by jealousy. But still does Luna want Caitlyn, so doggedly and desperately that she lies down and takes degrading remarks and racist comments to her friends. Meanwhile, Caitlyn obsesses over Luna’s ambiguous ethnicity, her body proportions, and her cute new last name. Then exams come around. 

Luna is supposed to be smart, and she’s now pretty on top of it all. So, when she fails her English exam, Caitlyn laps up the news like the cat that got the cream. Soon after, Luna realises that she can “hurt Caitlyn at relatively little cost to herself” and feels powerful, the way she assumes “men must feel all the time”. The implications of this realisation are twofold – first, it means Caitlyn’s beauty becomes “more placid” and “ordinary” in Luna’s eyes, returning again to the idea that ordinary is ugly, while special is beautiful. Secondly, it highlights the difference between a man who loves a woman, and two women who love-hate each other.

In a way, this is what I find most interesting about West Girls – the emphasis on the incredibly unique relationship between two beautiful girls who lust after each other, too similar in nature to let themselves love openly. Instead, they act on their lust under the cover of male validation, a twisted way of making excuses for themselves. So, it seems impossible for Luna and Caitlyn to love each other in a normal way, no matter how infatuated Luna is. They are each other’s competitors in every way, be it height, or waist circumference, or who can pass their English exam, or who can continue to pretend they’re not “gay-gay”, in Caitlyn’s words. It’s because being a beautiful girl next to another beautiful girl comes with oceans of insecurity built in. With Caitlyn’s boyfriend Xavier, or later Josh, she doesn’t need to worry about how her waist looks as she stands beside them, or whose bust is more full.

West Girls is a critical yet openminded exploration of beauty, envy, and the exhausting dynamic within lesbian relationships and female friendships – so wonderful, yet so difficult to navigate. They come with a level of mutual understanding unlike any other, but jealousy loves women as a thief loves a gallery – it is inescapable, bleeding into Caitlyn and Luna’s friendship and sense of self, worming deep down into their brains.

West Girls has made me think about womanhood in ways I hadn’t considered before. Thank you so much, Laura, for your incredible and thoughtful work!

West Girls by Cecilia Xu

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” 

When I think of beauty, I think of loveliness, of harmony. And when I think of beauty in people, I think of confidence, of grace, of humility. For me, it’s the heart that matters. But for arguably the text’s protagonist, Luna Lu, beauty is defined by botox, nose jobs, and private saltwater flotations. For her, it’s appearance that matters, despite the deep discontentment and being empty inside. And this novel, like its depiction of beauty, is nuanced and convoluted, nothing like what I expected. 

My favourite thing about this novel was how each chapter was written as though it was its own separate short story, though as you reach the final few chapters, you realise that everything is actually interconnected. Luna Lu acts as the anchor, the thread that connects everything and everyone together, and everyone else seems to be linked only by several degrees of separation. 

One of the beautiful things about Laura’s writing is how she managed to encompass everything being a woman means and feels like. West Girls delves into the depths of the complexity of being a woman – it’s messy, dark and brutally honest. I love how the novel is structured in a way that almost every chapter explores a story through the eyes of individuals of varying race, identity and background. Every segment is a vignette that delves into the minds of a group of women from high school to motherhood, providing unique perspectives on similar events, really shining a light on the intricacies of womanhood. The novel explores this constant state of misery and longing and desperation that most women live in, touching on challenges which women face daily – image obsession, fear of standing out, ridiculous societal expectations… At first, reading this novel was hard to stomach, as Woollett touched on topics that are very close to my own life experiences and those of people who are close to me. Never before have I felt so seen by a novel – Woollett’s voice is strong throughout and she handled these complex shared experiences deftly and with care. 

I also liked how Woollett didn’t feel the need to expand and define every moment and action of her characters, leaving the reader to fill in the gaps. As a reader, it took me a while and a lot of willpower to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together, to place all the tiles to create a beautiful, intricate mosaic of race, class, sexuality and fame. In essence, this different positioning of women across the stories coupled with their varying perspectives helps

readers remember that we all view people, ideas and beauty differently, and every opinion should be equally valued and appreciated – beauty is in the eye of the beholder afterall. This murkiness sheds light on the ambiguous expectations that are imparted on women, and how this is what makes being a woman so strenuous yet gratifying. 

A stellar moment for me when reading was when I realised that the toxic “CB” was actually also the characters of “Goddess”, “Caitlyn B” and “Cait” – she had actually existed from the very beginning of the story! It took me a while to put the two together, but when I did I was like “oh my god. Oh my god. OH MY GOD.” All my previous confusion as to where the story was heading had washed away, the murkiness had been replaced by new found enlightenment. It felt like I had completed that 1000 piece puzzle that took months to get through. Man, was I proud of myself. 

This novel is like nothing that I have ever read before – it took a lot of patience and understanding for me to get through it, and to be honest, after reading the first few chapters, I found it hard to continue as I was soooo lost, but thankfully I pushed through. To me, it felt as though this structure and style reflects the discombobulation and uncertainty of the characters, and this only made it that much more rewarding and intriguing of a read. 

Finally, I would like us all to take a second and appreciate the beautiful cover of this book. They say, “never judge a book by its cover”, but can I just say, this cover, like the contents itself, is pretty amazing. Not only are the colours gorgeous, but it also encompasses the complexities of the novel perfectly – this book is about women and the pervasive convolutions that come with being a woman. Thus, by the end of this novel, a new definition of beauty has come to light: it is really an all consuming leviathan, as shallow as it is skin deep. 

On that note, I would like to end with one of my personal favourite quotes from the book, which is also the quote featured in the blurb, so no spoilers: “I chose the jagged rocks, the broken bones, the spattered brains. I chose beauty. I’d choose it again.”