Rush Oh!

I don't normally write book reviews, but I enjoyed this book so much I just had to. It is a delight to read a book without murders, psychopaths and bad language. It is an account of whaling off the Australian coast in the very early 20th century based on true accounts from the local paper. It is full of fascinating facts about thel lives of the community and, of course the whaling. It is written from the perspective of the eldest daughter of the whaling captain, who has an enormous amount of responsibility for everything domestic.

Loved this book - full of likeable characters and beautifully written. The narrators humourous dialogue and observations kept me reading what could have been a fairly tame read. Some graphic descriptions of whaling, but really this is more of a family story. Would recommend.

A sweet tale if you are interested in a bit of whaling history in Australia, I wasn’t really ! A little boring.

Found it hard going!

Funny, romantic, dramatic and feels real

This book, which has been longlisted for the Bailey's Prize 2016, (that's how it came to catch my eye), is one of my favourite reads of 2016.It tells the story of Mary Davidson, the eldest daughter of a whaling family in Australia in the early years of the twentieth century. She has written an illustrated memoir of the whaling season of 1908. In fact the illustrations are one of my favourite things about this book, lending it a charm and a sense of realism that really tug at your heart strings. The story she tells is funny and heart breaking, and romantic and poetic, and oh so beautifully written. It really is a book to savour.1908 is a difficult whaling season, because there just aren't many whales that make the men shout, "Rush Oh" (the call that the men use to alert everyone to the arrival of a right whale in the bay. (They are called "right" whales because they are the right whales for catching. Then John Beck arrives in town, and asks for a job on the whale ship as oarsman. He has a mysterious past. Mary is soon besotted and bewitched by him. However, is he really who he pretends to be? Actually, what I have written makes this book sound like a romantic mystery story, but it's so much more than that. It's a delightful, deftly written tale of what it really felt like to depend on the whales for your livelihood, and along the way snippets of history are dropped lightly into the story - drawn from real newspaper cuttings, so that you get the feeling what you are reading could be non-fiction.Rush Oh! is a beautifully crafted account of a time when a family of fishermen formed a relationship with a pod of killer whales. One of the most memorable characters in the book, in fact, is the killer whale named Tom. The acknowledgements tell how you can go and see his bones in a museum of whaling in Australia. This museum is now on my wish list of places to visit! This beguiling little book made me laugh and cry.

After a glut of crime, psychological thrillers and contemporary fiction over the past few months, I found it a little difficult at first to settle into this story of the life of a whaling family in 1908 New South Wales, Australia. However, Shirley Barrett's writing is marvellously engaging, and it really wasn't that long at all before I found myself firmly immersed in Mary Davidson's story.George 'Fearless' Davidson is famous in Australia, but I have to admit that his story, and the whole whaling industry is something that I had never come across before. However, Shirley Barrett has created such a wonderful voice in young Mary that I found myself totally entralled and caught up in the life of this unusual family.Mary is funny and bright, she's taken on a lot of responsibilities during her short life. Things are not easy for her and her family, yet her humour and capacity to see the best in things shines through. Mary's clumsy and naive attempts to attract the attention of new crew man John Beck are endearing, and the reader can't help but cheer her along.I don't want to mislead anyone though and it is to be remembered that Rush Oh! is so much more than just a coming of age story. Whaling is not a gentle occupation, it involves violence and can be brutal at times, and Shirley Barrett perfectly incorporates this into her carefully researched and elegantly written story.Along with her superbly created human characters, the author also expertly brings to life Tom, the leader of the pack of Killer Whales. The almost magical connection and co-operation between Tom and the other whales, seemingly working in partnership with the men of the whaling crew is quite stunning.Rush Oh! is a striking story which captures the era and the history so well, from the food, to the language to the landscape.