A photograph of a New Zealand beach access with cover of A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan over top.
A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan is out now in Aotearoa, Australia, the US and the UK.

BooksJune 11, 2025

A Beautiful Family: a haunting summer holiday novel, reviewed

A photograph of a New Zealand beach access with cover of A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan over top.
A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan is out now in Aotearoa, Australia, the US and the UK.

Claire Mabey reviews the novel about a New Zealand summer that caught the attention of one of the world’s most famous agents and is being released in multiple countries, with a film adaptation attached already.

Jennifer Trevelyan’s pathway from unknown author to international name is a particularly compelling one. Media attention has been hot and close this past week as A Beautiful Family is released in Aotearoa, Australia, the US and UK. On RNZ’s Nine to Noon, Trevelyan told Kathryn Ryan how she’d been writing away for a decade before she finally felt she had a manuscript worthy of sending out to an agent. Felicity Blunt – renowned literary agent – responded (for the uninitiated, this is notable in itself: it is extremely hard to get an agent, especially such a huge one) and the fairytale trajectory from hopeful scribbler to signed-up writer was set into motion. 

Blunt sold the book into multiple territories, secured Trevelyan a two-book deal, and sold the rights to the film, which already has Niki Caro down to direct. Trevelyan told Ryan that her one wish is that it is filmed in New Zealand. Without knowing anything about the novel, this is an extraordinary story. It is notoriously hard for New Zealand writers to crack the international market: not many manage to do it and certainly not via the pull power of Felicity Blunt, who represents Meg Mason, Jilly Cooper, Claire Keegan and Bonnie Garmus among others. It’s the kind of dream-come-true that gives hopefuls just enough to plough on with. Though the chances of such a sequence of events happening again is so slim it’s hard to imagine it repeating anytime soon.

I received a limited edition advance proof of A Beautiful Family a few months ago with the number 137/150 handwritten on the promotional cover, which read “if you only read one book in 2025 make it this one”. 

I have to admit that at this point in the game I’m skeptical of such commands. I get a lot of advance copies with grand promises and I don’t read them all: that would be more than a full time job. I put the book in my pile and frankly forgot about it until a week ago when I was looking through my to-be-read piles trying to find something that I’d be able to read quickly, and that might hold my attention over a gloomy, frigid day in which I was stuck inside with a head cold. 

Enter, the child. Trevelyan’s narrator is 10 years old. She’s unnamed until the very end of the book (I won’t reveal it here: best to find out for yourself). It’s this naive perspective that makes A Beautiful Family both easy to read and impossible to put down. The narrator’s innocence is pitted against several disturbing factors, all orbiting her summer in various shapes and shades, and it’s that persistent dance of disturbances that creates the sustained and unrelenting tension in the novel. 

Child narrators aren’t uncommon in adult literature but the decision to use them is fascinating to me. Catherine Chidgey’s The Book of Guilt uses the perspective of three siblings to tell that sinister story; John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a famously affecting use of the child’s perspective to tell a holocaust story – the adult reader immediately understanding what the child characters do not. This distance between the child narrator and the adult reader is where sickening suspense lies: as adults we know more than they do and all we have left is to hope that, in this story, we’re wrong. 

A Beautiful Family is set on the Kāpiti Coast in the 1980s. We know this because Trevelyan is meticulous with her references to the time period: the child’s prized possession is a Walkman through which she plays Split Enz; The Exorcist has aired on TV; there are Seventeen magazines with sealed sections; the child and her sister Vanessa get terrifically sunburned and only after getting blisters does their mother buy some SPF15. There is also casual racism at play in varying degrees of intensity. A Chinese family is talked about in grotesque terms; a Māori character is described as having “skin the colour of burnt caramel”. It makes you grind your molars until you remember that this is the 80s and such clangers were horrifyingly commonplace. 

Photograph of a woman with long brown hair standing outside near a beach. She is looking at the camera.
Jennifer Trevelyan. (Photo: Curtis Brown)

The question that came to haunt me as I read A Beautiful Family was from what distance is this child narrator telling her story? The voice is in first person, past tense, which indicates that there is space between the events and the telling of them. But it’s never made clear how much space: only a couple of moments where the narrator says directly that she doesn’t remember a certain detail. For some reason this struck me and niggled at me. I suspect that not many other readers will be at all concerned with this but I wished for those intimations of distance to be either removed or embellished because, for this reader at least, it made me question memory, naivety and the precise impact of the story on its teller. Trevelyan has revealed herself to be a perfectionist and a very careful writer so I doubt that this ambiguity is erroneous, but rather a deliberate nod towards the way core childhood memories stay, and replay.

Because this is a summer that lingers: it’s the kind of childhood scenario that would lodge itself in the brain and return to the mind’s eye with changing lenses as you aged. It is immediately clear that the child’s parents are unhappy and that Vanessa (the sister) has struck a particularly unpleasant and caustic stage of her teenage years. The child is left largely to her own devices until she meets Kahu, a young boy, and he tells her about Charlotte who disappeared from the beach one summer when she was nine years old. 

The book is haunted by Charlotte in several ways. As an unsolved mystery it gives the two lonely children something to investigate; and it adds an extra element of suspicion to the dead-eyed neighbour that trains his gaze over the child and her family. Trevelyan carefully places her threats: there’s the simmering unhappiness between the parents; clear signs of an affair; a very creepy neighbour; and the sea. 

‘He mea tautoko nā ngā mema atawhai. Supported by our generous members.’
Liam Rātana
— Ātea editor

Children are frequently left alone at the beach in this story. While the descriptions of diving in and out of the waves like dolphins are charming, nostalgic, you’re left to worry about drowning. New Zealand has horrendous child drowning rates. Our losses make it very hard to read a local novel where the sea laps and waits for unsupervised children. You’re left to shout into the pages for the adults to focus on their kids for once; to shout “remember Charlotte?!” The mother character is one of the most intriguing figures in this novel where the adults are so absent they’re almost abstract. She’s having an affair (this is made obvious early on), and she’s trying to write a book. At least, her child thinks that’s what she’s doing. Whatever it is she’s scribbling, it lets her take her eye off the ball: helps her escape her family, escape parenting, her miserable marriage, her surroundings. 

Early on we learn that the mother usually demands they holiday in remote places. So her family finds it unusual that this summer she wants to go “where there are people”. It becomes clear that the affair has a lot to do with this change of heart; but what I found most interesting was the depiction of the writer as selfish, self-isolating and self-destructive. I suspect that many women of a certain age will empathise strongly with her, particularly in contrast to the man she married. Through his child’s eyes we get glimpses of a father who thinks it’s not his job to chaperone the children on the beach; who is friendly enough but who is quietly fuming about his marital situation; who is racist; and who enacts a violence that will severely scar any of Trevelyan’s readers who are writers. 

A Beautiful Family reminded me, to some degree, of the film Little Children (2006). Ostensibly a movie about an affair, it becomes, in dramatic fashion, a story about the selfishness of adults: the damage they can cause to the children they like to think are unknowing and unseeing. Trevelyan’s story plays a similar trick in that its mystery centres on a missing girl, a creepy man, and the terror that experimenting teenagers can inflict upon themselves and others. But this is really a novel about parents: about what they don’t see, what they distract themselves with (cricket, BBQs, projects, affairs, discontents) and what they miss. 

But what of that bold claim on the proof copy? A Beautiful Family is well written, it’s immersive, and it is haunting. It’s a novel that will prompt you to look back over your own childhood and assess the threats; the fast friendships; the collisions with siblings and strangers. A Beautiful Family has an atmosphere and an eye for place that means it has the potential to make a good Aotearoa noir film and one hopefully filmed on the Kāpiti Coast. I can see why Felicity Blunt was so confident about this novel: there is a universality to the way the child observes danger, weathers the storm of family, is plagued by what she remembers. There’s a cinematic quality to the writing. 

But I hope you read more than one book in 2025. New Zealand is producing so much compelling fiction: more of it deserves to be read, discovered, and helped to go big. Hopefully Trevelyan’s success will help kick that door open a little wider.

A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan ($37, Allen & Unwin) is available to purchase from Unity Books.

Keep going!
A collage of five book covers about Jacinda Ardern, including biographies, a memoir, and guides, all featuring her photo and name prominently on each cover, set against a blue background with question marks.
She contains multitudes

PoliticsJune 9, 2025

A different kind of memoir? Five fake Jacinda Ardern books, read and reviewed

A collage of five book covers about Jacinda Ardern, including biographies, a memoir, and guides, all featuring her photo and name prominently on each cover, set against a blue background with question marks.
She contains multitudes

Generative AI can do anything these days, including, it would seem, write the former prime minister’s hotly anticipated memoir. Mirjam Guesgen dives into this curious new literary genre.

Jacinda Ardern’s memoir, A Different Kind of Power, has been described by The Guardian as “a strikingly different kind of political memoir” and “often funny, compulsively readable and intimate” by The Listener. The Age reviewer, Jenna Price, said she’d cried twice by the time she reached page 60.

Excited to spend my evenings being let into the inner sanctum of Ardern’s thoughts and hopes, I hurriedly opened my Amazon page to get my hands on a copy (yes, I have Amazon because I live in Canada and have succumbed to the wiles of capitalism). 

But as well as being met by the expected black, white and fluorescent yellow cover, I came across half a dozen other versions of the book, all published around the same time as Power’s release. Jacinda – or someone who looks vaguely like her –beamed at me from the covers, inviting me to glean the many facets of her life through these pages. I’ve never downloaded a veritable shelf of Kindle books faster.

What follows is my review of a selection of these works.

Jacinda Ardern Memoir: Navigating Different Kind of Power between Politics and Family

By Luiz Goncalves

“Who is Jacinda Ardern?” That’s the question at the heart of this “unauthorised memoir”. I’m not sure the author knows what memoir means but that’s beside the point because, according to Goncalves, “Ardern’s story is one that needs to be told.”

By the end of the introduction, I can feel Goncalves’ deep admiration for Ardern – in a kind of fake, robotic sense. He’s writing this because he’s moved by her story and wants to give us a fuller picture of her life. 

Unfortunately, Goncalves doesn’t deliver on his goal. The book reads like one of those terrible essays you wrote in high school, parsed with such choice phrases as “another significant moment” and “one memorable moment”. It feels like you’re reading a resume, padded out by clichés. 

Perhaps that’s because this Luiz Goncalves, author, is either a roof inspector in Montreal, a Spanish and Portuguese lecturer at Princeton (unlikely), or a visually impaired runner. 

I’ll give it to Goncalves though, he does have a way of turning the most mundane occurrences into literary page-fillers. Take the time that Ardern noticed that someone had stolen from her school tuck shop (did this even happen? I don’t know). He waxes lyrical about the incident for no fewer than two paragraphs and describes it as an example of Ardern’s moral compass. “… ultimately … prioritizing justice over social popularity”.

My favourite chapter was the riveting one on her net worth. Don’t be fooled, would-be reader! This isn’t a recital of basic facts and figures. It’s a way for the author to show you how her modest earnings are a testament to her career in public service. 

Goncalves concludes by posing the question, “What if there were 10 Jacinda Arderns, or even thousands?” (There certainly are around 10 fake books about her.)

Rating: 7 out of 10 large language models. Short and sweet. Not as short and sweet as Arderns Wikipedia page, which eerily has many of the same details…

Two book covers about Jacinda Ardern. The left cover is minimalist with yellow and gray text. The right cover features Jacinda Ardern smiling, with bold text and a black-and-yellow color scheme.
Jacinda Ardern Memoir and Power with Kind Purpose: The Jacinda Ardern Story

Power With Kind Purpose: The Jacinda Ardern Story

By Amanda Humper (or Eleanor Riggs?)

I was nervous about Googling this author’s name, which appears in the Amazon listing but not on the cover, for some reason, for fear of what might pop up. Thankfully there is no Amanda Humper, so I needn’t have worried. But maybe it was Eleanor Riggs who wrote this book, as the cover would suggest… 

Regardless of the author, I’m immediately drawn into this rendition of Ardern’s story. The table of contents has been left completely blank, imbuing a sense of mystery into the whole thing.

Humper’s (or is it Riggs’?) goal in writing this account is to “provide a comprehensive, nuanced account” that “avoids hagiography”. It certainly does that. The chapter on Ardern’s first term is so detailed, in fact, it’ll have you asking, “is this a white paper or a novel?”. If you want a blow-by-blow breakdown of all political policies that Ardern was involved in, then this is the book for you!

The author does find space, however, for some colour in their storytelling. For example, the Whakaari/White Island eruption is described in gripping detail as “a very significant event”. 

They also do a good job of making sure you know just how important this long list of facts and biographical details is, by adding phrases like “had a profound impact”, “shaped” and “marked a significant milestone” in almost every paragraph. 

A final interesting detail is that this memoir directly references Ardern’s real 2025 memoir, stating that it “cemented her power” – even though this book was published four days before the release of A Different Kind of Power.

Rating: 5 out of 10 policy study guides. Too detailed for me.

Prime Minister Movie Guide: Jacinda Ardern’s Journey Through Tragedy and Triumph

By Gregory J Edwards

The cover of this book is what prompted me to purchase and review it. It features a solemn-looking Ardern (eeerr…) covered with what appear to be strange news article headlines and photographs. The longer I look at the tortured faces and garbled words, the more scared I become.

This book starts off strong and it almost makes me feel like I’m reading a real book. I’m not sure where the movie part comes in though. I’m confused, but push on.

By page nine, the text reads, “this makes the 2025 documentary Prime Minister more than just a chronicle of what happened”. Ah. This is based on the Sundance film released in January 2025. My fault.

Rating: 0 out of 10. Not ADKOP book.

Side-by-side images of two book covers about Jacinda Ardern. The left shows a fake Jacinda, serious, with film scenes overlayed; the right shows her smiling in a red blazer, with "Jacinda Ardern Biography" in bold text.
Prime Minister Movie Guide (‘The longer I look at the tortured faces and garbled words, the more scared I become’) and Jacinda Ardern Biography

Jacinda Ardern Biography (Biographies of the Famous)

By Famed History

I was excited to review this book because it’s the latest instalment in a series of biographies that also includes other great leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Buffalo Bill. Surely this publisher knows what they’re doing. 

They really built my expectations, too. In the introduction I’m told that “this is more than just a story” and to “get ready to be touched, challenged, and uplifted”. Alright Famed History, let’s go! I’m psyched. 

And in a way, they deliver on this promise. This is certainly the most grandiloquent of the books I reviewed. Ardern is described as someone who “saw people as individuals, not numbers” and “a child who believed the softest voice could bring about real change”. Maybe these are the tear jerkers that Price mentioned? 

But the emotive language isn’t reserved for the fine print. Famed History has a way with words when it comes to chapter titles, with such greats as “Dreams Beyond the Horizon” and “A Leader in Lockdown”.

Every description in this book is cranked up to 110. Murupara, for example, one of the towns of Ardern’s youth, is described in a way that makes it sound like 1970s Harlem (yes, I concede that there’s been a history of gang violence there). In another section, Famed History describes Ardern’s transition out of high school: “While others looked for careers focussed on wealth and prestige, Jacinda looked inwards. Her calling was about purpose… she enrolled… to study communication.” The same goes for her journey through politics: [We’re about half way through her political story at this point, having read about her numerous involvements in local and international politics] “what followed was a story few could have predicted”.

With so much tension and drama throughout, you might wonder how such a book could end. Well, with a request by the author to give the book a good review if you liked it.

Rating: 9 out of 10 tear-sodden tissues.

A woman in a blue blazer wears a necklace reading "Kindness." Text above her says "Leading Quietly." To the right, it reads, "How Jacinda Ardern Changed the World." Below, the author is listed as Gordon D. Flyn.
The Kindness necklace is a nice touch

Leading Quietly: How Jacinda Ardern Changed the World

By Gordon D Flyn

Since Prime Minister Movie Guide was a bust, I decided I needed to review one more Ardern memoir. Did I pick a lovely short read to ease my tired, Kindle-dried eyes? No, dear reader, I did not. I picked the longest book I could find. 

How did this book fill double the amount of pages as many of the previous works? The answer lay in repetition and a seeming lack of any kind of chronology. It haphazardly jumps from a summary of how Ardern handled the Covid-19 pandemic on page 20 back to details of her birth on page 22. 

In case you get reading whiplash, Flyn (with one n) makes sure to repeat everything at least twice, so you can piece the story together. He also conveniently bolds certain words and phrases throughout the book, and summarises key points of particular chapters with handy bullet-point lists. Confusion problem solved.

One thing that Flyn does well is providing detailed portrayals of Ardern’s communication strategy (including how she used social media and other “modern technology”); what it was like working in a coalition government; and reactions to her resignation from around the world – all areas the other books I read didn’t touch.

Flyn also makes it very clear that this is not A Different Kind of Power. It’s better. On page five he writes that this book seeks to answer a different set of questions. Questions like: how does a small town girl come to redefine global expectations?

In chapter nine, Flyn provides the reader with a review of ADKOP (a book within a book!) He once again reiterates that this biography will delve deeper than that other paperweight. Sadly, we’re 91% through this book already, leaving little time for Flyn to deliver on his promise. 

The book finishes with six pages of appendices, selected quotes, awards and further reading. In case these 126 pages weren’t enough.

Rating: 3 out of 10 progress check-ins. I couldn’t wait to be done with this.

Three book covers featuring 'Jacinda Ardern': the first is a photo of the real Ardern, with her smiling in a black blazer, the second is a black-and-white portrait of a fake Ardern, and the third shows another fake Ardern in red with the title “Jacinda Ardern’s Path to Power” in bold green text.
Three other fake Ardern books that were not reviewed but are no doubt solid reads (a missed opportunity to use ‘From Morrinsville to Memorability’, surely)

Afterword

I ran random sections of these books through ZeroGPT, an AI detection tool, and all were found to have been made by generative AI. Some were up to 98.7% AI-written. 

These books are part of a growing slew of AI-generated books scamming would-be readers. They are released around the same time as a highly anticipated book and try to profit off the hype by getting people to download them accidentally. 

My review of this phenomenon: another example of generative AI diluting and disrupting the media landscape. 0 out of 10.

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Joel MacManus
— Wellington editor