Wrong Answers Only

 By: Tobias Madden

Location: FIC MAD

Genre: Contemporary, LGBT, Young Adult

Marco's always done the right thing. But now it's time for wrong answers only.

Marco should be at university, studying biomedicine. Instead, he’s been sent to live on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean with his estranged uncle, all because of a ‘blip’ everyone else is convinced was a panic attack. (Which it most definitely was not.)

And even though Marco’s trip is supposed to provide answers – about himself, about his family – all he finds on board the Ocean Melody are more and more questions.

But then his best friend CeCe proposes a new plan: for someone who has always done the right thing, in every possible way, it’s time for Marco to get a few things wrong. And hooking up with a hot dancer from the ship is only the beginning.

Great review by Chris Leow

Masked as a simple YA queer novel with a teenage protagonist as its main character, Madden weaves a complex story that brings forth the anxieties and discomfort of life's endless questions. The coming of age grapples with commentary around family in the most traditional sense. The authenticity in the ethnic-Australian migrant family characters and dynamics brought forth a subtle commentary on intergenerational traumas and evolution of characters through cultural assimilation.

Marco's self rejection of weaknesses deeply rooted in high achievers and likeness to parental figures is a mature revelation that is well supported with contradictions of self makes for a truely authentic queer teenage character that acts beyond his years. Resolution of the decade-long rifts in the family subvert the expected typical YA happy ending but rather roots itself in the imperfect nature of endless questioning, partial answers and incompleteness while attempting to move forward with life.

So while "Lascia che la vita to sorprenda" (let life surprise you) remains the catch phrase of the novel, Madden does wonders in layering the cacophony of grief, shame, pain, anxiety, wonder, and numbness young queer Australian boys experience.