The Underworld

Just read it cause she's brilliant. Flippin' amazing. She never disappoints.

Trent Dalton, Essential Summer reads

Intimate and compassionate. A charismatic and imaginative novel.

Charlotte Callander, Books + Publishing

The underworld is a fresh mastery of [Laguna's] strange balance of abstraction and the everyday. The language is hypnotising. Laguna's rare ability to describe emotion without cliche can be revelatory.

Miriam Cosic, The Saturday Paper

Laguna explores growing up while feeling different and unseen. She navigates Martha's character development - and the pitfalls and dangers of trying not to be different - with compassion and care. The superior skill of her writing means the reader cannot help but be invested in Martha's life desperately wanting her to be happy and loved.

Bob Moore, Good Reading magazine

The latest novel from Sofie Laguna has a lovely beguiling quality from the get-go. It is 1974 and teenager Martha, the only child of wealthy but taciturn parents, has fallen in love with the classics at her elite private school. She is fascinated by ancient cultures’ understanding of the underworld. This becomes an important metaphor for Martha, who seeks distance from her adolescent awkwardness, her family’s internal politics, and her burgeoning understanding of her own sexuality. Laguna elegantly charts her intellectual and sexual awakening through high school, university and to a hopeful glimpse of adulthood.

Sian Cain, The Guardian

A gorgeously melancholic novel about Martha, a classics-obsessed teen navigating loneliness, desire and the depths of her imagination. The Miles Franklin winner luminously captures boarding-school friendships, mythic fixations and the tumult of a private inner world.

Melanie Kembrey, Good Weekend

Sofie Laguna writes the kind of books that remind me how much power can reside in relatively unadorned language. Reading her is always a transformative experience. A pitch perfect story of mourning, healing and awakening. Absorbing, tender and elegantly done.

Simon McDonald, Written By Syme

This novel is the one that has lingered most with me all year. The plot is, essentially, Martha's intellectual and sexual awakening through adolescence and into adulthood. But credit to Laguna, for Martha has a wonderfully realised interiority, and you will miss her company once you're done.

Sian Cain, Guardian, Books of the Year