Love and Virtue, by Diana Reid

A scholarship girl from Canberra, Michaela is an outsider at Sydney University’s Fairfax residential college. Super smart, but lacking confidence and a little naïve, from the start she submerges herself into the rampant drinking culture in order to fit in. Her next door neighbour Eve is a performative rebel, but is really just another of the privileged Sydney private school boys and girls who all know each other. Their friendship is always problematic, but Michaela doesn’t realise it until Eve co-opts an incident in O week to make a point and raise her own profile. The fallout lasts a lifetime. Reid’s depiction of campus and college life rings true and Michaela’s undergraduate experience investigates power and consent in this milieu. The story has a 90s vibe so it is shocking to realise it is contemporary and depressing to know that so little has changed nor seems likely to among the entrenched and toxic structures of academia. This debut novel has seen Diana Reid compared to Irish publishing phenomenon Sally Rooney, but her writing seems far more grounded in the real world. She has a second novel in the works so it will be interesting to see where she goes next. Hopefully not up her own arse like Rooney.