The subtitle of this book is "A misfit's story of love, connection and the glorious power of letting go" and if there was ever a statement that succinctly defines what's wrong with this world, it's that.
Gina Chick should never be made to feel like a misfit. The rest of us, those who don't get what she is, how she lives, how she sees the world - at least should just shut up and move along. Better still, do the shut up thing, and listen, watch and see a woman who deserves her place in the world, and has so much to teach everyone about the importance of difference, and thought, and strength.
This is an amazing memoir, honest, clear sighted, open and incredibly generous. All the things that the author seems to carry with her so effortlessly. Her childhood was difficult but formative - her family life supportive, generous and fun, her school life blighted by morons. The sort of morons that are petty, small-minded and foolish beyond all belief. (I'm restraining myself hard here - these idiots are of voting age. Explains a hell of a lot).
In the middle of the warts and all descriptions of life there are moments of absolute joy, finding acceptance in communities in Sydney who value and celebrate so called "difference", her struggles with love and then finding it. The battle for a child, cancer, then the death of that much longed for baby girl. Letting go of the love of her life and finding a deep friendship with him instead. Amazing strength, resilience and compassion.
This is exactly the sort of story we need told in a world that's shot to hell. Now if we could all just put some effort into ways of getting more Gina's and less idiots ...
We Are the Stars
Gina Chick, the inaugural winner of Alone Australia, tells the story of her extraordinary, indomitable life in one of the most powerful, moving memoirs you will ever read.
From day one of her wildly unconventional childhood, Gina Chick blazed her own trail, which led her to dance through the hidden world of ’90s Sydney nightlife into the arms of a conman. She fled to the wilderness to find healing, began a wondrous love affair with the deepest lessons life – and death – can offer, and found that all the answers are written in the wisdom of the body and the whirling silence of stars.
If you’re ready to get lost in jungles, wander into wolf-dens, sing with storms, rescue orphaned animals, dive to the depths, dance ’til your knees wobble, fall in love, find yourself by losing it all, and most of all be real; this book is for you.
We Are the Stars is a magic carpet ride through the exquisite mystery of the human heart. You’ve never read anything like it.