Loop Tracks — book review

I’d have bought stacks of Loop Tracks for my women friends for Christmas if most of my wf hadn’t already read it and recommended it to me.

Sue Orr has hit the zeitgeist with this story of a 50-something woman living on a Wellington hill and bringing up her socially awkward teenage grandson. There are many topics in the book, which begins with the woman as a sixteen-year-old girl on the verge of an abortion which she decides against, a decision that comes to define her life. The loops run through themes of women’s rights, shame, love, trust, control, freedom and responsibility like a loop pedal on the sound track of a young woman’s guitar.

There have been many rave reviews about this book and I would like to add to them, but I won’t cover the plot here as there are lots of plot summaries out there. I’ll tell how the book made me feel.

Reading Loop Tracks made me feel like I had returned to my family home in Kelburn and caught up with the girls I had grown up with for an evening of wine and life stories, sharing things you can only tell women you have known since childhood.

It gave me the goosebumps.