Author: Laura Elizabeth Woollett

Publisher: Scribe Publications

First Published: 01 August 2023

“What grated the most was the realisation that maybe it had never been about talent, or beauty, or some indefinable golden quality. It has always been bullshit.”  

I will start by saying that I was given a copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank so much to the wonderful team over at Scribe for sending a copy my way!

‘I chose the jagged rocks, the broken bones, the spattered brains. I chose beauty. I’d choose it again.’

Luna Lewis is white. But her friends aren’t, nor are her brothers, nor her one-time Princess of Indonesia–finalist stepmother. After transforming from pudgy preteen to ‘exotic’ beauty, Luna reinvents herself as ‘Luna Lu’ and takes her ticket out of the most isolated city on earth. However, as her international modelling career approaches its expiry date, Luna must grapple with what she’s sacrificed — and who she’s become — in her mission to conquer the world.

Featuring an intersecting cast of glamour-hungry public schoolgirls, WAGs, mining heiresses, backpacker-barmaids, and cosmetic nurses, West Girls examines beauty, race, class divisions, and social mobility in Australia’s richest state. It’s also a devastating catalogue of the myriad, inventive ways in which women love and hurt one another.

While West Girls isn’t my favourite book by Laura Elizabeth Woollett, I enjoyed exploring this examination of race, beauty, and classism in Western Australia. Like always, I adored Woollett’s writing style.

The story unfolds in a series of fragmented sections. While Luna is considered the quote-on-quote main character, we do get perspectives from other women including, Katie, a German backpacker, Geil, a cosmetic nurse and Caitlyn, an upper-class university student who has been cut off from her family’s money, turned footballer’s WAG. It did take me a couple of sections to get used to that narrative style as it is not your traditional, linear narrative. But from there I sat back and trusted Woollett to introduce me to these characters and how they explore the duality of the highs and lows of how women love and hurt each other, whether that is to get ahead in a competitive career or in a way to soothe their own insecurities.

Woollett doesn’t shy away from the dark, manipulative side of humanity. I love the duality and full range she shows in her characters. They are neither right nor wrong but are wholly human. She displays these women, Luna in particular, in all their unfiltered and messy glory. These characters really prove that the only person looking out for yourself in life is you. Luna is so focused on her goal of becoming a model and travelling the world that she will use every connection and avenue she can to get there even if it’s not the “honest” path. She does not care about the fallout and consequences of these actions. The lies Luna tells, including about her ethnic heritage, are all so she can claim her goal of being a model like the women she admired in fashion magazines. She ruined friendships with girls she has known her whole life to get closer to the glamorous, Caitlyn. The pair’s friendship, simply put, is toxic. Neither girl shies away from hurting the other if they feel their status or reputation is threatened. Luna’s drive and determination are admirable even if her backstabbing actions are not. She does achieve her goal but is quick to learn that the modelling industry isn’t as glamorous as her glossy magazines lead her to believe. And while she does achieve her goal, you get this sense that her obsession with beauty and being famous isn’t as fulfilling as she wanted it to be. She feels hollow and unhappy.

I enjoyed Woollett’s exploration of the beauty industry, and maybe this and the Western Australia setting are the real focal points of the story where Luna, Geil and Caitlyn are just vessels to explore these ideas. Luna has risked friendships and her education to become a model. All she cares about is fame and travelling the world. We get glimpses into her world as her career starts. Due to her vaguely ethnic look, she changes her name to Luna Lu and embraces lying about her race all for the chance to escape Western Australia. In Geil’s section, Ture Face, we explore this cult-like culture of cosmetic beauty. The financial and physical pain Geil and the women who come to her for treatments go through is extreme. As the section goes on, we see that the happiness they get from achieving this unrealistic beauty standard is fleeting and doesn’t seem to counteract the effort and pain they have gone through to achieve it. You can see that they have fed into the image and marketing around this cosmetic company and, even if they just came in for a small beauty treatment, they are quickly up-sold increasingly extreme cosmetic treatments.

Being Australian, I always enjoy seeing books set in Australia. I think the way Woollett has portrayed Western Australia is authentic. Luna and Caitlyn were teens in the early 2000s, like myself, which left me feeling nostalgic.

If you are looking for a read which explores the complex and, at times, contradictory dynamics of female friendships and the unfiltered look into modelling and the beauty industry, then West Girls is for you. I am excited to see what Laura Elizabeth Woollett writes next. I’m always fascinated by the characters she creates.