Woollett’s sparse language lets each scene breathe. Although I grew up in Sydney – the opposite of Perth (figuratively and geographically),I was reminded of my own obsession with the power of pretty:in high school,I was infatuated by a student in my year whose prettiness floored me in a way that was totalising,devotional and utterly transcendent.
Her prettiness was a power she wielded so carefully,though I understood it as some mesmerising force of attraction. Whenever she spoke to me,I thought I would die.
The characters inWest Girls form a kind of period text,a capsule to the early 2000s. They own Britney Spears bootlegs. Their bedrooms are decorated with red ribbons from the Lindt bunnies,amethyst,quartz,tiger’s eye “pocketed from a hippie shop”,lucky bamboo. They coat their long hair in glitter hairspray,their armpits in vanilla-scented Impulse,their mouths with sweet alco-pop.
Though the stories can sometimes be oblique and the character arcs a bit flat,the strength ofWest Girls lies in its confident presentation of what it means to be a Winona in a world made for Gwyneths. Which is to say,it must be hard to be brunette in a world that worships blondes. Even if we don’t fit these two reductive categories (I have black hair,for instance),I can be sympathetic.
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