That Boarding School Girl by Dorita Fairlie Bruce

That Boarding School Girl by Dorita Fairlie Bruce

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There’s something delicious in coming to Dorita Fairlie Bruce so randomly, so irregularly, because it feels like reading her for the first time every time. And as much as I’d like to devour all her work at once, I rather love that I have this kind of intermittent discovery of how good and how characterful her work can be. She is very good at giving strong character and I think that’s why upon reading this near-hundred year old book, it felt so fresh. And good! It felt good and I was just so struck by how you might ever dress up a school story (and however many missing wills or potential life-ending incidents the stories may hold), they survive because, at the best, they are stories about people being people. Messy, fun, loving, shy, awkward, people. And this is what That Boarding School Girl gives: people trying to do the best of their lives, in whatever shape that might be, and it’s so nicely done.

The second in a series, though it reads well-enough as a standalone, That Boarding School Girl is the story of Nancy who was expelled from her last school and is now trying to Make Good. She is paranoid about getting into troubles and trying to do the right thing wherever she can – and it’s not easy. She gets grief for working hard and trying to pass exams and when the school holidays come, she relaxes a little bit and her chums go “huh, why can’t you be this cool chick all the time?” but she is all “mais non, my chums, I cannot tell you for I have a secret.” As is the way in this sort of story (I’m not spoiling it, you all know it’s going to happen) her secret comes out and Shenanigans Ensue.

Where this book shines is in that sense of a person just trying to do good. Nancy is intensely believable and her relationships with the people around her are finely drawn and nuanced things. Fairlie-Bruce is awfully good with people and friendships and making them feel very real and true to life. She’s also very good at underplaying big emotional moments; there is one that I’m thinking of where Nancy’s Best Chum does something Super Best Chum Worthy and Nancy just has the tiniest, sweetest second of realising just what her Best Chum has done for her.

Sometimes a school story can have thin characters – boxes can be ticked and they can play a function within the text but not really have any other life other than playing that function. Where Fairlie Bruce shines is giving that sense of purpose to everybody on the page and off it. Even when characters are off doing other things or not mentioned for a whole chapter, you still have this sense of them being there and doing things and living their own little life and even if the ending may be a little thin or neatly done (it is, shall we say, perhaps what you expect it to be), you will allow it because you’re invested. You’re in. But then, I don’t think you ever would be anything else with this fun, fun thing.

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