WE DIDN’T THINK IT THROUGH has been shortlisted for 2 awards at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2024!!! The Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature & The Indigenous Writers’ Prize!

Indigenous Writers' Prize

Judges' comments

We Didn’t Think It Through is a young adult fiction novel. Gary Lonesborough has crafted a razor-sharp narrative, offering wit and warmth in the otherwise nasty setting of juvenile incarceration. Lonesborough’s characters are imperfect, loveable and deeply relatable to First Nations readers. This is a masterfully told tale that draws together larger story-threads of injustice and systemic oppression whilst never losing the immediacy and power of the central narrative.

Lonesborough writes with a finesse and charm that sticks with you. The story is told through a pitch-perfect young adult voice which is accessible to all readers, young and old alike. This is an extraordinary accomplishment. As Lonesborough’s sophomore offering in the YA genre, the judges recognise this as the work of a writer coming into the fullness of his storytelling powers.

Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature

Judges' comments

Removed from his parents as a young child, Jamie has grown up in small-town NSW with his aunt and uncle, resentful of his parents’ apparent abandonment, heartsick at the low expectations his town has of young Aboriginal men, and frustrated with his own inertia. When Jamie and his mates make a rash decision one night, it’s as though he’s fallen into the town’s self-fulfilling prophecy. Will the love of his family and the promise of reconnection be enough to help him out the other side? Will the stories that have started to spill out of him allow him for once to be the protagonist?

With direct prose, and poetry drawn directly from the main character’s soul, Gary Lonesborough draws the reader into the raw and heartfelt experience of a young man struggling against the multiple biases stacked against him. It is a privilege to be taken so intimately inside his story, and guided through the urgent and timely themes with the author’s sure hand and lightness of touch.