Overflows with the raw intensity of the human spirit.
“When all that’s left are ashes and hollow apologies.” This dramatic tagline appropriately captures the inner turmoil that 16-year-old Tessa is currently enduring. Responsible for a ravaging forest fire that devastated the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of local residents, Tessa narrowly escapes a prison sentence. Her punishment involves an impossible fine, community service, and compulsory letters of apology to each individual affected by the blaze. A weighty sentence, given that the firestarting wasn’t her idea and the lighter wasn’t hers in the first place. But she did light the damning firework.
The majority of teens aren’t gifted violinists or serious volleyball players like Tessa, but she is still a protagonist that all of us can relate to. If only. If only we’d made a different choice. If only we’d chosen different friends. Somehow, Tessa is strong enough not to dwell on those dangerous if onlys, and instead forges ahead with her apology letters. Determined to take a lesson, either that life is somehow worth living after a grievous mistake or it isn’t, Tessa works through the humiliation, guilt, grief and self-recrimination. Readers are taken by the hand of a girl whose once bright future burns down with the angry flames of a terrible forest fire she sparked.
Naomi Ulsted’s The Apology Box is a complex contemporary fiction novel that overflows with the raw intensity of the human spirit. Ulsted superbly captures the very essence of those awkward moments where we all pretend like we’re comfortable with a situation just to fit in, but the reality is completely different. The heart-wrenching plot is more about how one careless act is perceived, remembered and recovered from, rather than the flaws and complexities of teenage rationale in making a bad decision. Tessa, though flawed, is an admirable example of a brave person willing to take responsibility rather than avoid accountability. In our world where culpability is easily pushed on others, The Apology Box is a must-read novel that is modern, compelling and painfully relevant.
