My Brilliant Career

Sibylla Melvyn is a teenage girl who lives on an Australian sheep farm in the late 19th century. She is short and plain and never stops reminding us and herself of that fact. When love comes her way she ultimately rejects it because her tall, handsome, rich beloved apparently has not suffered enough to earn her hand.This book has interesting descriptions of life and wildlife in the Outback, and Sibylla herself is a sensitive and observant writer, but the frequent bouts of mercurial mind-changing and self-pity made it hard for me to get through. I'm glad I read it, but won't be returning to it to reread any favorite parts.

A self-defined Plain Jane always on the edge of poverty takes us to the late 19th century Australian desert farm hard life. *My Brilliant Career* is quite different. Sybylla has poor self-esteem and an ornery contrariness. Most of the elders are narrow-minded with calcified concepts of right and wrong and little conversation topics more interesting than the going price of butter.Whip-smart Sybylla gets through her life of being farmed out with a sardonic sense of humor, inner pride, and just a flicker of optimism.She does a brilliant job of evoking the personalities and characteristics of the people. The slangy dialect is challenging to read; Kindle or a well-annotated edition is a must to understand Aussie words like jackeroo.Some will find the reading level too demanding or the subject matter too mundane. It is pretty much sink or swim.

I enjoyed reading this. I had seen the movie first, which I love. As a mature adult l had to sympathize with Sybylla's mother. Sybylla was a total rebel with a rebellious attitude. If I had been her mother she would have vexed me also. I've had a very rebellious child that thank God has grown up a little. Sybylla change of environment and her descriptions of the peasant life make me sympathetic with her desire to never marry and become a baby mill. I would have the same feeling in that day.Also I can relate to her being plain, as I thought myself plain as a young person. I was disappointed that Sybylla does not marry Harry because he was the best thing for her, and then for her to shun him because she felt another type of man would suit her better, wrong. That is why I gave three stars, also I know that young people have a lot of creativity, Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, @ 19 years old,but this author with her selfish outlook on life expressed too much all her immaturity. Sybylla came by it naturally, her mother was the great complainer, as seen towards the end of the book.

I loved the setting, but struggled with Sybylla who is a misunderstood person in difficult circumstances. She is young and therefore her choices are sometimes at odds with her interests.

I enjoyed reading this after visiting Australia for the first time last year and learning first hand more about the Australian way of life.A heart-wrenching depiction of the toughness of Australian pastoral life when the elements are not in your favour, as well as a testament to the resilience of the people who worked on ‘the land’. It is, of course, also a pioneering feminist work, focusing as it does on Sybylla’s fiercely independent personality and her determination not to be shackled by the traditional role of women of that era (1900s), and to pursue a “brilliant career”. The writing is evocative … you can feel the dust of drought in your hair, and the angst of hearts breaking.

The story of a young girl growing up in poverty in Australia's bush at the turn of the century. An interesting read, telling a very Australian story. The author is also quite unique, as it was written by young girl under a pseudonym. Sometimes tedious but ultimately a fun way to explore Australian culture.

This is the story of a gifted spirited young girl in her late teens, struggling to maintain her humanity and independence while feeling crushed by the toils of homesteading in the Australian Outback. She also fights against the stereotypical roles of women at the turn of the century. This book was published under a male pseudonym , beautifully written, with heartfelt descriptions of the stark harsh life there and of the writer's intense desire to be free to pursue her creative dreams. This book is suitable for women of all ages and in any era.

Miles Franklin's writing is so vivid that you almost feel you know this character. Upon investigating online, youdiscover that she did not write an autobiography. I felt very let down. I see that she has written "Diaries" andI am anxious to read that. I want to know who Miles Franklin really is. You can realize how the poor peoplelived in Australia in the turn of the century and also how the higher classes lived. The book left me very unsettleduntil I learn more about her.

This is classic Australian fiction, written at the turn of the century. Because of the period and the location, much of the vocabulary is non-standard English. Unfortunately this digital version seems to have been created by scanning an original hard copy and then using software to interpret the scan. Without any proof reading, which would presumably have cost something. The result is sometimes gibberish, sometimes obvious typos and sometimes confusion about what the author really intended. This type of digitisation gets ebooks a bad name and highlights the fact that cheap ebooks are often bad value. Based on this, second hand book shops have a healthy future.

Well written telling of Sybilla’s young life, evocative descriptions of the landscapes of landlocked Australia. Her decision not to marry, her rejection of Hal, all wonderfully captured. A classic!

Interesting. I felt I learnt a lot about the Australia of the past. Beautiful descriptions, main character a bit annoying.

I admit I found it hard to like the heroine consistently. There’d be a chapter where I felt better disposed towards her and then she would unravel all my good will in the chapter following. Overall, I found her frustrating and aggravating. If had a subtitle for the book, it would be: I Shoot Myself in the Foot Over and Over Again. She could never accept that someone might like her just as she was, warts and all, but had to sabotage a man’s love for her repeatedly and determinedly.Some beautiful writing and some extraordinary Aussie vocabulary. Colorful and obfuscatory simultaneously. When you get used to the verbiage it’s colorful and comprehensible.I asked an Aussie chum which books to read for Aussie Month (since January 26th is Australia Day).This was one of them and it’s a good book. But the lass didn’t have to keep shredding her possibilities for a bit of love and romance in her life.

Sybylla is headstrong, feisty, opinionated and independent. At the start of the book she is a teenager growing up in rural Australia in the 1890s in a very poor household with an alcoholic father and a mother who has come from money and is now living in poverty.To Sybylla's relief, her much wealthier Grandmother asks to take her for a time to "straighten" her out and Sybylla finds a much more comfortable life, until she is ultimately forced to take a role as a governess and decide what her future 'career' shall be. Wife? Governess? Spinster daughter?I absolutely loved the time and place. It is so different to the Australia I know, but also had the familiar descriptions of oppressive heat, dry ground and smell of eucalyptus. The writing is very well done and is interesting to think about how Ms Franklin was able to get support from Henry Lawson to have this published with what must have been quite a controversial main character for the time.As the book reached its conclusion, however, I really found Sybylla quite irritating. I was hoping for a bit more personality growth and maturity and I was actually left really disappointed with the ending. Although I suppose that is what also makes this a unique book as the ending was quite unusual for the time and unexpected.A classic I am glad to have finally read!