Thank you to Net Galley and Harper Via for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. At ten years old, Muraging, of the Durag people, indigenous Australians, is left at the Parramatta Native School by her father where she is given the name Mary. It is the early 1800s. She is told to abandon her language, culture and everything she has known and they teach her to be a Christian, learn English and how to clean a house so she can be employed. She has no intention to become a house maid! She is there for several years and endures but escapes into the world to make her own choices. She goes back in forth between the white world and her own people, only due to the fact that her people are trying to survive but are starving as they have been displaced by all the new settlers. We follow her through about 20 years as she makes her way through life - facing violence, mistreatment, racism, abuse - but she survives it all with strength and persistence. Her story illustrates the plight of the indigenous Australians who were killed and the colonization that forever changed their lives in the land that was always there. It parallels that lives of indigenous Americans in the US and Canada.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. Benevolence was difficult to get into. I did not connect well to the characters, but I appreciated the informational lead in the beginning of each chapter. I think it's the fact that this is not a well known part of history which is why this was hard to connect with, but this was very important to read and know about.

Ten year old Muraging is given by her native father to the Parramatta Native School in Australia. There, they rename her Mary James, try to erase her "barbaric" ways and try turn her into a proper Christian girl. At the age of 16 she runs away, marries and has a child. When her husband sets out to fight, she is lost and returns back to society with her daughter. From there she goes back and forth from "civilization" to native society.

I found this book very hard to get through. It felt very disjointed at times. The characters were hard to get a feel for and did not come across as realistic. I'm sure there are others who will appreciate the book and enjoy it. Unfortunately, this book was not for me.

A huge Thank You to The author, The publisher and NetGalley for providing the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
Such a good book! I thoroughly enjoyed it!

The title of the book is truly a play on words in that the novel opens with a 10-year old Burruberongal girl, Muraging (renamed Mary James by her benefactors), receiving the gift of “benevolence” from British settlers who operate a school for orphans. They promise her father that she will be educated in the ways of the Whites, surrounded with Christian love and parochial teachings. She wonders why she is to receive this “opportunity” and not her brother who leaves with her father. What ensues is a childhood filled with harsh lessons from a very principled (and racist) school master, a measure of kindness found in the school marm, an endearing friendship with another orphaned peer, Mercy, and a lifelong yearning for her family.

The story is told in chronological sequence over a span of 30 years. A page-turning aspect for me was the author’s choice to begin chapters with historical decrees/laws or pivotal events as recorded by the “establishment,” and weave the ill-fated effects and ramifications of such actions directly or indirectly into the plotlines involving Mary’s life and travels. These historical facts share the political positions and mindset of the colonizing forces – they were overwhelmingly racist, unfair, and shameful.

Mary’s story is seemingly a shared experience of the collective Native population – for those living during this era, it was a life filled with hardship and insurmountable heartache. In these times, the haughtiness of the moral compass encouraged the capture of the young to tame and train for a life of servitude under the guidance of the “superior” races. The cruelty, inhumanity, and injustice of colonization is on display in the book - some parts I found difficult to read. The reader is reminded that the Indigenous Tribes didn’t stand a chance against increasing numbers and advanced military weapons, but they fought bravely and earnestly to preserve their lands and heritage only to lose more often than not to disease, starvation, and genocide. The latter option was justified to create room to accommodate foreign settlers arriving by the shiploads to escape crowded, polluted cities and mounting debt; opportunists looking to exploit the land for all its natural resources on the backs of convict laborers, starving/broken Natives, and indentured servants; and a fair amount of amateur fortune hunters and those seeing a second-, third- and for some the very last-chance at a better life.

Recommended for historical fiction fans interested in a formative era in Australia's evolution.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an opportunity to review.

I’ve never read a book like this one! Not being from Australia, I only vaguely knew about the atrocities committed against the Aboriginal and Pacific Strait Islanders during British colonization in Australia.

Although this is a work of fiction, it portrays how brutally this population was treated during this time period.

The first thirty percent of the book seemed a bit more observational than the rest of the book, so it took a bit longer to see the full characterization of the main character.

I would recommend this book to others because it is important to hear from authors who represent the communities they are writing about.

A truly unusual book for an American reader. This book offers a look at Australian history from the viewpoint of the native people. I found it a little frustrating to not understand so many of the words, but the story itself is very compelling and tragic. How hard it is to find one's place in the world when it has been disrupted in such an unnatural way. I hope this book finds many many readers.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It's an important one.