Shannon – a Boba-sucking, Insta-obsessed teen – is on a mission to buy gifts for her parents’ birthdays. Sat down in a hallway at her local mall, waiting for her brother Liam to go shopping, Shannon browses Instagram. But when she looks up from her suddenly frozen phone, she realises a horrifying truth: she is now completely alone. After desperate and countless attempts to escape the mall, she must come to grips with the reality that there is no way out.
Wandering the mall, Shannon meets strangers: Jordan, Tiannah, Grace, James, Akira and an unable-to-identify-themselves baby, who is named Juno by the group. Slowly, as Shannon learns each person’s riveting back-story, the individuals transform into a jumbled, blended, and very new friendship group – working together to try to understand and navigate an unimaginable situation.
The friends can see outside, where the regular world carries on, but they are not able to step out or call for help from those on the other side of the glass doors. The outsiders act as if the mall-dwellers are invisible. Luckily, the mall is filled with all the insiders could want – Maccas to feast on, designer clothing to strut in, and new people to befriend and learn from.
Author Tegan Bennett Daylight constructs this strange and other-worldly set-up in part one of the book, entitled “Disappearing”. Here, she explores the fear and trepidation teenagers feel when entering adulthood through the lens of the wholly-unprepared Shannon.
Finding herself in a deserted landscape, suddenly having to look after herself, Shannon juggles the fact that she has no connection to the outside world or the family and friends she has known for so long. As she gathers with other survivors and observes their unique ways of handling the situation, she sees how they work together to calm and respect each other. These examples teach Shannon more empathy and care – helping her to mature into a better-developed young woman.
This thread continues into part two (“Royals”), where we see Shannon grow from a scared young girl trapped and fighting for escape to a comfortable teenager accepting her position and making the best of it. She learns new skills that help her survive and thrive, and takes responsibility both for herself and for the animals trapped with the group: “As I stared out the doors, it felt like my heart was trying to get out of my chest, bounce right out and take a message to them, tell them I was ok. And just as I was thinking that, I realised I actually was ok.”
Shannon’s growth leaves her strong enough to stand on her own, and clears the way for new questions to arise around the strange void the group has fallen into. She and the others start to examine more closely where the hundreds of missing people have gone, why their own memories seem to be slowly fading away, and why they have a strange sensation that the mall somehow feels… alive.
Figuring out the puzzle becomes increasingly urgent, as the group fears a doomed existence spent living in a mall that seems to be hoarding them for sustenance. But over parts three and four, we see the team fall so far down the rabbit hole that they begin to forget not only memories from before their time in the mall, but also current memories, which crawl away as fast as they appear in their minds.
This is Bennett Daylight’s cautionary commentary on the ways the capitalist world can change a teenager’s relationship with themselves and can shape us as we age. Ultimately, however, the author paints an optimistic picture.
Royals does an amazing job of simplifying the fears, joys, traumas, laughs, discrimination and camaraderie experienced by teenagers and keenly reminds us how easy it is to lose your identity or sense of self when joining such a big and luxurious world. Bennett Daylight’s ability to pull different characters to life in ways that are never one-dimensional means the novel never relies on a single character to carry the story. Instead, the world builds and grows with the revelation of each back-story, dream, wish and fear.
It could seem as though Bennett Daylight only touches lightly on the tough topics, as she never lingers on Tiannah and Grace’s experiences as Indigenous schoolgirls or Jordan’s experiences as a wheelchair user. But, while these experiences aren’t picked apart, they are still important – it’s clear how these parts of the characters’ lives shaped them as people and influenced the way they handle each situation.
Bennett Daylight’s straightforward treatment of these character elements reflects teenagers’ current conversations on disabilities, race and class. She shows how these so-called “tough conversations” are now being understood simply as parts of life that should be talked about and, in that way, she advocates for the importance of continuing to tell these stories.
Royals is a thoughtful book with plenty to say about our own world, but which also creates an intriguing universe of its own. It leaves open the possibility for more stories to appear from within this strange place – delving deeper into the lore of the mall – as, while Bennett Daylight does move the curtain on the mystery, we are never able to fully see what lies behind it.
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Royals, by Tegan Bennett Daylight, is published by Simon & Schuster.
Leesha Cole is a Ngarrindjeri writer and actress. She is one of the first recipients of the Arts SA and InReview First Nations Arts Writing Mentorship. Leesha is working with Meriam (Magaram), Wuthathi and Bindal Juru journalist and business woman Nancia Guivarra to write a series of articles for publication in InReview.
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