Hating Alison Ashley (novel)
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Hating Alison Ashley is a 1984 Australian novel (Puffin Books, London and Melbourne, ISBN 0-14-031672-8) by science fiction and childrens author Robin Klein. Written as a teen comedy, the book has a strong moral undercurrent about the pursuit of happiness and perfection, the pressures of growing up and the power of friendship. It portrays the agonies of being a teenager, school-girl rivalries, constant embarrassment by family, and painful and often brutally funny awkwardness and insecurity. One of Klein's most popular teen novels, it has since become almost standard English reading for school students across Australia.
In the United States it was highly controversial because it included constant references to domestic abuse.[citation needed]
Erica Yurken, commonly known to her classmates as Yuk or Erk, is a 12-year-old girl who gets through her mundane life by escaping to her private world where she fantasises of being a famous actress and holds her own self-centred conviction that she is better than her classmates. Her life is shattered however when a new girl, Alison Ashley, enrolls at Barringa East Primary School. Alison has brains, charm and beauty — everything Yurken aspires to — and she loathes Alison for it... that is, until they both go on a school camp.
The book was nominated for 8 Australian literature awards and won the Young Australian Best Book Award (YABBA) in 1986 and the Kids Own Australian Literature Award (KOALA) in 1987.
It has since become a play, directed by Richard Tulloch, and a film, Hating Alison Ashley by Geoff Bennett with Delta Goodrem in the title role.
