I read books without looking at the "blurb" at the back. I want to have an open mind and not be influenced although the cover can do that. With this book, the cover made me think it was about bushfires....WRONG! Plenty is the name of the tiny coastal town and also a comment on Australia. We are a land of "plenty" yet we make it exceptionally hard for refugees to come here and enjoy all we have in abundance. Jed lives in Plenty. His father owns the local petrol station and is an alcoholic, his mother has lung cancer. All teenagers in the town long to leave including Jed's girlfriend Chrissy. One night Jed and Chrissy are looking to "hook up" by the beach when they spy a wrecked boat and a lone survivor; a blind woman, struggle up the beach front. What happens next is a catalyst for huge change for all in Plenty The blind woman stumbles into the path of an ex-politician and his "hot" (Jed's words) daughter who have just brought a huge property outside town where the father hopes to write his memoirs. Ashley and her father take in the refugee and suddenly the town becomes front page news - a site for asylum-seekers , a detention center built and the for and against of the locals - for ( great facilities built, new roads, boost economy and jobs) and against ( lack of privacy, drain on resources, change in culture). Dale has looked at all the issues and used Jed, his father and Ashley to present all the arguments for accepting and rejecting refugees in Australia. There is also the "cultural cringe" Australians suffer in the form of a British journalist "befriending" the locals and then writing a scathing one-sided report on Plenty's population. This is all told through the eyes of teenage Jed - what really happened and the impact on his town. Fascinating and topical. ( )