Everyone kept telling me this was "Orphan Train but in Australia" and honestly? That comparison set me up wrong. Because The Exiles is angrier than Orphan Train. Rawer. More willing to sit in the ugly parts of colonialism without flinching. I expected a sweeping historical saga with neat emotional arcs and what I got was three women ground down by empire, clinging to each other like driftwood.
I started this one on a Sunday morning while redesigning a nonprofit's annual report — the kind of project that needs quiet concentration. By hour two I'd stopped working entirely. Diego was asleep on my keyboard and I just... sat there. Listening.
Three Women, Three Cages, Zero Sentimentality
Here's what got me: Kline doesn't let you romanticize any of it. Evangeline starts as this sheltered governess who gets pregnant by her employer's son, and instead of turning her into some fiery rebel, the book keeps her bewildered and passive for a long time. Which is more honest, right? She doesn't suddenly become brave. She survives because Hazel — who is canny and practical and a little feral — basically drags her through it. Their friendship on the Medea, this repurposed slave ship, builds through bartered remedies and whispered conversations in overcrowded holds. It's not a grand declaration of sisterhood. It's two people deciding the other one is worth keeping alive.
And then there's Mathinna. God, Mathinna. The orphaned Aboriginal girl adopted by the governor of Van Diemen's Land like she's a curiosity, a project. Those tea party scenes where she's being dressed up in English clothes and paraded around — my chest physically hurt. Because the book makes you understand that the people doing this to her genuinely believe they're being kind. That's the cruelest part. The violence isn't always a fist. Sometimes it's a hair ribbon and a English name and the slow erasure of everything you are.
I ugly-cried at Mathinna's storyline more than once. Abuela would have been furious at what they did to that girl. She had zero tolerance for people who steal children and call it charity.
Caroline Lee Made Me Forget She Was One Person
So here's where I have to be honest — the narrator discourse on this one is WILD. Some people think Caroline Lee gave the performance of her career. Others apparently hated it. I'm firmly in the first camp but I can see where the cracks show. Her Evangeline is soft, almost too careful at first, which mirrors the character's timidity perfectly. Her Hazel has this scrappier edge, a little rougher around the vowels. Both of those voices? Gorgeous. Lived-in.
Where it gets shaky is some of the secondary characters and accent work. A few of the male voices blur together, and there were moments where an accent would drift mid-scene — not enough to pull me out entirely, but enough that I noticed. If you're the kind of listener who fixates on accent consistency, fair warning.
But when Lee is locked in? When she's voicing Mathinna's confusion and grief as this child tries to reconcile two worlds? Her delivery capturing that kid's painful adjustments is devastating. There's a quiet tremor she puts into Mathinna's voice during certain scenes that just — my heart. MY HEART. That's not technique. That's empathy translated into sound.
The Pacing Will Test You (It's Worth It)
I won't pretend this is a fast listen. At 10 hours and 44 minutes, played at my stubborn 1.0x, there are stretches — especially in the middle section after the ship arrives — where the narrative slows to match the monotony of colonial life. Assigned labor. Small indignities. The grind of surviving in a place that considers you less than human.
Some people call that "uneven pacing." I call it the point. Kline isn't writing an adventure story. She's writing about endurance. And the slow burn makes the ending hit harder — which multiple listeners have called perfect, and they're right. It earns its final pages.
But if you need constant momentum, if you're listening while running or driving through traffic, this might lose you in the middle third. This is a rainy Sunday book. Couch, blanket, phone on silent.
Who This Is For (and Who Should Bail)
If you loved The Nightingale or The Alice Network but wished they'd center Indigenous perspectives alongside the white women's stories — yes. If you want historical fiction that doesn't sanitize colonialism — yes. If you need a book where female friendship is forged through survival, not brunch — absolutely yes.
If you speedrun audiobooks at 2x and need plot twists every chapter? Skip it. If accent inconsistencies in narration ruin your whole experience? Maybe try the print version instead.
Abuela Would Have Stayed Up Past Midnight For This One
This book felt like watching someone carefully peel back wallpaper to reveal what's underneath — sometimes it's beautiful old wood, and sometimes it's rot, and Kline doesn't look away from either. It's not flawless. The three timelines don't always weave together with equal weight, and Mathinna deserved even more pages than she got. But what's here is honest and heavy and full of women refusing to disappear. I finished it, sat in silence for ten minutes, then texted my mom. Sometimes that's the highest compliment I can give a book. The last book that left me that quiet afterward was None of This is True — completely different world, but that same feeling of having witnessed something I couldn't just shake off and move on from.
