Rating: 5/5
Review:
Exceptionally good
I thought this was exceptionally good. It's unusual, extremely well written and
utterly gripping.
The bones of the story are pretty well explained in the
publishers' blurb. In 1976, 8-year-old
Peggy Hillcoat's father is a "survivalist" who believes the end of
the world is coming. One day,
inexplicably, he suddenly takes Peggy on a "holiday" to an isolated
hut in a European forest where they survive together for nine years without
contact with the outside world.
The narrative is by Peggy aged 17, having just returned to
her home in London. It is exceptionally well done, I think. Her voice is completely convincing , as are
the details of her experiences and her childlike perceptions of them. The prose is excellent, the cutting between
present and past is very skilfully done and Claire Fuller crafts the narrative
extremely well. There are echoes of
Room, Z For Zachariah and other books here, but it doesn't feel at all
derivative and stands very well with those fine books. I found myself completely engrossed and the
story and characters have stayed with me strongly afterward.
This is a thoughtful, haunting book as well as being a
really good, gripping read. I think it
is quite exceptional as a first novel, and I can recommend it very warmly.
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