so-soWouldn't necessarily recommend but glad I read it. Manod lives in a remote, Welsh island with her younger sister & father. She is smart but so sheltered from the outside world & has almost no one she can learn from. A whale washes up on shore & 2 English ethnographers arrive to document the whale & the island's residents. Her world expands immensely but her version of reality is greatly distorted by the perception of the outsiders.
If I had a BP monitor attached while reading the opening two chapters it would have read' Out of range. No surprise as this is from the same mind as the delightfully twisted horror I Remember You, but this one is firmly in the territory of Scandi Crime Noir. Halfway through but so twisted & clever with characters to care about.
pickenchanting, evocative, and not a wasted word. this short novella is a perfect read.
I started this on a flight from Toronto to Calgary and may have finished it if I wasn‘t savouring every sentence. So far, this book is perfect.
pickI have an island thing. But this was lovely. It‘s also quick and fun, and sneakily informative. Ivar lives alone on an isolated island, and Scottish minister John Ferguson is sent to evict him. They don‘t speak the same language. Ivar speaks Norm (a now-extinct Shetland Island language). Still they end up bonding.
bailedSometimes I enjoy YA - and sometimes the characters annoy me so much I can‘t even focus on the plot. Unfortunately, this is the latter.
#HauntedShelf #RestlessSpirits
pickA short, quiet novel that shows life on a small, fictional (but historically based) island off the coast of Wales. Set as WWII looms on the horizon, the book is able to touch upon a remote village‘s isolation from (& its responsibility to?) the broader world. As well as individuals‘ relationships with what is provided and/or prevented by the distance.
Several flavors of audacity tied to imperialism & classism are also on full display.
pickSet in the late nineteenth century, this is a short novella of two intertwining stories. First is a priest who is hunting a blue fox and gets trapped in an avalanche and ends up hallucinating. The second is the story of a herbalist and the girl with Down‘s syndrome that he ends up rescuing and caring for until her death. The two stories come together and while there is darkness there is also goodness in this story.
