It's a slim read, but it packs a lot in
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Blurb:
Teenage Silvie is living in a remote Northumberland camp as an exercise in experimental archaeology. Her father is an abusive man, obsessed with recreating the discomfort, brutality and harshness of Iron Age life. Behind and ahead of Silvie's narrative is the story of a bog girl, a sacrifice, a woman killed by those closest to her, and as the hot summer builds to a terrifying climax, Silvie and the Bog girl are in ever more terrifying proximity.
The Review
I find myself not entirely knowing what to make of this one. I've read rave reviews of Sarah Moss and perhaps this was not the first of her books to come to, but the Netgalley Gods deemed it so, and so here we are.
More of a novella, this short book focusses on just a few days in the lives of these characters. Silvie, her oppressive father and downtrodden mother, are taking part in a re-enactment camp. They join up with a University Professor and his students to recreate the life of an Iron Age settlement. (The unorthodox nature of a member of the public and his family being randomly allowed to take part in this experiment is never fully explained to my liking - I do dislike it when I can't buy into a plot from the off)
The father, Bill, is a domineering, controlling and abusive character, both to his wife and his daughter and his cruelness to them makes for thought provoking, if depressing reading. He is a misogynist and a bully. I found it really interesting how the other characters react to him. How some can be sensitive to the abuse of others, whereas some (surprisingly, those in authority positions) willingly turn a blind eye, or assume it's 'none of their business'. The growing friendship between Sylvie and Molly lends an air of salvation to an otherwise depressing sequence of events.
A big thing that I struggled with is the narration style that Moss uses. This was obviously a conscious choice to write in this way, but I found the long rambling sentences with very little punctuation to denote who is speaking, hard to follow. It threw me out of the story on more than one occasion.
The parallels drawn between the 'Bog Girl' and Silvie are good, but for me, we needed a bit more of Bog Girl's story. It is hinted at in the prologue and then not again. I wanted Moss to return to it, but we never do. Towards the end, the menacing atmosphere does start to build, but I didn't find the whole book as atmospheric as others have. The ending has a real feel of 'The Wicker Man' about it, which I found genuinely creepy. I wanted more of that creeping sense of unease to be present through the whole book
It's fair to say that for a really short story, this does pack a lot in, but stylistically it just wasn't my cup of tea. I think it would be a great pick for a book club though, as it's a) short, b) got some really meaty themes to pick apart and discuss and c) will push people out of their comfort zones.
Thanks to the Publisher and Netgalley for this preview copy in return for an honest review.
Comments