by Joanna Cannon, 2015 · 368 pages
Told through the eyes of a child, this book has a warm, gossipy, slow-building texture that lulls you with summer heat and small-town rhythms before quietly tightening into unease. The prose is plain and conversational but layered with dramatic irony, so you read faster than the gentle pace suggests, sensing dread beneath the domestic detail. It feels nostalgic and funny in places, then unexpectedly tender and sad.
literary fiction · nostalgic · melancholy · wry
Reading age: 14+ (adult)
Spice: 0 out of 5. none