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dark
emotional
medium-paced
The darkest book I’ve read this year. Also so much animal abuse in this….why?!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Infidelity
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Child death
Unsatisfying. This book says nothing new. I can't honestly see the point of it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Clean is a confessional type of story. A housemaid in Chile is behind glass speaking to the reader about a death of the young girl in the home she worked at. We don’t know where she is and we don’t how she is involved or how the girl has died, only that she has died.
It starts off very slowly, much too slowly for me and I enjoy a slow burn. There was too much teasing about making the person listening inpatient and bored. But once the story does start to move along, somewhere around the half way point of this 264 page book, it caught my interest and maintained it until the end.
There is a general sense of unease that is not totally quantifiable. It reminded me a bit of Iain Reid’s book We Spread. The subject matter is very different but the discomfort is similar.
The character of Estela stops speaking for a while much like the child she is in charge of. She finds her voice later. There is a question of power and domestic work, of class, agency, and betrayal. Nothing is totally clear. Where does the deception lie? What is one human expected to tolerate? These are a couple of the questions that ran through my mind while reading this book.
In the story, the maid refers to her room in the house as ‘the back room’ and to the young girl as ‘the girl.’ She refers to her employers as señor and señora. She is detached from the family by her service and adheres to this by not giving names to them.
Trigger warning for harm to a dog. I think this is the part I found most difficult but it was done in a way that showed how the main character empathized with the dog.
Clean is translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes. Alia Trabucco Zeran was an International Booker Prize finalist in 2019 for her debut The Remainder.
I think this would be an excellent selection for book clubs. It feels like one I might need to contemplate a bit more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Gun violence, Death of parent, Classism
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death
Moderate: Child death
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!
I had high hopes for this book as I loved the author's previous novel translated to English, The Remainder. But while some parts of Clean were strong, others fell flat for me, and given it's only short, I can't say it was particularly impactful overall. A lot of the early editorial reviews mention reading it in one sitting, holding their breath, but for me the opposite was true. It took me almost a week to finish it and I didn't feel compelled to pick it up a lot of the time.
It's told in the format of a cleaning woman telling her story to the police, after someone in the house she works in dies. I do not feel like this technique added much to the plot. She could have been writing a diary or retelling it to a friend, for all the effect the police report had.
The strongest part is the commentary on class in Chile. Estela is essentially invisible to her employers, despite being essential to their daily life. Without her, their lives would fall apart. The degradation she suffers at the hands of her employers, particularly the young daughter, was chilling to read. It got a bit tedious at times, but that could be a good reflection of Estela's daily grind.
I had high hopes for this book as I loved the author's previous novel translated to English, The Remainder. But while some parts of Clean were strong, others fell flat for me, and given it's only short, I can't say it was particularly impactful overall. A lot of the early editorial reviews mention reading it in one sitting, holding their breath, but for me the opposite was true. It took me almost a week to finish it and I didn't feel compelled to pick it up a lot of the time.
It's told in the format of a cleaning woman telling her story to the police, after someone in the house she works in dies. I do not feel like this technique added much to the plot. She could have been writing a diary or retelling it to a friend, for all the effect the police report had.
The strongest part is the commentary on class in Chile. Estela is essentially invisible to her employers, despite being essential to their daily life. Without her, their lives would fall apart. The degradation she suffers at the hands of her employers, particularly the young daughter, was chilling to read. It got a bit tedious at times, but that could be a good reflection of Estela's daily grind.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
There is a horrible scene of a dog death, so do take care there!
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Suspenseful in a unique way, I very much enjoyed reading this and found the narrative really compelling.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death