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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
This is between 3 and 4 stars rounded up simply because the author's writing is awesome, and I so much adored their other works.
Fellside is a prison, where Jessica Moulson finds herself after discovering that in a heroin induced haze she lit a fire that killed her upstairs neighbour, a little boy the age of 10. However as she steps into the chaos that is Fellside Women's Prison, she discovers Alex's ghost waiting for her, wanting one last thing from her.
Three was nobody there, and nothing at all behind the bed. The space in which those footsteps had skipped up and down didn't exist.
I don't want to give too much away as Carey tends to have a number of twists you don't see coming and part of the joy of reading Carey is discovering these as they gradually unfold.
However, the issue I had with this book is that the gradual unfolding was a bit TOO gradual. The first third of the book mainly has to do with Jess and how she ends up where she is, and just the sheer brutality of some of her fellow inmates.
She saw the women of Goodall from the inside, and from the inside they were all of them bowed down by the weight of what had befallen them. They were all on a catastrophe curve, sailing frictionlessly towards this precipice or that. It was little wonder that they were capable of brutality. What was amazing was that they ever managed to be kind to one another.
In addition to the slow start, many of the characters were very unlikable, although I found myself liking Jess as the book carried on. If I had one character to root for getting invested in the book would have been easier.
Rough edges were what you needed because they were what you sharpened yourself against. Nobody ever got sharp from lying in a feather bed.
I didn't find myself completely hooked until probably about 70% through, where I was unable to put it down, but it wasn't quite enough to completely make up for the slow start.
If you are looking for a scary horror, this book isn't it, but the paranormal bits do keep it interesting, and the ending is one you will not see coming if you can get past the first half.
Cross posted at Kaora's Corner.
Fellside is a prison, where Jessica Moulson finds herself after discovering that in a heroin induced haze she lit a fire that killed her upstairs neighbour, a little boy the age of 10. However as she steps into the chaos that is Fellside Women's Prison, she discovers Alex's ghost waiting for her, wanting one last thing from her.
Three was nobody there, and nothing at all behind the bed. The space in which those footsteps had skipped up and down didn't exist.
I don't want to give too much away as Carey tends to have a number of twists you don't see coming and part of the joy of reading Carey is discovering these as they gradually unfold.
However, the issue I had with this book is that the gradual unfolding was a bit TOO gradual. The first third of the book mainly has to do with Jess and how she ends up where she is, and just the sheer brutality of some of her fellow inmates.
She saw the women of Goodall from the inside, and from the inside they were all of them bowed down by the weight of what had befallen them. They were all on a catastrophe curve, sailing frictionlessly towards this precipice or that. It was little wonder that they were capable of brutality. What was amazing was that they ever managed to be kind to one another.
In addition to the slow start, many of the characters were very unlikable, although I found myself liking Jess as the book carried on. If I had one character to root for getting invested in the book would have been easier.
Rough edges were what you needed because they were what you sharpened yourself against. Nobody ever got sharp from lying in a feather bed.
I didn't find myself completely hooked until probably about 70% through, where I was unable to put it down, but it wasn't quite enough to completely make up for the slow start.
If you are looking for a scary horror, this book isn't it, but the paranormal bits do keep it interesting, and the ending is one you will not see coming if you can get past the first half.
Cross posted at Kaora's Corner.
Well, this was incredibly disappointing.
After the absolutely astonishing book that was The Girl With All The Gifts, I expected something just as amazing from M.R. Carey the second time round. Sadly, it was not to be.
I wouldn’t call this horror, not in the same way that The Girl With All The Gifts was. It’s more paranormal, but it’s also just very odd. Jess Moulson finds herself in prison after a fire, a fire that she apparently caused whilst high. When Jess finds out what happened during the fire, she decides the best thing to do is to end her life, and goes on hunger strike. She is teetering on the very edge of life and death when she suddenly starts to hear voices and see visions, a figure from her past that might hold all the answers.
To be honest, I think my main issue with this book was Jess. She was just a bit of a limp character, and there didn’t seem to be much to her. I also found the whole explanation for Jess’s visions to be a bit of a let down. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but with the way that the book was going I had started to suspect the reason behind them (it is very difficult to write about this book with giving anything away to be honest, which is why this review is so short!), regardless it was still disappointing and almost felt as though the involvement of Jess’s case was entirely pointless. And if, like me, you’re more interested in prison dramas after Orange is the New Black – this ain’t that.
As with The Girl With All The Gifts, Carey’s writing is excellent. It was just the story that did not work for me this time – it wasn’t even creepy like the blurb claimed. I will still read his next book with the hope that it will live up to the first, but I feel sadly disappointed by Fellside.
Originally posted on my former blog, Rinn Reads.
After the absolutely astonishing book that was The Girl With All The Gifts, I expected something just as amazing from M.R. Carey the second time round. Sadly, it was not to be.
I wouldn’t call this horror, not in the same way that The Girl With All The Gifts was. It’s more paranormal, but it’s also just very odd. Jess Moulson finds herself in prison after a fire, a fire that she apparently caused whilst high. When Jess finds out what happened during the fire, she decides the best thing to do is to end her life, and goes on hunger strike. She is teetering on the very edge of life and death when she suddenly starts to hear voices and see visions, a figure from her past that might hold all the answers.
To be honest, I think my main issue with this book was Jess. She was just a bit of a limp character, and there didn’t seem to be much to her. I also found the whole explanation for Jess’s visions to be a bit of a let down. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but with the way that the book was going I had started to suspect the reason behind them (it is very difficult to write about this book with giving anything away to be honest, which is why this review is so short!), regardless it was still disappointing and almost felt as though the involvement of Jess’s case was entirely pointless. And if, like me, you’re more interested in prison dramas after Orange is the New Black – this ain’t that.
As with The Girl With All The Gifts, Carey’s writing is excellent. It was just the story that did not work for me this time – it wasn’t even creepy like the blurb claimed. I will still read his next book with the hope that it will live up to the first, but I feel sadly disappointed by Fellside.
Originally posted on my former blog, Rinn Reads.
Although I enjoyed the writing style and narrative I find the aspect of dreams/angels something that I'm not always interested in. Otherwise I would have thoroughly enjoyed this.
Fellside is one of those hard to rate and even harder to review books. The prose is solid, easy to read and vivid. Storywise I don’t think I’ve read anything quite like it. Depending on your tastes it could be considered a unique blend of genres and tensions, or a jumbled mess of ideas.
The story revolves around Jess Moulson, accused of murder (but according to the laws of fiction probably innocent) and sentenced to Fellside, she must survive the ruthless prison environment, the ghost of the boy she allegedly murdered and her own guilt.
While I think this was a good book that most would enjoy, I personally found many points grating, but it’s hard to explain without a….
SPOILER (and rant) ALERT
My first beef was the main character. Jess Moulson wakes up with amnesia, (hardly an original trope) and quickly finds out that she is being accused of murder for lighting a fire in her apartment that killed a neighbouring boy. Aside from the annoying memory loss cliché Jess bothered me in her passiveness. Her only real actions in the beginning are to resist any help from her lawyer and to muddle through her trial without resistance. Even the crime is harm by accident. Once sent to Fellside Jess goes on hunger strike, an unexpected move but unfortunately making the character even more inactive than before.
I think the whole hunger strike deal was mean to show just how devastatingly guilty Jess felt, which was fair, but equally there was no real tension behind it. Other than the broad assumption that Jess is innocent, one doesn’t have a lot of reason to care whether she does starve to death. This probably sounds cold, but my point is there isn’t any feeling of “oh no she must survive to reveal the real killer, or help the boys ghost,” or whatever.
The ghost of the murdered boy appearing and revealing to Jess that he was killed before the fire jump starts both Jess and the story, and initially the plot goes strong. Jess tries to contact her lawyer to investigate the information she has been given, but quickly finds herself threatened by Grace and Devlin, the prisoner/guard pairing who essentially run the prison (and the supply of recreational drugs).
However then there is a plot twist, in this case a literary twisting of the plot to something else. I do have to compliment Carey for devising such an unexpected plot development but ultimately it undermines the story as much as it surprises the reader. DOUBLE-SPOILER WARNING. Basically Jess discovers that she is not haunted by the ghost of the murdered boy, but by the ghost of another inmates murdered girlfriend, Jess has simply super-imposed his details onto the entity (because that’s how ghosts work in Fellside).
While completely unexpected, the problem with the twist is it undermined the whole story about Jess investigating the boy’s death, suddenly making the plot about the other inmate’s murder, which was no mystery in my head and not what I was reading to find out about. Jess’ murder conviction is overturned by a stupid series of legal arguments which were so obvious they should have been realized in the original investigation even if the police ‘thought they had their killer’. Basically Jess’ ex-partner’s statement did not fit video footage, he had less burn damage on his body (suggesting awareness of the fire) and had just taken life insurance out on Jess, (now that I write this I wonder how a 30ish broke junkie gets life insurance?) The real blow is returning the victim’s death to tragic mistake rather than driving mystery of the story.
I also found the story a little long, with too many characters getting page-time, like the governor who seemed almost like comic relief rather than a valid character.
So in the end while 90% of this review is rant, Fellside isn’t a terrible book, it was just a story that taught me more about what I like to see in a novel and what leaves me cold.
The story revolves around Jess Moulson, accused of murder (but according to the laws of fiction probably innocent) and sentenced to Fellside, she must survive the ruthless prison environment, the ghost of the boy she allegedly murdered and her own guilt.
While I think this was a good book that most would enjoy, I personally found many points grating, but it’s hard to explain without a….
SPOILER (and rant) ALERT
My first beef was the main character. Jess Moulson wakes up with amnesia, (hardly an original trope) and quickly finds out that she is being accused of murder for lighting a fire in her apartment that killed a neighbouring boy. Aside from the annoying memory loss cliché Jess bothered me in her passiveness. Her only real actions in the beginning are to resist any help from her lawyer and to muddle through her trial without resistance. Even the crime is harm by accident. Once sent to Fellside Jess goes on hunger strike, an unexpected move but unfortunately making the character even more inactive than before.
I think the whole hunger strike deal was mean to show just how devastatingly guilty Jess felt, which was fair, but equally there was no real tension behind it. Other than the broad assumption that Jess is innocent, one doesn’t have a lot of reason to care whether she does starve to death. This probably sounds cold, but my point is there isn’t any feeling of “oh no she must survive to reveal the real killer, or help the boys ghost,” or whatever.
The ghost of the murdered boy appearing and revealing to Jess that he was killed before the fire jump starts both Jess and the story, and initially the plot goes strong. Jess tries to contact her lawyer to investigate the information she has been given, but quickly finds herself threatened by Grace and Devlin, the prisoner/guard pairing who essentially run the prison (and the supply of recreational drugs).
However then there is a plot twist, in this case a literary twisting of the plot to something else. I do have to compliment Carey for devising such an unexpected plot development but ultimately it undermines the story as much as it surprises the reader. DOUBLE-SPOILER WARNING. Basically Jess discovers that she is not haunted by the ghost of the murdered boy, but by the ghost of another inmates murdered girlfriend, Jess has simply super-imposed his details onto the entity (because that’s how ghosts work in Fellside).
While completely unexpected, the problem with the twist is it undermined the whole story about Jess investigating the boy’s death, suddenly making the plot about the other inmate’s murder, which was no mystery in my head and not what I was reading to find out about. Jess’ murder conviction is overturned by a stupid series of legal arguments which were so obvious they should have been realized in the original investigation even if the police ‘thought they had their killer’. Basically Jess’ ex-partner’s statement did not fit video footage, he had less burn damage on his body (suggesting awareness of the fire) and had just taken life insurance out on Jess, (now that I write this I wonder how a 30ish broke junkie gets life insurance?) The real blow is returning the victim’s death to tragic mistake rather than driving mystery of the story.
I also found the story a little long, with too many characters getting page-time, like the governor who seemed almost like comic relief rather than a valid character.
So in the end while 90% of this review is rant, Fellside isn’t a terrible book, it was just a story that taught me more about what I like to see in a novel and what leaves me cold.
It was a long slog through the 1st half; picked up in the 2nd.
3.5 stars
Not as good as The Girl With All the Gifts, but a unique and entertaining tale.
Not as good as The Girl With All the Gifts, but a unique and entertaining tale.
What in the hell even was this book? First off, NOT horror, more like paranormal. I loved this book at the beginning. It was even verging on 5 stars for me. I'm a sucker for a good "innocent person found guilty" story and with a ghost of the murdered boy haunting the convict, this makes a great one. But everything seemed to unravel in the last few chapters. It went from interesting straight to WTF. What a trainwreck! Too much going on and too many twists.
This had a supernatural twist that I wasn't expecting but I ended up really liking. I listened to the audio book and it was good.