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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
Think Orange is the New Black with a ghost story, but much darker. Jess has made a terrible mistake, but a familiar ghost is there to help get her conscience straight. Throw in a dirty cop, some plot twists, and you have a fast-paced and engaging read.
Good not great. If you are new to the author I’d recommend the Girl With All the Gifts first, however, this is more of the solid storytelling I am beginning to expect from Mr. Carey. While this did take a little while to really grab me, The climax was worth pushing through the mildly laborious exposition and not just chucking it in the DNF bin. I’d describe this as a quasi-mystical take on a ghost story set in a British women’s prison. If that plot summary perks your interest, I say, have at it.
I very much enjoy MR Carey's writing, even when I wish his choice of topics were a bit happier. The clear, but beautiful prose combined with short chapters, sympathetic characters, and compelling suspense made Fellside a book I didn't want to put down. I appreciated that, both with this book and with The Girl with All the Gifts, Carey takes a somewhat familiar genre and puts an unexpected twist on the story. I'm very much looking forward to hearing him talk at the Edinburgh International Book Festival!
To say I enjoyed this would be a bit off; it's dark and creepy. Not quite as engaging as Carey's The Girl With All the Gifts, but certainly very engrossing and didn't take long to read. It has some very good twists and turns and I don't want to say much for fear of giving away anything. I was glad I didn't even read the plot summary beforehand.
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
I enjoy this author. His writing style is engaging and keeps me turning the pages. I really enjoyed this story. The ending left me slightly less than satisfied, but over all it was a wonderful story.
This book was not quite what I expected and there were some parts that I wasn't sure how I felt about it but when it picked up, man it picked up and I loved it.
Meh. Well-written and plotted, but ultimately depressing and disappointing, imo. I picked it up because I loved The Girl with All the Gifts, and this has some of the same atmosphere and attention to detail, but not in a plot that I found remotely interesting. To be fair, prison stories don't interest me much in general, so it was always going to be an uphill battle to draw me in, but between the double plot twist and the ending, I can't really recommend this unless you're really into tragedies of one stripe or another.
I thought it was clear early on that, due to the various inconsistencies. Once Jess figured it out as well, I was frustrated that
As for the double-twist, all I'll say on that is it nearly prompted me to tag this one as "too-stupid-to-live". I wasn't sure that counted in a world where the afterlife is known to exist, so I left the tag off. YMMV
I listened to the audiobook and Finty Williams is an excellent narrator. I think this would have been a DNF had I not been listening on audio, or if the narrator had not been excellent. I don't quite regret finishing the book, but I do regret picking it up in the first place.
I thought it was clear early on that
Spoiler
the ghost was not actually Alex BeechSpoiler
she kept using male pronouns (except once, before going back to them) and didn't even give a nod at this by calling the ghost "not-Alex" or something similar. She only switched to the correct pronouns when the ghost's identity was revealed. My best guess at the ghost's actual identity turned out to be correct, though I was not at all certain of that guess until the reveal.As for the double-twist, all I'll say on that is it nearly prompted me to tag this one as "too-stupid-to-live". I wasn't sure that counted in a world where the afterlife is known to exist, so I left the tag off. YMMV
I listened to the audiobook and Finty Williams is an excellent narrator. I think this would have been a DNF had I not been listening on audio, or if the narrator had not been excellent. I don't quite regret finishing the book, but I do regret picking it up in the first place.
This is a new novel from the ever-talented Mike Carey, the author of The Girl With All The Gifts. And like that book, it's so much about the discovery process, it's best read completely in the dark, without knowing the premise or especially the genre. If you loved that book, pick this one up. It's a little Stephen King, a little Charles De Lint, a little Orange Is The New Black, a little modern YA novel. But mostly it's an unfolding series of surprises. It starts with a woman waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there, and ends with prison, and it gives away just enough of its intentions along the route there that it's possible to build up significant anticipation for where it seems to be going. But mostly, it's one reveal after another, and I loved the entire experience.
This was a weird old book to be reading on a relaxing holiday...
I've come to the realisation that M.R. Carey's novels are best read with zero context going into them. Knowing absolutely nothing going in draws out the strange twists and suspense in them, but it's one hell of a journey starting Fellside (and not altogether fun one).
We start off with an amnesia patient, things quickly get nasty when you realise that our main character is a recovering drug addict currently being accused of murder for having lit up her apartment while high, killing the young son of her upstairs neighbours. This then becomes a rather unpleasant recovery/trial/hunger strike mixed with strange ghost sightings. It takes a while to get pulled into the storyline, it doesn't really kick up a notch until Jess Moulson has reached Fellside itself, a top level security prison where the rest of our protagonists reside.
I liked the concept behind it all but the storyline requires a bit of an arched eyebrow to keep going. The really shonky bits of law that felt more questionable than NCIS pushed me over the tipping point!
I've come to the realisation that M.R. Carey's novels are best read with zero context going into them. Knowing absolutely nothing going in draws out the strange twists and suspense in them, but it's one hell of a journey starting Fellside (and not altogether fun one).
We start off with an amnesia patient, things quickly get nasty when you realise that our main character is a recovering drug addict currently being accused of murder for having lit up her apartment while high, killing the young son of her upstairs neighbours. This then becomes a rather unpleasant recovery/trial/hunger strike mixed with strange ghost sightings. It takes a while to get pulled into the storyline, it doesn't really kick up a notch until Jess Moulson has reached Fellside itself, a top level security prison where the rest of our protagonists reside.
I liked the concept behind it all but the storyline requires a bit of an arched eyebrow to keep going. The really shonky bits of law that felt more questionable than NCIS pushed me over the tipping point!