A review by maketeaa
Putney by Sofka Zinovieff

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

putney was a harrowing read. the kind of read that has you looking at the double-page spread of daphne's conversation with the nspcc officer and making you go through the same reflections she has, going through the checklist of symptoms of the trauma and pause your reading to Process. zinovieff has an incredible writing style, horrific and vivid -- or that's how i felt up until the midpoint of the book. at the beginning, the interweaving points of view of the three characters, ralph, daphne, and jane, created a complex tapestry of child sexual abuse and, rather uniquely, looked at the impact it has not just on who we might see as the 'direct' victim, but the children around her, too. adult daphne's obliviousness to her abuse is such a familiar yet painful image of compartmentalisation, of simplifying the horrors of the past so it becomes easier to survey in the future, and adult jane's insistence to open her old friend's eyes to these horrors is an equally as familiar yet painful image of wanting to feel that the past was as horrible as they feel to you.

but the last half of this book was such a let down. prose that went from replicating the careful uncovering of post-traumatic mist to what felt like reading a google search for 'child sexual abuse'. there were important points made, which i appreciate, but it lost the narrative skill that draws a reader into the work from the beginning. however, what disappointed me most was the desecration of jane's character towards the end. such an annoying way to tie up her character arc and, most of all, her friendship with daphne :/