A review by escape_through_pages
The Fell by Sarah Moss

challenging informative reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

📖 REVIEW 📖

The Fell by Sarah Moss

Pandemic fiction - a new genre? 

If so, read and learn, Sarah Moss has just delivered a master class.

The Fell is set in the Peak District during the lockdown of November 2020, when close contacts were still required to isolate for fourteen days. 

Kate is in the middle of her isolation period, feeling claustrophobic and desperate to move. There are allusions to Kate’s mental well-being being adversely affected by her confinement and she makes a considered decision to take a walk over the hills at dusk when no other soul will be out and she will be home before her teenage son Matt notices she has gone.

Of course, as with all the best laid plans, things don’t turn out as intended with Kate suffering an accident that instigates a search and rescue operation when her elderly neighbour, Alice, reports having seen Kate heading for the fells.  No one builds a sense of impending doom quite like Moss!

With a narrative that alternates between character perspectives, Moss’s ability to take the reader into the lives and minds of ordinary, relatable people is what left me most in awe, especially as this was a time and event that we can all relate to. 

It raises the questions, when is a risk worth taking, when is it justified and where do you judge the balance of the needs of the individual against those of a population?

It’s about compassion and having understanding when we’re all under strain and thrown into the strangest of circumstances. In the author’s own words, ‘we all mess up and we all need judgement to be tempered by mercy…’

Loved it.