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A review by muyteli
Abyss by Pilar Quintana
dark
tense
5.0
Eight-year-old Claudia is one of the most captivating narrators I've read in a while. Her descriptions are imaginative, often delightful and sometimes heartbreaking. She understands the lives of the adults around her far better than she gets credit for and broaches grown-up topics in a very matter-of-fact, yet revealing way.
Her fears about her parents — that there's a darkness to her father she doesn't know because he's always working and has little to say when he is around, and that her mother's depression will push her over the edge (literally) — are heightened when the family stays at a friend’s house in the mountains for a stretch of time.
That whole section of the book is dizzying in its descriptions of steep roads, dense fog and, of course, the cliff that gives way to the deep, dark abyss. Adding to the delirium is Claudia's deepened fixation on death and the dead as her feelings of isolation and fears about her parents build. I would recommend this book based on this section alone, but really the entire story is superbly crafted. I'll be thinking about Claudia for a long time.
Her fears about her parents — that there's a darkness to her father she doesn't know because he's always working and has little to say when he is around, and that her mother's depression will push her over the edge (literally) — are heightened when the family stays at a friend’s house in the mountains for a stretch of time.
That whole section of the book is dizzying in its descriptions of steep roads, dense fog and, of course, the cliff that gives way to the deep, dark abyss. Adding to the delirium is Claudia's deepened fixation on death and the dead as her feelings of isolation and fears about her parents build. I would recommend this book based on this section alone, but really the entire story is superbly crafted. I'll be thinking about Claudia for a long time.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide