paperbackstack 's review for:

Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen

4.5

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

---

What a little gem this book is and what a gift Jack Lowden is as narrator.  Jack’s storytelling brings a natural authenticity that speaks to the heart of the story and makes the audiobook a joy to listen to.

Firth arrives on this wind battered scrap of Shetland coastline with barely more than a rucksack and a plan to quietly fall apart. Instead, he’s met with Ouse, a 19 year old boy, living in the lighthouse with his emotionally volatile father.  What unfolds is a slow, unexpected bond between two people who see the world differently but find something steady in each other.

It’s a novel about connection, loss, art, and the weight of silence. A little bit eccentric, often very funny, and quietly devastating in places. If you like books where the place is as important as plot, and where not every answer is handed to you, this one’s worth the read.  The writing strikes a perfect balance, poetic and evocative, yet never feels overcomplicated.

Also: bonus points for the completely deranged seabirds, the wild weather, and the constant low-level fear that one of them might just pack up and disappear into the sea.

Firth, an artist and writer from Edinburgh, arrives on Muckle Flugga (the UK’s northernmost inhabited island) on a strange sort of mission: to paint a Northern gannet in honour of his grandfather, and maybe to fall quietly off the edge of the world.

But the island isn’t quite the empty outpost he expects. Living in the lighthouse are Ouse, a fiercely bright and quietly creative teenager, and The Father, who veers between volatile and withdrawn. As Firth gets drawn into their strange, fragile world full of unspoken grief, late night confessions, and unexpected joy, he’s forced to rethink what he cauume to the island for in the first place.

Many thanks to Faber Books for the advance copy of the audiobook