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If This Is Home by Stuart Evers
A dazzling first novel from the critically acclaimed author of Ten Stories About Smoking.Mark Wilkinson has three names. He left his own behind in the rainy north of England. American immigration knows him as Joe Novak. And at the Valhalla, the mysterious complex where he sells lofty ambition and dark desires, he goes by Mr Jones.Since he was eighteen, Mark has been running away. Running from his small town, his vanished mother, his broken father. But one night in Las Vegas, shocked by violence and ambushed by memories, he is propelled back to his real name and his real past. Back to Bethany carnival queen, partner in dreams, and tragic ghost.From the acclaimed author of Ten Stories About Smoking comes an electrifying novel about the power of dreams to destroy, of memory to distort — and of what it means to be home.
- GenresFictionLiterary Fiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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98 people want to read
About the author
Stuart Evers
25 books34 followersFormerly a bookseller and editor, Stuart Evers is a writer and reviewer. His short stories have appeared in The Best British Short Stories 2012, Prospect and on The Times website. He has reviewed for a wide range of publications including the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph and New Statesman. He lives in London.
His first book was published in 2011, a collection of short stories entitled Ten Stories about Smoking. It was described by the Daily Telegraph as "original and quietly devastating", while New Statesman noted echoes of Raymond Carver and Alice Munro. The book won the 2011 London Book Award at the London Awards for Art and Performance.
His first book was published in 2011, a collection of short stories entitled Ten Stories about Smoking. It was described by the Daily Telegraph as "original and quietly devastating", while New Statesman noted echoes of Raymond Carver and Alice Munro. The book won the 2011 London Book Award at the London Awards for Art and Performance.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
February 13, 2017
Joe Novak is having a bit of a crisis. For the past few years he's been working at the Valhalla, a posh getaway where middle-aged rich men get to have all of their wishes granted and desires realized. Joe likes his job well enough and he's making good money, too--but he's also slowly losing his mind. He is haunted by his past, especially by the memory of his first love, Bethany. He's even starting to "see" and have involved conversations with her. His coworkers are worried about him, and Joe isn't feeling the best about himself either. He's restless and on edge. Eventually a really bad day at work leaves him no choice but to travel back home to England so he can come to terms with his past.
I'm still not entirely sure what to make of this book. I was really into the first half. I liked reading about the Valhalla and the weird Eyes Wide Shut-like fantasy thing going on. It was creepy and gross, but interesting. But after Joe leaves the U.S. to fly back to England, his time in the U.K. has basically nothing to do with the Valhalla at all. The story never even circles back around to connect the two plot lines together. The second half was still strong and kept my interest, but I kept waiting for Evers to tie up the loose ends and he never did.
Ultimately, I was satisfied (for the most part) with the final mystery reveal, but, unfortunately, If This Is Home read like two incomplete stories clumsily smushed together. All the pieces were there, but they just didn't fit like they needed to.
I'm still not entirely sure what to make of this book. I was really into the first half. I liked reading about the Valhalla and the weird Eyes Wide Shut-like fantasy thing going on. It was creepy and gross, but interesting. But after Joe leaves the U.S. to fly back to England, his time in the U.K. has basically nothing to do with the Valhalla at all. The story never even circles back around to connect the two plot lines together. The second half was still strong and kept my interest, but I kept waiting for Evers to tie up the loose ends and he never did.
Ultimately, I was satisfied (for the most part) with the final mystery reveal, but, unfortunately, If This Is Home read like two incomplete stories clumsily smushed together. All the pieces were there, but they just didn't fit like they needed to.
November 28, 2012
So I've been a a bit prejudiced lately: I pine for long, luxurious, complicated sentences and words, more resplendent and evocative than the ideas they represent. With the exception of one author (dead now, unfortunately) I have found modern literature disappointing: short, direct sentences, uncomplicated and unoriginal plots, and frankly a lack of spark. Mr. Evers, as I intimated to my wife, has emerged (finally) as a "living" author I can truly say inspires me. This novel, though it started similarly (short sentences, terse language) after 20-30 pages Evers really opens up and the novel blossoms in multiple ways. Though he keeps a modern tongue and has none of the challenge and flourish of the post-modernists, Evers is a brilliant story-teller. The subtle restraint of his style hides the tiny bombs of utter depravity and loss superbly and the result is an intense journey that not only entertains, it compels with a force I find lacking in the past decade's literary offerings. His language loosens a bit near 1/2-past but the treat and reward of this novel is the rich, unique, unfolding narrative. The text challenges throughout - I had myriad theories as I read - and comes to rest, a bit unexpectedly, fulfilling and perfect.
February 10, 2017
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
Definitely the most interesting thing about Stuart Evers' new novel If This Is Home is the ultra-rich Las Vegas condo complex Valhalla where our narrator is working as the book opens, a great symbol for everything wrong with America right now: a glittering house of cards designed expressly to fleece the empty consumerist one-percenters out of their money, prospective buyers are shuttled around to what they are told are the "most exclusive" clubs and restaurants of the complex during their weekend hard-sell tour, not realizing that the other locked rooms they are passing are in fact completely empty; and are given a complex set of rules they're admonished to follow but that are never actually enforced, in order to let these people feel like they're getting away with something they shouldn't because of their wealth and status.
In fact, it often feels like it was Valhalla that Evers first envisioned when starting to work on this novel, and only afterwards filled in a hasty, cliche-filled three-act narrative to justify the book's existence, a shame given how strong the Las Vegas parts are. The story of British expat Mark Wilkinson, who has transformed himself into the cooler, more sociopathic alter-ego Joe Novak in America, the book's structure is basically broken up into three parts -- we mostly stay at Valhalla for the first half, until a "shocking act of violence" (according to the dust-jacket synopsis), which in fact is not actually that shocking at all*, inspires him to go back to his small British hometown for the first time in a decade, where we spend the second half of the novel; then weaving in and out of both these halves is a flashback look at the young-love relationship he used to be in, and whose tragic ending is what convinced him to flee to the US in the first place.
[*And seriously, when you set up a place like Valhalla like the owners have, heavily touted to its billionaire customers as a place where "every desire imaginable is accommodated," I don't know why it would come as a shock when one of them ends up beating up a prostitute; in fact, I would just assume that the first question out of the mouth of every asshole who shows up is, "Say, when do I get to kill a hooker?"]
Like I said, the first half is interesting enough, presenting us with a fully fleshed-out bacchanalian nightmare and letting us glimpse the boring behind-the-scenes grunt work that makes it happen, and teasing us with a backstory about a past girlfriend who had something bad happen to her, even though we don't know what, why, or by whom. But the entire second half of the book unfortunately just kind of falls apart, with Evers seemingly not knowing what to do with the story and so falling back on the most hacky tropes possible; Mark spends literally 150 pages wandering around his old hometown doing nothing in particular, with all his old acquaintances and family members disproportionally furious at him merely for leaving 13 years ago and not dropping anyone a postcard (instead they all react to his re-appearance with the kind of anger you would expect if he had actually killed the woman), and eventually with Mark hallucinating the ghost of his ex-girlfriend following him around, being smartass and challenging to him as a way of pushing him into the family confrontations he came there to have, about the most tired cliche you can even evoke in a murder-mystery thriller.
Most disturbingly of all, though, what is teased throughout the book as a "big reveal" about Mark's girlfriend's tragic end turns out to not be a big reveal at all, a plot development I'll let remain a surprise but that I can assure you has not even the tiniest bit to do with the entire rest of the novel; and in fact this horrific act of violence against her seems to only exist in the first place so that Mark himself can go through an emotional journey of self-discovery afterward, a plain and clear example of the "Women in Refrigerators" phenomenon that's been (rightly) receiving so much critical protest in the last few years. That's a disappointing way to end a novel that started with so much promise; and it's a shame that Evers could never come up with other things as clever and well-thought-out as Valhalla to fill the rest of this noble but often deeply flawed story. It comes with only a limited recommendation today because of that, a book that some will like more than me, but that most people will be generally disappointed by.
Out of 10: 6.9
Definitely the most interesting thing about Stuart Evers' new novel If This Is Home is the ultra-rich Las Vegas condo complex Valhalla where our narrator is working as the book opens, a great symbol for everything wrong with America right now: a glittering house of cards designed expressly to fleece the empty consumerist one-percenters out of their money, prospective buyers are shuttled around to what they are told are the "most exclusive" clubs and restaurants of the complex during their weekend hard-sell tour, not realizing that the other locked rooms they are passing are in fact completely empty; and are given a complex set of rules they're admonished to follow but that are never actually enforced, in order to let these people feel like they're getting away with something they shouldn't because of their wealth and status.
In fact, it often feels like it was Valhalla that Evers first envisioned when starting to work on this novel, and only afterwards filled in a hasty, cliche-filled three-act narrative to justify the book's existence, a shame given how strong the Las Vegas parts are. The story of British expat Mark Wilkinson, who has transformed himself into the cooler, more sociopathic alter-ego Joe Novak in America, the book's structure is basically broken up into three parts -- we mostly stay at Valhalla for the first half, until a "shocking act of violence" (according to the dust-jacket synopsis), which in fact is not actually that shocking at all*, inspires him to go back to his small British hometown for the first time in a decade, where we spend the second half of the novel; then weaving in and out of both these halves is a flashback look at the young-love relationship he used to be in, and whose tragic ending is what convinced him to flee to the US in the first place.
[*And seriously, when you set up a place like Valhalla like the owners have, heavily touted to its billionaire customers as a place where "every desire imaginable is accommodated," I don't know why it would come as a shock when one of them ends up beating up a prostitute; in fact, I would just assume that the first question out of the mouth of every asshole who shows up is, "Say, when do I get to kill a hooker?"]
Like I said, the first half is interesting enough, presenting us with a fully fleshed-out bacchanalian nightmare and letting us glimpse the boring behind-the-scenes grunt work that makes it happen, and teasing us with a backstory about a past girlfriend who had something bad happen to her, even though we don't know what, why, or by whom. But the entire second half of the book unfortunately just kind of falls apart, with Evers seemingly not knowing what to do with the story and so falling back on the most hacky tropes possible; Mark spends literally 150 pages wandering around his old hometown doing nothing in particular, with all his old acquaintances and family members disproportionally furious at him merely for leaving 13 years ago and not dropping anyone a postcard (instead they all react to his re-appearance with the kind of anger you would expect if he had actually killed the woman), and eventually with Mark hallucinating the ghost of his ex-girlfriend following him around, being smartass and challenging to him as a way of pushing him into the family confrontations he came there to have, about the most tired cliche you can even evoke in a murder-mystery thriller.
Most disturbingly of all, though, what is teased throughout the book as a "big reveal" about Mark's girlfriend's tragic end turns out to not be a big reveal at all, a plot development I'll let remain a surprise but that I can assure you has not even the tiniest bit to do with the entire rest of the novel; and in fact this horrific act of violence against her seems to only exist in the first place so that Mark himself can go through an emotional journey of self-discovery afterward, a plain and clear example of the "Women in Refrigerators" phenomenon that's been (rightly) receiving so much critical protest in the last few years. That's a disappointing way to end a novel that started with so much promise; and it's a shame that Evers could never come up with other things as clever and well-thought-out as Valhalla to fill the rest of this noble but often deeply flawed story. It comes with only a limited recommendation today because of that, a book that some will like more than me, but that most people will be generally disappointed by.
Out of 10: 6.9
December 7, 2019
Note: due to the nature of this book, I'm going to avoid details as much as possible in the following rant. To the people who loved this book: please help, because I feel like I am missing something. I actually spent 30 minutes last night tossing and turning trying to figure out what I missed - and I came up with nothing. Zip. Nada. The writing was good, the pace excellent (I stayed up way too late last night finishing it), but that storyline, the plot? Didn't connect with it. I get it, it's all about coming home and revisiting your past, but then what the heck was the point of the first half? Yes, yes, it's about the main character's escape from his past, but what the heck does the Valhalla have to do with anything? The idea of being someone else? Ok, that makes sense, but it just doesn't work. There are just too many things that happen that do not feel authentic, perhaps because the backstory, while filled in as the novel progresses, still does not explain many of the character's actions or even main events, for that matter. There was too little glossing over motivations. I like for my characters to have a reason for what they do. I'm sure that there are plenty of people who would enjoy this book, and I won't deny that it was a pleasure to read, it just didn't work for me.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.
January 1, 2013
This book was a bit of a mess. It is two really separate stories in some ways (from different periods of a single character's life). Except I don't see the current character in the 10 year old character and vice-versa. The part of the story set in Las Vegas just goes nowhere as far as I can see and doesn't come to any conclusion. And the central mystery is just kind of pointless as well when you discover it. Not sure what I missed.
November 14, 2012
The author of last year’s excellent Ten Stories About Smoking returns with his first novel, which continues to explore how life may fall short of one’s dreams. Evers’ protagonist is Mark Wilkinson, who escaped his life in Cheshire and made it in America as ‘Joe Novak’; when we meet him in the early 2000s, he’s in Las Vegas , selling apartments at the ultra-high-end Valhalla complex. Alternate chapters chronicle a day in 1990 when Mark’s teenage girlfriend Bethany Wilder became a reluctant beauty queen at a parade, shortly before she and Mark were planning to leave for New York. But Bethany is nowhere to be seen in Mark’s present life – what happened becomes clear about halfway through the novel, when an incident moves Mark to return to the UK and catch up with the people and places of his own life.
There are some striking and well-handled shifts of tone in If This Is Home. In the opening chapters, the Valhalla complex seems almost to belong in a more heightened reality, which contrasts sharply with the down-to-earth nature of the Cheshire-set sequences. Later on, the novel starts to turn on Mark’s character and, balances reality with a slight unreality in a different way – yet If This Is Home always feels a cohesive whole. Evers examines the difficulties of fitting in, leaving and returning; and shows how an individual can simultaneously have no options and all the choice in the world.
There are some striking and well-handled shifts of tone in If This Is Home. In the opening chapters, the Valhalla complex seems almost to belong in a more heightened reality, which contrasts sharply with the down-to-earth nature of the Cheshire-set sequences. Later on, the novel starts to turn on Mark’s character and, balances reality with a slight unreality in a different way – yet If This Is Home always feels a cohesive whole. Evers examines the difficulties of fitting in, leaving and returning; and shows how an individual can simultaneously have no options and all the choice in the world.
November 2, 2014
I have to note my annoyance first because this went from slight irritation to full on agitation by the end. Every paragraph a character was lighting a cigarette. It was almost as if the author got lazy and couldn't actually come up with a new character without shadowing his own obvious obsession with nicotine. I discovered after reading the book he has already written short stories about smoking, the man is truly addicted.
Anyway back to the story, it was a disjointed read at first with the Las Vegas part but did just pull itself together by the end into a tale of rediscovery.Everyone has a situation they want to forget from their past but the big things always come back to haunt us. Having Beth's 1990 story run alongside Marks/Joes modern day return worked well.
The edition I read was printed with double spacing and nice typeface which made the book easy to get through which helped at the beginning when I did struggle to get to grips with Mark/Joe as a character.
A three is a bit harsh but it isn't a four star either.
Anyway back to the story, it was a disjointed read at first with the Las Vegas part but did just pull itself together by the end into a tale of rediscovery.Everyone has a situation they want to forget from their past but the big things always come back to haunt us. Having Beth's 1990 story run alongside Marks/Joes modern day return worked well.
The edition I read was printed with double spacing and nice typeface which made the book easy to get through which helped at the beginning when I did struggle to get to grips with Mark/Joe as a character.
A three is a bit harsh but it isn't a four star either.
January 20, 2017
This reminded me of the Catcher in the Rye or Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlisy - I enjoyed it thoroughly and read it in only four or five sittings - it was heart wrenching and enjoyable all in one and something I felt was easily relatable - I was drawn in effortlessly
July 1, 2018
When he left the UK, Mark Wilkinson also left behind his name and entered the US as Joe Novak. By now, he is known as Mr Jones and selling apartments in Las Vegas. But something from his past is haunting him, he has episodes, hears voices or better: one voice: the one of Bethany, his girl-friend when he was still a teenager and living in England. He is thirty now and Bethany has been dead for thirteen years. He had wanted to leave their sad hometown together with her, to build a life together in New York, but then, she was murdered. After an incident with a client, he returns to England, now to find out the truth about Bethany’s death.
I was eager to read the novel due to the high praise I could read everywhere. After having finished, I am somewhere between disappointed and deeply confused. Either I didn’t get it at all or it absolutely didn’t work for me.
First of all, I had the impression that the first and the second half of the novel didn’t work together at all. It’s like having completely different characters and two independent stories told. In the beginning, we get a lot of clichés about men who are by far too rich and who think they own the world. It might be quite realistic, but not very interesting and ultimately, it leads to nothing for me. The second part, when Mark tries to figure out what happened to Bethany made a lot more sense, even though he hears her ghost talking constantly. I was waiting for the stunning moment when the circumstances of Bethany’s death are revealed, I expected something unusual, unforeseen and really surprising. Yet, this didn’t come. Actually, I didn’t even understand why he had to change his name all the time and what he was running from after all.
I was eager to read the novel due to the high praise I could read everywhere. After having finished, I am somewhere between disappointed and deeply confused. Either I didn’t get it at all or it absolutely didn’t work for me.
First of all, I had the impression that the first and the second half of the novel didn’t work together at all. It’s like having completely different characters and two independent stories told. In the beginning, we get a lot of clichés about men who are by far too rich and who think they own the world. It might be quite realistic, but not very interesting and ultimately, it leads to nothing for me. The second part, when Mark tries to figure out what happened to Bethany made a lot more sense, even though he hears her ghost talking constantly. I was waiting for the stunning moment when the circumstances of Bethany’s death are revealed, I expected something unusual, unforeseen and really surprising. Yet, this didn’t come. Actually, I didn’t even understand why he had to change his name all the time and what he was running from after all.
June 18, 2019
There’s some good –or at least competent – writing here, but the author has made the mistake of writing two disparate storylines and then never letting them come together. Two books in one. Mark Wilkinson decides to leave his mundane small-town English life behind for a new start in the US. He finds himself in Las Vegas where he becomes involved in a truly surreal luxury complex named Valhalla. This section of the book is frankly weird and it’s a relief when he decides he needs to head back to England, and think again about the events that led to him leaving in the first place. The England section works much better and although the plot is fairly mundane, the characters come to life in a way that the US ones don’t. A tale of love and loss, belonging and dislocation, a coming-of-age story and a love story – all this but nothing very original and I found the book ultimately unmemorable.
July 2, 2017
I was bought this book by a friend, as a gift, who thought I might like it "as it's about someone who goes to live in America like you did". Hmmm......
Anyway I read it, can't say I particularly enjoyed it but stuck with it to see it to the end. And the end .... was kind of weird. The story was all rounded up in the last couple of chapters, the ghost of his dead girlfriend came back to haunt him. He wrote their story down and went off into the sunset with his savior.....
Anyway I read it, can't say I particularly enjoyed it but stuck with it to see it to the end. And the end .... was kind of weird. The story was all rounded up in the last couple of chapters, the ghost of his dead girlfriend came back to haunt him. He wrote their story down and went off into the sunset with his savior.....
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 10, 2018
Brilliant. Stuart Evers has contrived a truly original way of telling these two parallel – separate, but connected – stories, with distinct narrators and timelines, that I found completely engrossing once I was acclimatised to it. I raced through this in a little over a day. I unreservedly recommend it.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Picador via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Picador via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
May 12, 2017
Evers shares dark and anxious situations that can exist within marriages and within the child-parent relationships. The tension he skillfully creates took me by surprise initially, and then gradually won my admiration. Life on earth is not perfect. Everyone doesn't live happy-go-lucky lives.
The dark tone reminds me of the line from Tolstoy: Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
The dark tone reminds me of the line from Tolstoy: Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
January 28, 2020
I really enjoyed this book. Well-written and insightful. But I don't understand the ending. The big reveal scene in the pub garden with Hannah. Anyone? I feel like i skipped pages accidentally or something. I read a lot of books, but I'm confused. It feels a bit Atwood-ish but without the clues to piece together what was going on.
October 6, 2017
This is one of the books i find occasionally . It reading as voyeurism . Its beautiful in parts but i never feel i am in the room or involved . some great writing some fantastic passages but i couldnt ever feel involved
August 28, 2018
Strange, this book has so much potential but the author is trying to write too many stories at once. None of it felt finished, the characters are likeable but the first half of the book seems out of sorts from the second half.
I did enjoy reading it though.
I did enjoy reading it though.
April 11, 2020
An interesting concept and a great first half......yet somehow it doesn't feel right.
The tale ends with more questions than answers - almost as if it is 2 stories that should intertwine but don't quite meet in the middle.
The tale ends with more questions than answers - almost as if it is 2 stories that should intertwine but don't quite meet in the middle.
February 23, 2017
I really liked the opening scene and the sense of loss that pervades the novel. The plot, however, never grabbed me.
done-with
June 12, 2018----------
"Las Vegas, you realize, runs not on money, but on the perniciousness of hope....Watching hope, and those that have it, destroys you."
----------
I wanted to like this one, It had a lot of very promising elements - a great plot (reinvented selves and the way our pasts always seem to catch us up), cool setting (the Valhalla is, literally, a dream come true for its visitors, strong writing (see the above quote). But somehow it never came together for me, and I found myself caring not one whit about Joe/Mark, his secrets, his reasons for what he's done, and the consequences of it all... Early on, I found my interest flagging. The back and forth in time and place and perspective is a fairly common writing style and one that usually works fine for me, but this time I found it rougher-going for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. I can't identify why this one didn't work for me - usually I can pinpoint something that I had particular issues with, but I can't really do that here. I just never connected to the story or characters in the way I hoped to, and as a result I found my attention skipping all around the pages as I put the book down and picked it back up again a slew of times...
My review copy was provided by NetGalley.
"Las Vegas, you realize, runs not on money, but on the perniciousness of hope....Watching hope, and those that have it, destroys you."
----------
I wanted to like this one, It had a lot of very promising elements - a great plot (reinvented selves and the way our pasts always seem to catch us up), cool setting (the Valhalla is, literally, a dream come true for its visitors, strong writing (see the above quote). But somehow it never came together for me, and I found myself caring not one whit about Joe/Mark, his secrets, his reasons for what he's done, and the consequences of it all... Early on, I found my interest flagging. The back and forth in time and place and perspective is a fairly common writing style and one that usually works fine for me, but this time I found it rougher-going for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. I can't identify why this one didn't work for me - usually I can pinpoint something that I had particular issues with, but I can't really do that here. I just never connected to the story or characters in the way I hoped to, and as a result I found my attention skipping all around the pages as I put the book down and picked it back up again a slew of times...
My review copy was provided by NetGalley.
December 29, 2013
I came to this book with no prior knowledge of author or content other than 'young talent'. I was immediately caught up in twin narratives: the edgy and surreal Las Vegas real estate world to which Mark has 'escaped' and the fateful day Bethany his girlfriend was carnival queen 13 years earlier. The British small town mentality and lives of teenagers is brilliantly evoked in the latter. Evers is adept at detail, incident and back-story but it never feels superfluous or baggy. The second half of the book is Mark's return to the UK to confront the ghosts of his past. This section remained compelling and taut but wasn't as strong as what had preceded to my mind (however I was reading at break-neck pace by this point). Impressive and accomplished debut by an undoubted talent. Look forward to what he writes next.
January 29, 2014
A really enjoyable read and surprising as it was a random choice from the library shelves. The plot is split into two time lines, the first sees Joe Novak trading apartments/experiences in a fancy hotel in Las Vegas to rich American men, however he is falling apart and has flashbacks to his life 13 years earlier as Mark Wilkinson an 18 year old on the brink of running away with his girlfriend Bethany to New York. At the same time as we hear of life for Mark in suburban cheshire village on outskirts of manchester we also see Bethany's day as carnival queen as third story. There is something that has happened which we don't find out to later but it keeps you guessing to the end and whilst Joe/Mark is both an unreliable narrator and not a particularly likeable character the novel keeps you guessing throughout. A page turner and good read which I rattled through.
July 30, 2012
Desperation to leave what is sure to be small town stagnation to pursue the dream of something different can sometime distort your sense of the past. But when the past intrudes in a slight different disguise and you are forced to return to the place you've spent you whole life running from, the truth of the past come painfully rushing back to greet you. It's somewhat of a detective story, and it's use of flashbacks works to drive the search for the truth about oneself and about what it means to come home to confront that truth.
June 13, 2012
great. long review soon.
March 18, 2013
Naaaah did not do it for me - surprised at the high level reviews.
January 9, 2015
A neat and disquieting story tweaking familliar themes of teenage origins and escapes. You can't take the satellite town out of the boy.
March 5, 2015
I LIKED IT, IT WAS OKAY
Read
October 29, 2012Litro Magazine review by Stuart Evers: http://www.litro.co.uk/?p=18105
April 6, 2017
I was so glad to get to the end, I found this really tedious. I just didn't get it at all.
November 9, 2017
I really enjoyed this book! It was interesting and full of well written characters.
June 29, 2018
Ok I’m with the people who do not understand why this is getting such high reviews. I’m really sorry. I just didn’t get it. I really feel like I am missing a fundermental part that would explain to me why everyone loved it so much. But the storyline just didn’t do it for me. Sorry
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews