At first I struggled to get into this audiobook – perhaps because I listened to it after Prophet Song and I was still reeling from the edge of your seat tension at the end of that book. Also, the first couple of chapters are told from the perspective of the teenaged daughter of the family at the heart of the novel, and I found her a bit whiny and annoying.
It felt like a book that you needed to invest time and attention to, much like making friendships in the real world (like I know anything about that, being a totally introverted bookworm!) because as the book went on, and as we got insights from the chapters centered around several different family members, I felt more and more invested and sympathetic towards all of them (even the whiny teenaged girl!).
Also the pace picks up as each family member has their own tensions and secrets and bad choices that sees them all at first straying and then hurtling towards disaster. The final quarter of the book is actually very gripping and I was on the edge of my seat as all the strands come together in a potentially catastrophic way and I’m almost covering my ears while at the same time desperate to know how it will all end…
SPOILER ALERT*****
DON’T READ ON UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY READ THE BOOK, OR YOU WANT TO HAVE THE ENDING SPOILED FOR YOU!!
Then you are left hanging at the end – did the daddy shoot someone? – who did he shoot? AAARGH!
I had to instantly go online and read other people’s interpretations of the books ending, which seems to be somewhat split between the foreshadowing of disaster leaving the only interpretations being that daddy shot and killed his own two children accidentally, to the more hopeful conclusion that he missed and killed no-one, or that he killed the bad guy who was trying to blackmail him. We will never know.
Sarah Wray Writer 