Anyone read The Secret River by Kate Greenway?

[phlossie]

I've just finished it. I really struggled to get into it - I'd just finished God of Small Things which I loved, and the switch from complex narrative and flowery language to straight forward narrative and being written from the point of view of a working class Victorian Londoner was hard.
But it was very powerful and moving. It made me very unsure about who to sympathise with - I know the white settlers did terrible things to the aboriginal natives, but through the eyes of William Thornhill, you start to understand why.
I recommend it for a gripping read.

Last year, I bought a bundle of all the Booker shortlist books. This was the one I left till the end, because I didn't fancy it at all. But I absolutely loved it. It was a gripping read, and despite my aversion to reading anything set before the 1960s, I found the historical detail fascinating.