"The Little Friend"

[dalek]

Has anybody read this? Have a book club meeting tonight and I haven't finished it - personally finding it a bit "Flowers in the Attic" - although not sexual it seems to be about keeping family secrets and wierd overzealous religious people - am I right? What does anyone else think?

Will pop in later to look at replies as have to pop out now.

TIA
x

Anyone?

Yes have read it - I think the general consensus is that it is not as good as her first book (The Secret History) which i really enjoyed.

I didn't hate it, but I found the ending a bit odd. I was sitting on the tube when I read the end, and I think I made a 'hmph' noise and flicked backwards and forwards because I couldn't believe that was actually the end. I though there was a printing error and bit was missing.

Thanks to both of you. I read the last chapter and got the impression that we never find out who committed the murder and that the book is more about a little girl's determination to get revenge on who she thought did it.

Do you agree?

I read this book and I was very struck by it.

The author is crueler to her characters than any novelist I can think of except Thomas Hardy. It is unrelentingly bleak and pessimistic.

There is a passage where the leading character tries to rescue a bird that is stuck to tarmac melted by the heat, but she only succeeds in pulling its wing off. For me that sums up her plight in the whole of the novel.

I think I would have enjoyed it more if the author had let up on her poor characters a little. But I don't think that would have made it a better book.

Ooh, I thought this was much better than it seems you guys did (or the reviewers, for that matter, who were all a bit baffled from what I remember). Found it pretty stifling, and nowhere near as good as The Secret History, but still really well written. Ambivalence in an ending is a rarity and worth thinking about in itself (even if it makes for a not very satisfying read at times).

I thought it was great but TSH is so very hard to live up to...

I didn't dislike this book. I thought it was good. It's just that it was so unredeemed. I thought the ending was effective, for the reader -- but absolutely devastating for the heroine.

I was really disppointed with this, was expecting great things after The Secret History but didn't think much of it at all.