Tuesday 11 March 2014

Reasons She Goes to the Woods by Deborah Kay Davies


This is no “teddy bear’s picnic.” The book is about Pearl and it paints her as a destructive, violent soul. It doesn’t matter who, whether it be her friends, her mother, her baby brother, her self, she inflicts physical pain on them all. It’s brutal and almost made me give up the book because, to me, it was so sick.

The story is told in vignettes. Each chapter is exactly one page long with one long paragraph. And between each chapter is one blank page with nothing on it apart from a chapter heading. On first impressions I thought this was clever writing to always get each chapter the same length, although my friend pointed out that it was a waste of paper.

After the brutal beginning things get a little less brutal as you follow the rest of Pearl’s childhood where things happen. Her mother is loony mad and deteriorates and Pearl gets alienated from her family and friends. The end.

At least she didn’t kill herself.

Publication date: 6 February 2014

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