
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
To be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on January 8, 2019
my rating: ★★★★.5
Goodreads avg: 4.01 (as of 2019-01-04)
cw: domestic abuse
disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in a Goodreads giveaway. All of the opinions presented below are my own.
Spoiler-free Review
Goodreads | IndieBound | Author’s Website
In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the Iron Age.
For two weeks, the length of her father’s vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit. The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie’s father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs–particularly their sacrifices to the bog. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind.
The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?
A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the “primitive minds” of our ancestors.
Without a house, it occurred to me, it is much harder to restrict a person’s movement. Harder for a man to restrain a woman.
→ What I Liked:
The Characters
I enjoyed how distinctly different all the characters were. Much like The Stepford Wives, the women seemed much more well-developed than the men, who had a more singular purpose. I thought Sylvie and her thoughts were well-written, and I really appreciated the relationship between her and Molly. I also loved that Sylvie was queer-coded, although that wasn’t the focus of the story at all.
The Writing
Sarah Moss is able to slowly build up such an intense feeling of dread that it’s impressive. While the story begins in a rather innocuous manner, it’s revealed bit by bit that something just isn’t quite right. This is done in a rather impressive manner and eventually leads to an emotional climax the likes of which I haven’t experienced in quite some time. I’ll admit it, I may have shed a tear or two at the last line.
Cold water wavered over my legs, stroked some of the soreness from my skin. I imagined the shame carried away like blood in the water, visible first in weedy streams, curling and flickering like smoke and then dissolving, fading, until although you know it would always be there you couldn’t see it anymore.
→ What I Didn’t Like:
The Beginning
The flip side to this subtle build is that the story is a bit of a slow burn. While short, the beginning pieces felt a bit boring to me and I had just a little difficulty getting invested. Luckily this doesn’t last for long and it is absolutely worth it to stick with it on this one.
The Style
This is one of those books that has foregone quotation marks in dialogue, which can occasionally make it a bit tricky to pick apart who is saying what. It took me a bit to get adjusted to this, which probably also contributed to my difficulty getting invested, but once I did the story flew by much more quickly.
Here I am, then. So kill me.
→ TL;DR:
- Wonderful characterization
- Slow emotional build, but the payoff is worth it
- Writing style takes just a bit of adjusting to
Totally agreed that it took me a while to get into it which normally would have been a problem with such a short book but then it ended up being SO GOOD I didn’t even care, and I defo want to read it again at some point.
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Same!!! I said this on my fb post when I cross-posted this review, but the more I think about it the more I adore this book. When I finished it, it was a solid 4 stars for me, then creeped up to a 4.5, and now I’m like — no, 5 stars. I’m so so glad I stuck with it because I was honestly ABOUT to DNF like 30 pages in but reread the blurb and was too intrigued not to continue.
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SEE THIS IS WHY I DON’T DNF like no shade to people who do but sometimes a book’s just gotta creep up on you
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Ugh I knowww. I go back and forth on it because I don’t wanna miss out on a good book, but I’ve also been burned too many times.
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Yeah I mean to be fair sometimes you just Know a book is shit and you’re not gonna change your mind… with this one though I think there was still that seed of potential in the writing itself even when the plot started off as not terribly thrilling.
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I’m so glad you enjoyed this! Great review 😊
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Thank you!! 🙂 I honestly love it more the more time I have to ponder it.
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Same here!
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Great review! ♥ I put this one on my TBR after seeing you mention it since it sounded interesting, so I’m excited to see that you liked it!
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Thank you, I hope you like it! ❤ I'm actually looking forward to rereading it, perhaps sometimes later in the year.
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I really must read Sarah Moss! She was one of my tutors when I did English Lit at university, but I never got around to reading her books.
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That’s awesome!! I’m really excited to try out some more of her novels, I was so impressed with this one.
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