How on earth do you rate a book where you spend the first 180 pages in varying states of mild to severe confusion, glad for the short chapters making it slightly easier to read, only to be sort of madly wowed by how cleverly it all came together in the end? I would rather read a book that starts slow and picks up than read one that starts amazingly and then fizzles out, but for over 70% of the book I was just this emoji - 🤨
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Everything Under is a modern retelling of the Oedipus myth (which I had to look up initially, but I realised that I HAD actually heard of it before, I just forget all the Greek names 🙈), with focus on the idea of destiny and whether it can ever be changed, motherhood and identity. With three central characters, it shouldn’t be that hard to follow, and I do wonder if whether I just wasn’t concentrating hard enough. It jumps around in time and place, and often uses the second person ‘you’, so I do feel somewhat justified at my confusion!
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The book places a lot of emphasis on the river, but I have to admit sometimes it was like I was trying to read a book that was underwater, with a murky film over the page desperately trying to figure out what the hell was going on! It was sort of what I used to expect all literary fiction would be like, opaque and making you work for the meaning.
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But as I said - those last 70 pages - damn! Everything starts clicking together and the murkiness fades away. I could tell she lost some of subtlety towards the end, but for me this was a blessing to finally see what was cracking off! I HIGHLY recommend you go read Lauren’s @aseriesofunreadbooks incredible review of this one, as she just *gets* it and articulates her thoughts so eloquently! Meanwhile, I’m just going to rate it slap bang middle of the road and continue to think about that masterful and tragic denouement