ARC received via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

There's something very odd about reading a book about living through a momentous occasion in history when that occasion is still very much underway. As different as things feel now, in November 2020, to the way they did back in March, coronavirus is still in every headline. We're still living under lockdown rules, and although there are some signs of light at the end of the tunnel, it's still a very, very long tunnel.

This was a hard book to make sense of. I understand that it's timely; that reading this book when Covid is still a threat adds to its impact, because it serves as a warning of how much work there still is to be done, and how bad things can get. I do, however, think that getting this book out quickly means that it feels somewhat rushed. Morgan writes very matter-of-factly and we never really get much insight into how she's feeling or what she's thinking; only what's happening to her. She sees people die and yet there's very little interiority or depth to those scenes. Sometimes, this sparse and unfeeling prose works very well, such as when she's describing the actions of the NHS staff. She doesn't dwell on sentimentality there, and just explains how hard they're working and how they're being run ragged, and I think this is the right call. In other instances, it comes across as almost cold. That said, none of us knows how we'll respond to living through such traumatic events, and Morgan's reaction is completely valid; it just doesn't always make for very compelling reading.

As a testament to the year that was 2020, this book is invaluable. Morgan includes a lot of the details that, to anyone in 2019, would seem ridiculous. Being afraid to walk too close to your neighbours in the street. Queuing outside to buy your groceries. The suspicion when you hear that anyone you've ever been in contact with might be ill; the worry that your sniffle is a deadly virus. She also astutely compares the whole thing to her mother's experience with the Blitz, the last time that the UK was undergoing such a rapid sea change in its way of life. There's a real sense in this book of living through history and of being part of it, and, of course, of how many people don't survive that history at all.

Throughout, Morgan includes related excerpts from Defoe's 'A Journal of the Plague Year', a book that Defoe wrote purportedly based on his uncle's experiences with the plague in 1665. Sometimes, these excerpts work - I had a little chuckle at her comparison to Trump's notorious bleach-injecting gaffe with the charlatans who peddle snake oil and herbs in the streets of Defoe's world. There are times that these comparisons are a little more tenuous - as haunting and unfathomable as the makeshift mortuaries of 2020 are, they don't quite compare to the plague pits and body collectors of the 1600s.

I wonder what sort of book this could have been if, like Defoe's work, this had been released after the crisis had eased, and been allowed to stand as a sort of historical document. If Morgan had been able to write with some of the benefit of reflection, I think it could have been an emotionally stronger piece. None of this is to say that I didn't enjoy it, because I did; or perhaps 'enjoy' isn't quite the right word. 'Appreciated', maybe. Morgan is a very competent writer, and reading this was one of the most - to use a horrible buzzword - relatable experiences I've had in a very long time. Coronavirus might affect everyone differently, but it does affect everyone, and Morgan's testimony is a stark reminder of that. I can absolutely see myself rereading this book in years to come, when the New Normal, as Morgan puts it, is hopefully in full swing, and being transported back to this year when everything changed.