I find reviewing books generally to be difficult - in a way that a beauty item has certain physical properties and is not subjective in what is it, merely whether it suits a taste (and a skin/hair type), books are - as all art is - wholly subjective. Beyond acknowledging whether something is to your taste or not, books can be to one's taste when one is in one mood and not what is wanted when in another mood. Your reaction to a story is so shaped by your own life experiences, what leaps off a page and into your soul, that despite being a voracious reader I often shy away from recommending books to anyone - it feels an intimate act, almost indecently revealing. But - but - I cannot not commit to the pages of this blog how much I adore this novella.
I actually read Keegan's Small Things Like These first. It had been on my TBR for forever, but it had just never been the moment when I was in the mood for it until one random Tuesday evening, when I then read it in one sitting (like Foster, it's a novella.) Although I liked that one and connected with the writing style (it is a masterclass in conveying huge amounts with minimal quantities) so much so that I felt slightly bereft when I finished it and made a pilgrimage the very next day to purchase Foster, Foster is the one that has wormed its way into me, the one that is a book I know I will go on to keep multiple copies of - one to keep good, an e-copy on my kindle, one to read in the bath, one that can go in and out of handbags and hand luggage bags (what did I say about recommending books and revealing your reading habits being indecently revealing...)
Foster is, as the title suggests, about a period of fostering - a summer where a little girl from a family who seem to have too many children to be able to provide adequate care and attention for them all and to whom another unwanted baby has just been born is fostered by her aunt and uncle whom she is unfamiliar with ("The last time I saw you, you were in the pram," is how she is greeted) and who may as well be complete strangers.
Told in a linear from the girl's point of view, this is also a difficult one to review or recommend because really, the above is all you should know going in. Read it and let it unfold at it does upon you and the narrator at the same time.
Essentially, you're following what happens when a child who is one of many and, if not exactly unloved, at least uncared for - even if that is out of circumstance rather than a deliberate lack of emotional bond - is taken and given that care, attention and space to grow. You're following her journey and the journey of the people who she goes to live with.
Your heart will expand and break and mend and shatter again in a way that feels somewhat obscene for being achieved in less than one hundred pages, but without ever feeling like anything is hanging less fulfilled than it should have been by the words.
I read it in one sitting, then read it again the next day. I'll be going about my day and lines from it will flash across my brain. There are certain pieces of art that leave you rocked at your core, art that after you experience it will split your timeline into before and after the consumption of it. This book is one of those for me, and quite frankly, that it's impact is as massive as that in such a slim volume feels miraculous.
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