A very dark and moody story, a retelling of a Greek myth that I didn't know TOO much about. Told through three separate strands of story -- The Hunt, The Cottage and The River, helpfully labeled. It's also very much about dementia. I won't give away too much else. I admit to being distracted but some of it was a bit confusing to me (my fault). While reading this book, it was reminding me of 'The Bone People' by Keri Hulme and definitely 'All the Birds, Singing' by Evie Wyld, to lo and behold find these two books mentioned here, by Johnson as influences: https://fivebooks.com/best-books/daisy-johnson-books-that-influenced-her/#book-3... Sometimes I surprise even myself. ( )

I loved the first half of this book and thought it was going to be five stars. It built suspense so well, and I was very intrigued by the story of a woman and her daughter and their life on the river. The writing is beautiful and evocative. Unfortunately, I felt as though the latter half didn't actually answer the many questions that I had. I wasn't sure if some elements were fantastical or dream sequences or merely symbolic. I read carefully, and then I re-read parts - - and yet, still I didn't feel like I could resolve the various aspects to my satisfaction. This did remind me a little of last year's Man Booker nominee, History of Wolves, in the sense that both books require a good deal of inference on the part of the reader. But with History of Wolves, I thought I understood the implications, and here I'm not at all confident that I did.

All that being said, I really enjoyed reading the book. If I were just rating it on enjoyment, it would be 4 stars. But I think the audience for this type of work is definitely more narrow. It's a lot of work for the reader without enough payoff (in my mind). ( )

Okay, this book is amazing and disturbing. As I said below, the language is exquisite. The story is deep and moving. As to the chapter titles, are they cues to the timeline or are they metaphors? In the acknowledgments the author expresses hope that the readers will recommend the book. I'm not sure I'll be able to, because I'm not sure I am undamaged by the experience. If I recommend it to you, beware.

Oh, I bought the book because somebody I follow on GR added it to their shelf and I loved the cover. However, in real life the cover has a weird almost sticky feel and I don't like it.

---- a week ago....

Picking it up again. Maybe the time is right, now. Again the language is exquisite. I want to read it out loud. It was easier to follow the flow of the narrative once I realized that the chapter titles--The Cottage. The Hunt. The River.--showed which part of the timeline the chapter was about.

---- 3 months earlier...

I'm putting this book back on the shelf for a while. This one has multiple timelines and multiple characters, some apparently with multiple names, and I can't keep track. The writing is compelling and often beautiful; the story is fascinating. But I just can't follow it now. My life has become a bit complex and I'm finding that I keep picking up other, more straightforward stories. ( )

Holy shit this book was dark. Also somewhat infuriatingly not-chronologically ordered. ( )

Never read a book like this before! I was a bit confused to begin with.... the mythical water creature the 'Bonak' and whether the author intended us to believe in it or not. Was I reading fantasy? I didn't know. I don't do fantasy. But I muddled through and came to connect with the story and the characters; realising it's human depth entwined and immersed in the river myths and otherworldliness. It's essentially an exploration of a tortuous and complicated mother-daughter relationship, and the strangeness of this bond really got me. Gretel, the main character, grows up on the river with her hard and elusive mother, Sarah. Sarah is like no woman I have ever known and yet she felt so familiar. Daisy Johnson does an amazing job of depicting who she is. The descriptions of river life are murky - an itinerant lifestyle of grimy skin, dirty fingernails and wild garlic, a rough and tumble make-do existence of salting their own raw meat and greasy pans left to soak in basins of cold water. I didn't admire it, it made me slightly recoil, but I understood it and it made me feel as raw as the people living it. The chapters flit between the past 'The River', the present 'The Cottage', and the period of time in which Gretel is searching for her mother, 'The Hunt'. As a reader, it's tricky, but you become adjusted to the pattern and once I did I began to enjoy it much more. When Gretel and Sarah are reunited there are moments of tenderness and I got the first feelings of humanness from this story, something I was struggling with at first. This part of the story is hard-hitting because it describes Sarah's behaviour as a result of her Alzheimer's, and the descriptions of Gretel looking after her and the struggles they have to now face - it made me feel really emotional and sorry for Gretel, I would feel so lost and lonely in her position, and I couldn't help but wonder if I will ever have to face a similar situation.
Overall I had a love-hate relationship with this book because it was a challenge in the way I have never read anything like it before and at one time would have tossed it aside at the first mention of a mythical creature. But it's not as black and white as that - it's strange and shifty, as murky and tangled as the river that runs through the story, telling a tale of strange people and the connections between them. And for that reason I can say I liked it. ( )