Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire FullerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The premise of this book was my impetus for buying it - a young girl is taken by her dad into the forest and told that the world has ended and they are the only two survivors. The book did not disappoint. From the beginning we know that that girl, Peggy, the book's narrator, has made it safely out of that isolation. The book jumps back and forth between (initially) 1976 and 1985, after Peggy has been returned to her mother. We know this right of way. It takes the novel to lead us to how it happens.
The pacing throughout is superb, continually pushing a reader through its pages, wanting to know what happened next. It was a hard book to put down. Peggy is a fascinating character, and a good narrator. In addition to the pacing, I think the author did a great job at avoiding becoming too predictable in the story's arc. There were several times when reading that I felt I knew where the story was going, but Fuller turned and twisted the novel to keep a reader guessing. Most of all, the ending of the book is downright stunning - enough so that it makes you want to re-read the book to see what clues could be gathered. In this sense, I almost regret reading this by myself, as opposed to with a friend or as part of a book club, because so much of the book, and in particularly the ending, screams for discussion.
Fast-paced, well written, unpredictable, enjoyable. Worth a read.
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