Beryl Bainbridge's evocation of childhood in a rundown northern holiday resort.
An explosive shocker about little girls . . . here is the horror of child's play mixed with erotic manipulation and evil possession. "A highly plotted horror tale that ranks with the celebrated thrillers of corrupt childhood."—New York Times Book Review
Reviews with the most likes.
Strangely, this popped up on horror/thriller lists I looked at. I can only assume the people compiling each list don't read horror at all. I'm sure this was shocking at the time, but now it is just tame, anticlimactic, and rather dry. It falls the machinations of two teen girls in a dumpy seaside town, as they discover–or attempt to–their sexuality and grasp of adulthood. And stuff happens. There are moments so subtle they remind me of Eddie Izzard's discussion of Merchant Ivory movies in ‘Dressed to Kill.' But it doesn't have the emotional heft of the books those movies were based on. And then a murder happens, and it's absolutely ridiculous. I don't like what this book says about teenage girls or about female friendships. I'd try Ms Bainbridge again, but I didn't much care for this one.
And Harriet is awful, by the way. The narrator is no picnic either. I have minimal time or patience in my life for art that depicts teen girls in a negative way, because it happens too much. Also, this furthers my dislike for litfic.
