I knew from the opening sentence that I wouldn’t be able to put this book down: “‘Put me out with the bins,’ he said, regularly.”
Sally Diamond is in her 40s and still lives with her adoptive parents in a small Irish village. She can’t quite be described as being on the spectrum, as her psychiatrist father reminds her. Yet Sally takes everything literally, pretends to be deaf so she can avoid the locals and avoids human touch. Her music is her only escape. When her father passes away, a chain of events is set in motion that will result in Sally learning about past events that will change her life forever.
Sally’s lack of a filter leads to some very funny moments in an otherwise very dark psychological thriller. I loved how the author structured the book in a dual timeline, alternating between Sally’s perspective and that of a young boy named Peter. How these two differing perspectives ultimately converge resulted in an absolutely compelling reading experience.
There are some triggering themes in this story and it is not an easy book to read. But is absolutely unputdownable. Liz Nugent has created such strong characterizations that my heart went out to Sally and literally all of the other characters (except for one, who will remain unnamed here).
This is such a well-written book that I read it in one day, something I haven’t done in a long time! The ending, while somewhat ambiguous, ultimately gave me hope in the goodness of human nature. Highly recommend.
(𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯.)
About the Book:
Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.
Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.
But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally’s life will be thrown into chaos once again . . .
