Our Endless Numbered Days

Book Title: Our Endless Numbered Days

Author: Claire Fuller

Date Started: December 4th 2015

Date Completed: December 13th 2015

Genres: Contemporary, Mystery
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Upon hearing a few good things about this story where a girl lives in the middle of a wood and believes the whole world is dead because her father told her, I just immediately thought of fairytales and of some sort of modern twist on traditional tales of abduction. However, I didn't expect it to be quite as harrowing and personal - and that's kind of the point with these stories. People only think of them as stories until they're pushed to realise their weight.

Fuller's writing really surprised me as I was reading this book. She has a way of gently tricking you into feeling like a child again - a memory, a sensation, an innocent thought - so you really go through these things with Peggy at the age she is. There's this weird juxtaposition where half of you feels almost comforted at times, but then your detached self realises almost guiltily that these aren't things you should be comforted by. But because of where we're positioned we genuinely do get that sense of wrongness we're led into, and I guess we get even closer to understanding Peggy's ambivalence because of it.

Our Endless Numbered Days deals with some really, really difficult subjects, and it does make you uncomfortable. But rightly so. I feel like a lot of people shy away from reading books with darker subjects because it isn't something we feel pleasant learning about (understandably), but I think it's still important that there are stories showing them. I felt Fuller dealt with abduction, abuse, PTSD and some of the other issues in this book really well and in a way that people could get through even if they were hesitant about the subject matter. We're spared what could have been disturbing graphic recounts and instead are allowed to piece together things ourselves (which, admittedly, at times is equally if not more disturbing). I also think the strong fairytale and childlike atmosphere softens some of the darker points: Fuller had the opportunity to present everything as an absolute bleak wasteland similar to that of a dystopian, but she chose a gentler approach to leave room for people to realise things are rarely as easy as crime and punishment.

I think thought the book was really well structured to make the audience feel like we're aware of what's going on, and to encourage us to ignore the voice at the back of our heads saying otherwise. Of course there was always more to things that what we're immediately told, but it's human nature to take what you have and run with it, perhaps mistakenly leaving some details behind. While I did work out the ending before it happened, I think the way Fuller left it literally until the last page to make sense of everything for us was extremely effective - all the more so because we're left with the revelation right before the book ends, and the abrupt end finalises how this is what happened, and now Peggy has to live with it forever.

While it's indisputable that this is Peggy's story (and perhaps her father's) Fuller still put thought and development into the other characters, and it really pays off. They may be sympathetic, but they still react in the very human way of treating something they don't understand with ignorance and alienation under the pretence of understanding.

I don't have much to say about Peggy since we're encouraged so heavily to project ourselves onto her; she still has her own personality and value as a character of course, but looking back I realise how early we're made to relate to her in various situations, and therefore how deeply we're lost in everything when it comes to the climax of the book. Having said that, seeing her grow from an eight-year-old into a seventeen-year-old you can definitely see the development of her person, but also the influence her father has had. She still seems reasonably childish, even when her actions mature, and her thoughts are so heavily monitored that it really reinforces the effects of her situation - but reminds us of her humanity as an individual as well.

Due to Fuller's structuring, Our Endless Numbered Days is actually quite quick to get through; the writing is told in a similar style to a child's thoughts, even when Peggy grows, and the pacing of action was well distributed throughout the whole novel. It was at time hard to read in big chunks, but this was more from the fact that I had worked out what was going on in Peggy's situation and honestly felt a little bit sick. But again, this wasn't the brutality (or at times gentleness) of what we're directly told, but more from the implications it had that Peggy couldn't see herself.

Our Endless Numbered Days takes a subject few people like to talk about in real circumstances, and moulds it into a book where you're taken in to sit by the fire as a small child - and little but little Fuller reveals the reality of what's happened. Not only is it a brilliant crafted novel, but it gives the reader a platform to learn and understand more about abduction and abuse in a way where we are both literally in the middle of it, and also detached by time and place: we're confronted with the ambivalence Peggy feels and the confusion of those around her. This is an important book, and an important story.

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