To be honest, I'm bemused! I understand from reading many other reviews that this has received critical acclaim. However, I found it clunky and very difficult to read, both because of the subject matter and the writing style. So, not one I can recommend, but, possibly worth a try for those who enjoy a challenge!

This is the hardest review I have had to write this year, mainly because I read too many reviews from other people before even reading the book. People love it, people hate it.. Whatever way on the fence they are, very few are going: "Meh, that was alright like". That in itself is exciting I think, so when I got a chance to read it in return for a review I was not only excited to see what the hype was about, but how I was going to sit on that fence.

To start, I wasn't overly impressed. There was so much description of everything ,that it took me forever to get through a page trying to put pictures to all these words:
The sun has risen a hands breadth above the horizon, crowning the eastern hills, sheaves of light slanting through the stunted trees. The road winds out below her, following a ridge with thickly wooded gulches on either side. She eases along, stopping to watch the silk-burrows of spiders in the cut bank, raking through grass for the grass-colored mantises, turning over roadside stones.
Beautiful huh? but page after page after page.. it gets a bit tedious.

The story (If you somehow have missed hearing about it) follows Turtle, 14, living in a rundown part of a small Californian cost with her mentally, physically and sexually abusive father. The author takes you right in there and there is no escaping the details of the abuse, but somehow he didn't manage to convince me, the way he portrait the abuse felt like I was reading about an abusive relationship between an unrelated woman and a man and not a child/father. I read one review were the person said that if the author really wanted to do something new and had wanted too avoid too sexualize Turtle, he would have written the MC as a boy/son in the same scenario and not a girl.. And I agree.

Turtle meets Jacob and Brett, two boys with the most unrealistic vocabulary imaginable (This didn't bug me) and they become a little gang and have adventures and there are hints towards some light romantic feelings. I read a lot of reviews that didn't like this aspect but I felt it was needed, it gave her character time to grow and change and become stronger.

I really liked the book and the fact that this review was hard to write, that I had to think about how I felt because I wasn't sure.

It’s dark, disturbing, controversial, frightening, and quite chilling in places.

However despite the content it’s also uplifting, hopeful, emotional and a very enjoyable book (if you can get past the controversy!).

I liked the book and I loved Turtle. The book isn’t told form her viewpoint and as you read you learn more about her upbringing and childhood, her character and father and her journey through life. Her rather unorthodox (to say the keast) relationship with her father is interesting and quite brutal and painful in parts to read.

I don’t want to go too much into it but it really is a cracking read and I for one really enjoyed it. The ending was wrapped up well and satisfyingly, I think it’s a hard book to read yet a very important one to read too.

I’d read more from this author for sure.

Martin Alveston is a paedophile, sexual predator, gun enthusiast and survivalist who lives with his daughter Julia (Turtle/Kibble) iaround Buckhorn Bay and Slaughterhouse Gulch in Northern California. He rationalises his abuse from his solipism belief that only he can truly exist as he cannot know other people’ feel and think as he does. He twists these philosophies as an excuse to sexually assault, torture and mentally abuse his daughter, which are all starkly described in this novel.

Gabriel Tallent is definitely an impressive writer particularly in his descriptions of the surrounding area and the subtle fore-shadowing of what is to come. However, the secondary characters are not as convincing and also parts of the novel feel episodic which I feel is a detraction.

Gabriel Tallent is definitely an author to watch in the future. Thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, 4th Estate for a review copy.

I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway and i am grateful for that. However, this book was not at all what i was expecting and i found it a very difficult and traumatic book to read and, unfortunately, i could not finish it. Although this book has obviously been well researched and written and with a story well worth telling, I read to relax and take my mind away from the problems in my own life, and i felt this book hindered that for me. I apologise to Gabriel Tallent if this is upsetting for him, but i always try to read books and review with an honest opinion on Goodreads, Netgalley and Amazon.

A very disturbing story that i found a difficult read and, in fact, was unable to finish.

2.5 stars - This book has one of the best blurbs I’ve come across in ages! That, coupled with the amazing reviews surfacing for this title, My Absolute Darling became a must read.

Unfortunately, I didn’t love this book as much as I did the blurb; it was a completely different story to the one I was expecting in some ways, but it was also exactly what I thought it would be. So, let’s analyse my read…

Firstly, the theme was exactly as I expected, think ‘Our Endless Numbered Days’, Turtle’s dad is the man she loves most in the world, and simultaneously, the man she hates the most. Turtle’s suffered the most horrific abuse at the hands of her father (sexual, physical and emotional), she knows her life is different from other young girls her age but her father loves her, even if he has a strange way of showing it sometimes. Knowing these dark themes would make hard reading, I was looking forward to the coming-of-age element of the story, the hope that Turtle would escape the life she is currently living, that she’d break free or be rescued.

It took me a little while to get into the plot itself as I believe this novel has a very harsh writing style, which is fitting to this novel, however it kept me at an emotional distance from the plot. The language is harsh, a lot of swearing, which I don’t mind (but if you find ‘c**t’ offensive, you’ll be reading it quite a few times in this one), but where I think my heart should have broken for Turtle due to the feelings she held about herself, it didn’t, I just struggled to emotionally connect with her. Don’t get me wrong, her home-life will unsettle the hardest of hearts, but I didn’t feel it the way I have with other young protagonists in novels with these dark themes.

My favourite parts of the novel were Turtle’s interactions with Jacob, a young boy she meets and forms a friendship with, because these were the moments you saw just how damaged Turtle was as a result of all that she’s been through. How she struggled with even the most basic human interactions, how to show kindness and encouragement, how to lower her barriers and let someone in. I say these were my favourite parts because, though they weren’t direct ‘abuse-scenes,’ they still showed Turtle’s fathers abuse, in the way she interacted without others.

Where I struggled with this plot was it was at a standstill for too long, similar to my feeling about ‘A Little Life’, it was depressing, the abusive element was so strong and dominated the text, it far outweighed, the coming-of-age element. Give me a gory, horrific murder in a serial killer thriller and I’ll devour it, but here the pain, the detail, was so uncomfortable and difficult to read at times, I just didn’t want to read it, to the point where I even considered abandoning this novel. Now, My Absolute Darling isn’t a novel that you’d attach the word “enjoyed” to but rather, it will have words such as “emotional” and “hard-to-read” attached to it. So, if you do decide to give this one a read, please remember it makes brutal reading, so be prepared for many uncomfortable moments.

For me, this novel didn’t have poetic prose and I don’t think it was supposed to, but I wonder if it did, it might have helped me connect more with it. I think My Absolute Darling is meant to push the reader to their limits, it’s harsh, raw, unflinching. But sadly, it was too raw for me, too much pain to absorb without anything else to focus on.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33572350-my-absolute-darling

Clair Cunningham Thank you netgalley

At fourteen, Turtle Alveston is a survivor. She has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin and loving, drunken grandpa.

I don't want to say much more because I don't want to spoil the disturbing but gripping read

My Absolute Darling is a powerful, well-written book that will stay with me for some time.

This is not an easy read and won't be for everyone. It deals with physical and sexual abuse, is very graphic and at times downright unpleasant. However, I didn't feel these sections were gratuitous - they presented a horrific situation without flinching.

The book focuses on Turtle Alveston, a 14/15 year old girl, and her father Martin. Both are monumental achievements; characters who are multi-dimensional, confused, tormented, and in Martin's case, utterly monstrous.

The twisted relationship between the Alvestons is at the centre of a story that simmers throughout with tension and has the reader sometimes dreading what will follow the next page turn.

One of the interesting aspects of the story for me was how incredible it is that the type of abuse described is able to take place. There are so many characters who could have prevented or stopped the situation at various points, so many moments when a little more bravery could have made the difference. Instead, Turtle, full of self-loathing, tragically blames herself.

The darkness of the book perhaps makes it sound like something of a slog but this is not the case. Turtle is a transfixing character, and whilst this is a book about serious issues, it's also a tense page-turner. The climax had me frantically checking the clock in the hope that no one else would come home and interrupt!

On the downside, I could have lived with a little less description of the local flora, and some of the supporting characters seemed a bit too good to be true.

My Absolute Darling is one of my favourite books of this year. It made me think and it made me feel; what more can I ask of a book?

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I feel incredibly ambivalent about this book. On one hand I am ok reading confronting fiction that dares to go where more timid books fear to tread. On the other hand, there was something just off about this book.

The story follows Turtle Alveston, a fourteen year old girl, and her escape from her all powerful (to her) and strangely charismatic father. They live out in the wilds and Turtle has been taught a lot about guns but struggles with things like basic literacy. This is a manipulative and abusive father-daughter relationship on every level. So if you find books that explore rape and incest difficult and off-putting this may not be for you. The father-daughter relationship walks a line where hatred and love have been twisted in on each other until they're almost synonymous. This leads to the entire book feeling very claustrophobic, and it's well done. I quite liked the style and the narrative. It wasn't in my opinion as stunning as the books fans have been raving, but it juxtaposed well with the ugly subject matter. The dialogue was poor. I have no problem with expletives, even lots of expletives, but when every other word is 'fucker' all sense is leached out of the words. I get that Turtle is carrying a weighty amount of anger that is all internalised but even so it was extreme.

The most uncomfortable aspect of the book for me was the portrayal of the father-daughter abuse. Not so much because Turtle seems to enjoy the rape - an unfortunate, disturbing but all to common aspect of this kind of abuse (lets be clear here, if your world has narrowed to pleasing one man who is your entire childish universe, then there is a huge cognitive dissonance when that man - your father - offers the affection that all children need only under circumstances of rape and sexual abuse, This is in know way a comment along the lines of 'all rape victims secretly enjoyed it'). So it wasn't that but the way the rape scenes are described in vivid detail in a way that sexualises a teenaged girl, using language choices in third person omniscient narration that make it seem like titillation - that is extremely disturbing.

Would I recommend this book? Once again I'm ambivalent. Read it if you need confronting fiction about incest although I believe there are books that do it better and with greater nuance.

I finished this book late one evening in a station waiting-room, somewhere between Southampton and Exeter. The man next to me was eating Maltesers. The cleaners had just arrived. I sat for a moment trying to come up with the right word to describe it. It was only after I had tried on a few different words for size (Intense? Disturbing? Compelling?) that I arrived at the perfect word: harrowing.

My Absolute Darling is the story of fourteen-year-old Turtle who lives in remote Mendocino with her father, Martin Alveston. You couldn’t find a more highly praised book if you tried, but for once the reviews are to be believed. The book is indeed all of the things I mentioned above – intense, disturbing, compelling and, overall, a rather harrowing reading experience – but it’s also completely absorbing.

There are some truly horrifying scenes, and everything in Turtle’s world is hard-edged and raw and brutal and bleak. But against this there are passages where the language is so lyrical that the horror seems like a distant memory. Through the darkness there are also glimmers of hope – the love of her grandfather, and the friendship she develops with locals her own age.

The book is also darkly persuasive and strange. There is nothing about the Turtle’s home situation that is constructive or healthy – everything about it makes the reader want to scream at her to free herself. But what stops Turtle from leaving is love, and that’s the most unnerving thing about the book; in the same way that Lolita allows you to be at once disgusted at and sympathetic towards Humbert Humbert, you can feel and almost understand the intensity of the love between the characters. It’s hugely unhealthy and dangerous, but in its own strange form it’s there. Reading the book is a twisted experience of feeling things from several perspectives at once.

Emotionally, it’s an exhausting book to read, but it’s testament to Tallent’s writing that you want to keep going. The moments of adventure are vivid and thrilling, Turtle’s introspection is sensitive, frustrating and at times beautiful, and there’s an electric edge of danger that lurks and through the whole book, periodically breaking through to shock. You’ll finish the book with your nerves wrung out and shaky, as if a rush of adrenaline has just ebbed away, and puzzled at how a man could possibly be eating Maltesers next to you, as if nothing out of the ordinary has just happened. The book is an intense journey but the hype is to be believed – it’s one well-worth taking.

There has been a huge amount of Twitter hyope for this novel, and all I can say is believe every word. This novel is stunning and extraordinary.

Meet Turtle. Turtle, is 15 and lives with her father in the run down family home in Mendocino California. Turtle appears to have no mother in her life, cares little for make up and clothes, the province of most 15 year old girls, can skin a rabbit, strip and clean an array of guns and can shoot as well as any man.

Yet Turtle is troubled, dealing with issues any child should never have to deal with. Her main issue is a father who is convinced the world will end, loves Turtle with a suffocating fierceness, and regularly abuses Turtle both sexually, physically and mentally.

Turtle sees no means of escape until the death of her grandfather and sudden departure of her father that force her to reassess her life. She befriends Jacob and all of a sudden Turtle sees glimpses of a proper family life and of people who care about her in the right way. All too soon her happiness is shattered when her father returns, this time with a young girl and slowly Turtle’s eyes are opened to just how wrong her father is.

This is a dark, unsettling read and definitely not for the fainthearted. It does contain issues that some may find disturbing but if you can live with it then please read this book.

Turtle is one of the best characters I have read all year. She is feisty, and resourceful, naive in the ways of the modern world yet underneath she yearns to have friends and ultimately to live a normal live. She both loves and hates her father, but doesn’t know what a normal father, daughter relationship is. Her tenacity and sheer courage shine through in the latter stages of the book and you find yourself rooting for this young girl, reading faster to discover how her story will end.

Tallent’s settings are wonderfully done and perfectly match the varied moods within the book and his knowledge of guns and nature is very well researched.

Tallent’s writing is full of drama and tension that leaps from the pages and certainly set the heart racing at times. The sexual abuse that Turtle endures is incredibly well done and handled with care. At no time did it feel out of place or written purely to shock the reader, it definitely had a place within the novel. I felt its purpose was to show the love hate relationship between Turtle and her father as though it was the only way that he could show Turtle how much he loved her, how much that she was his and his alone.

This is a novel that will grab hold of you, pull you in and not let you go until it you have experienced every conceivable emotion from utter despair to hope and happiness. Turtle will stay with you long after you have read the last page and I can honestly say this was a truly stunning novel.

Thank you to Fourth Estate Books for providing a proof copy yo read and review.

I was very excited to read this book as I had heard many opinions, some good, some bad.
This book gave me a pain in my head, my heart and my gut. There writing was beautiful and sometimes overly graphic but that only seemed to add to the desperation and desolation I felt for Turtle. In between all the sadness were moments of absolute sunshine and hope which made me feel even worse for Turtle. I wanted to save her, I wanted her to save herself.
This book was raw and left me feeling sad and upset and will stay with me for a very very long time. This is in my top 5 reads of the year so far.
What an absolutely beautiful and heart wrenching book.

Gosh, this book is not for the faint-hearted. It is shocking, gripping, repellent, admirable in turns and doesn't hold back in any way. Turtle is a great character who (literally) survives despite being used and abused by her psychotic father and somehow getting into the most awful situations of danger. She is the real survivalist, her father is warped and completely self-obsessed. It is an incredibly dark book that is painful to read in parts, there are graphic scenes of incest and violence and an explosive ending which was too violent for me to really take in properly. However, there is hope at the end, some great characters, excellent writing and its worth all the trauma.

My Absolute Darling is a troubling read. The book focuses on the physical and emotional entrapment of fourteen- year- old Turtle by her cruel and violent father. Any enjoyment in this novel for me was marred by the fear of what might come next. Having been warned off about the fate of Rosy, I must have missed large lumps of narrative in an attempt to avoid that section. There will doubtless be those who feel that this comment is trivial in the context of other violence in the book, but to quote Kant, one of the philosophers Martin, the father, seemed obsessed with, ‘He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men’.
There is much in this book that is good, like the writing in the tension packed passages, but it is impossible to bond with a book in some ways and to keep it at a distance in others. Ultimately, it felt overshadowed by the weirdness and tedium of the ending.

There’s been an awful lot written about Tallent’s debut novel and it certainly seems to have polarised people. When I read an unfavourable review, especially the ones that thoughtfully and intelligently state the case against it, I find myself unable to refute the arguments. And when I read a positive review I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with it. For truth to tell I was totally compelled by it and read it almost at a sitting, horrifying though I found much of it. The story of 14-year old Turtle Alveston who lives with her survivalist and abusive father is not for the faint-hearted. Sober reflection forces me to admit that much of it is far-fetched. The writing is often overblown. And yet I was gripped by it, almost against my will, and have finally come down on the side of those who think it is, if not quite a masterpiece, then certainly heading that way.

As other readers said, this fails immensely in being an account of how a teenager would be/feel/react to horrific--and sadistically described, because the descriptions ended up being all for shock and not to really help the story unfold--abuse. It is more a "how a grown up man thinks it would be" without any real feeling that could make me invested in the story. It feels distant, unreal, untrue.
Also, it reads a lot like a YA novel but one that wants to be profound contemporary fiction. It fails as both for me.

There are too many plot holes to even begin with. It sounds badly researched, badly characterized, badly plotted. I can't understand the hype, at all.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with and ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

This was a difficult book to read, at times very uncomfortable but absolutely worth it.

I love the character Turtle. Reading her changes in life, Turtle realising life could be better, was amazing, I felt like I walked every step with her.

A great book. One that stays with you long after you've finished, I will be keeping a lookout for more from Gabriel Tallent in the future.

My thanks to Netgalley for an ARC.

I read the blurb and thought “Do I really want to read this?”
I faced the challenge and this book is not for the faint hearted, gut wrenching at some stage or made my blood boil. I sticked to it, because very early in the book I build up my relationship to Turtle which continued throughout the whole book. I’m glad that I picked up the book and the hype is justified.
I dare you, be brave and read it, even though this one will push you out of your comfort zone. It is worth it and you will fall in love with Turtle.

My Absolute Darling is a story about 14 year old Julia "Turtle" Alveston who is raised by her unstable and abusive father, Martin. Martin tries to instill in Turtle the belief that she is his "Absolute Darling" - she is made by him, belongs to him and he can do with her what he will. The novel is beautifully written and describes the ambivalence Turtle feels towards her father whom she loves and hates with equal ferocity. The other characters in the book are well depicted and their interactions and relationships with Turtle serve to highlight the aberration of her life with her father. So much happens in this novel, each emotion-filled incident the result of something preceding it and the catalyst for the event to follow. Seldom has a book evoked such diverse, strong emotions in me. At times, it left me horrified and emotionally drained. At other times, I was filled with hope, faith in humanity, and admiration for the strength and determination ultimately shown by Turtle. Thanks to HARPER Collins UK, 4th Estate and NetGalley for the ARC.

Turtle is a 14 year old girl whose life is based on survival. Brought up by an abusive (sexual, physical, mental), controlling, jealous, socopathic father who is also a survivalist, Turtle's knows no other way of life. Her father calls her his absolute darling, his love for her is psychotic, and yet this is all she knows of love until she stumbles upon Jacob and his friend Brett. They show her what friendship, love and life should be like, they show her an alternative. However, by opening her eyes to what her life could be, they also risk increasing Martin's abusive behaviour.

This is a novel which deals with horrific abuse, it is a novel which has at its' core an unforgettable heroine, one who makes the reader want to enter her world to save her from Martin. Set against this violence and abuse we also have beautiful descriptions of nature and the world in which Turtle lives. A literary thriller/drama which overwhelms and leaves you drained.