I thought this book was incredible. A visceral yet thought-provoking read that may be uncomfortable to some, however the depth of character and beautiful, literary prose makes this a tremendous accomplishment that I will be recommending to for years to come.

It's difficult to know what to say about this book that hasn't been said. It is beautifully written and brings the reader right into the centre of this often disturbing story. There are moments of excruciating tension and without doubt there are times where I found myself squirming in discomfort. His characterisations of Turtle and Martin and their relationship evokes a shocking visceral response. People should be aware that there are very dark elements to this story; particularly readers who have suffered abuse. All the characters are dynamic and very much alive. We can see them and feel them and we really get to know them and their relationship within themselves and with others. It's a very special book.

I love reading because books take you other places. They let you explore the world, transport you to other moments in time and into the minds of different people. There are books that bring you joy, take you on a moonlight stroll through the pleasant valleys of life. But there are also books that drag you down to the darker regions of life, the depravity and despair of some people's lives. And those books are just as powerful and necessary. My Absolute Darling is one of those latter books and it is an unforgettable read. Thanks to 4th Estate and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Some books are terrifying and My Absolute Darling is one of those books. It is deeply chilling and psychologically tense. It also seems to have no true heroes but only villains of different shades of evil. It's not a very optimistic book, you won't walk away from it with a bounce in your step. And yet it is a wonderful book, incredibly visceral and emotional. Tallent captures the beauty and wildness of nature, the harshness of human contact, the unflinching cruelty of love. Despite its highly emotional topics, Tallent avoids cliches and overly dramatic prose. Rather, he digs deep into Turtle's psyche, bringing her internal life to the forefront in a way that feels genuine and real. He describes this so well that when he breaks outside of Turtle's world it almost feels jarring and yet strangely exhilarating. It's hard to describe just how much Tallent sucks you into his story and his world, but it is an experience I would recommend to everyone.

At the heart of My Absolute Darling is Turtle, who lives alone with her father in what seems the middle of no where. Her only true emotional and social contact outside her father is her grandfather, himself a conflicting and conflicted character. Her father trains her how to hunt, how to survive, how to anticipate the end of the world. Yet all his training and discipline, his obsessive love for her, has Turtle constantly on the edge of overwhelmed. As she starts to see more of the world around her, how other people live, she begins to question and to wonder, something that will ultimately lead to the end of everything she knows. My Absolute Darling is a chilling character study of both Turtle and her father, a journey into the depths of human darkness, but also an ode to human resilience. There are parts to this book which are truly shocking and graphic, both violent and sexual, and hence I would recommend perhaps avoiding this book if these are triggers for you until you feel ready to face them head on.

Tallent amazingly captures Turtle's mind. On the one hand she is slavishly devoted to her father, who is all she has. On the other hand she is developing her own mind, her own self, and starting to questioning the world he has created for her. There is something lyrical to the novel, how Tallent describes Turtle's ease around nature, her instinct in crisis. Tallent also avoids may of the pitfalls I thought might lie ahead. There is no happy ending with a cherry on top, no grand love affair that carries Turtle away from her misery, no guardian angel that steps in just in time. The novel focuses in solely on Turtle, her journey, her internal life, and she becomes everything the reader needs. My Absolute Darling is a novel of survival, but not in the 'I conquered it and now everything is good'-sense. Rather, it shows survival as the continuous struggle it is, the conscious decision day in day out to wake up and face the world again, to face your demons head on. In that sense, My Absolute Darling is also a very inspiring read.

God this novel is amazing! I devoured My Absolute Darling and simply couldn't put it down. Tallent has you on the edge of your seat the whole time and leaves you shaken by the end. It's the kind of novel that will give you something new every time you reread it. I'd recommend this to everyone willing to go on this journey with Turtle, but keep the trigger warnings in mind.

I'd struggle to recommend this book to a friend, simply due to the fact that it contains some extremely disturbing content, to the point where I almost stopped reading. It almost feels at points like the author is relishing the horror that the protagonist endures. But there's no doubt that this is one of the most skilled, powerful debut novels I've read in a while. And, if you stick with it through the darkness, you will find some hope.

Julia ‘Turtle’ Alveston lives an isolated life with her survivalist father in the Mendocino forest. Having lost her mother when she was young, her controlling, abusive father is the single largest influence in her life. She doesn't fit in at school or get on with other girls as she she's been schooled in his masochistic tendencies. Every day, she methodically cleans her guns and takes part in regular shooting practice, preparing for any eventuality. The only time she truly comes alive is when she’s alone, out in nature. The writer’s descriptions of the forest are beautiful, and you can feel the sense of freedom which is unleashed when Turtle is out in the wild.

The first 50% of this book is oppressive and bleak, with some extremely upsetting scenes peppered only with the occasional scene of beauty to take the edge off the darkness. Julia is a victim of systematical, lifelong abuse, and the author perfectly captures the internal dilemma and damage this could cause.

"She thinks, when your daddy sees clearly, then he wants everything for you, and when he doesn't, when he can't see that you are your own person, then he wants to bring you down with him."

But, gradually, some other characters are introduced into Turtle’s life and the stifling veil she has lived her life under begins to lift. She realises there may be more to life than the strict regime she's been locked into since childhood by her obsessive, psychotic father.

This book is no easy read; I struggled through the first half as it felt like just one horror after another was piled upon Turtle. But this protagonist is fierce, plucky and one of the strongest characters I’ve known, and her tale of survival is packed with action, drama and emotion as the tension increases in the final part. It's raw and real, and it's not a pleasant read, but the character development and descriptions of nature are brilliant. If you're not easily fazed, this is a rich, rewarding read from a very talented debut author.

And so to the book that has everyone talking. A book bestowed with the highest praise of Stephen King, no less. Or perhaps lumbered with it. It makes me wish I'd read this novel without hearing the hype and having impossibly high expectations. But I can certainly see why it has generated such heated debate.

14-year-old Julia "Turtle" Alveston is the focus of our attention. She lives on a sprawling, run-down farm with her father Martin, on the North California coast. With a survivalist attitude, Martin has taught Turtle how to take care of herself - she is handy with a gun and can skin a small animal with minimum fuss. But he also subjected her to all manner of abuse, and Turtle is wracked with anxiety and low self-esteem. On an excursion miles from her house, she encounters Jacob and Brett, two boys her own age. With their boundless enthusiasm and immediate extension of friendship, they offer Turtle the first glimpse of a promising future. But it will mean leaving Martin behind, and she doesn't know if she's brave enough for that.

Turtle is a fascinating creation. We quickly realise how smart and resourceful she is, but she has a very unhealthy opinion of herself. Years of torture by her sociopathic father have turned her into a self-hating misogynist. She worships Martin - he has taught her everything she knows - but she also understands how dangerous he is: "I need you to be hard on me, because I am no good for myself and you make me do what I want to do but cannot do for myself; but still, but still — you are sometimes not careful; there is something in you, something less than careful, something almost — I don't know, I am not sure, but I know it's there."

It is the abuse in these pages which will set most tongues wagging. Emotional, physical and worst of all, sexual abuse. I would not consider myself squeamish or easily offended, but I struggled to make it through some of the more graphic passages. Gabriel Tallent certainly knows how to provoke a reaction, I'll give him that. It makes Turtle easy to root for - we read on in the hope that she can escape this monster's clutches, but we are also fearful for the consequences if it doesn't work out.

I do have an issue with the dialogue in this story. I don't really understand why Jacob and Brett remain so besotted with Turtle. We know she has a lot going on in her head but externally she surely appears gruff and taciturn. She either responds in monosyllables or insults them, yet they always come back for more. And the boys don't talk like normal teenagers do. I know they are intelligent but they feel impossibly precocious, quoting the likes of Marcus Aurelius in lengthy soliloquys. At one point Jacob describes Martin as "a colossal douchebag, among the worst to ever sail the lemon verbena seas, a primordial ur-douche the depth and profundity of whose douchism staggers the mind and beggars the imagination." That just doesn't ring true as natural teenage dialogue to me.

But one thing Gabriel Tallent does extremely well is choreograph an action sequence. An eel fishing adventure that goes wrong, some DIY surgery and the breathless denouement - these are the scenes that will stand out in my mind when I remember this book. And in the tough as nails Turtle and the abominable Martin, he has given us two characters that will live long in the memory. My Absolute Darling is an engrossing, unsettling debut and like it or not, an unforgettable read.

My Absolute Darling was a real struggle for me to read from the beginning. I almost gave up at 3% and came even closer at 6% but the sheer number of 5* reviews from other readers convinced me to carry on.
Gabriel Talent outlines the dysfunctional relationship between 14 year old ‘Turtle’ and her father Martin.
In some ways Turtle is quite a skilled survivalist and has been able to shoot a gun since a very young age. She loves nothing more than to wander in the woods around her home and has skills to help her survive in any number of situations in the woods. Their home is like something from Wrong Turn or some other kind of horror movie.
“The old house hunkers on its hill, all peeling white paint, bay windows, and spindled wooden railings overgrown with climbing roses and poison oak. Rose runners have prized off clapboards that now hang snarled in the canes. The gravel drive is littered with spent casings caked in Verdigris.”
Turtle may be able to survive well outside of school but in school is an entirely different matter. Turtle doesn’t fit in with her classmates seeing the girls through her father’s distorted opinions (sluts, whores and cunts.) She struggles to keep up with her classmates in terms of her schoolwork and her teacher, Anna, is worried about her.
Turtle fends of interest from Anna and anyone who tries to break down her barrier and become her friend. For example, when a girl in her class tries to make friends with her she immediately shoots her down and at the same time shows the extent to which she echoes Martin’s misogynistic views.
“Turtle thinks, slit you from your asshole to your little slut throat as be your friend.”
Martin is her life and she is his ‘absolute darling’, his ‘kibble.’ Turtle does everything she can to please Martin and to avoid his many sadistic punishments if she does or says something he doesn’t agree with.
Martin is obsessive in his survivalist attitude and in his constant need to ‘protect’ Turtle. He alternates between ‘loving’ father, ice-cold punisher and guilt-ridden abuser with increasing speed. Martin is unpredictable and unstable, a dangerous mix.
He physically, sexually and mentally abuses her and controls every aspect of her life. Turtle’s identity is wrapped up in Martin’s view of her and she is tough on herself if she makes the slightest mistake or behaves in a way she knows he would hate. His control of her is absolute and she mentally and physically does everything she can to prove to herself and to him that she is not just a ‘little bitch.’
“Don’t be a little bitch. Kibble.’ He stands perfectly still. ‘You’re being a little bitch. Are you trying to be a little bitch, kibble?’
Martin himself is socially isolated apart from his occasional poker games with friends and the odd time when he goes to collect Turtle from his father’s. Martin and his father have a tortured relationship but Turtle is close to her grandfather despite Martin’s attempts to turn her against him. Her grandfather intervenes where he can but it is unclear whether he knows the extent of their situation or whether he simply is too scared to intervene. Turtle feels Martin’s reluctance and keeps her grandfather partially at arms length.
Then Turtle meets Brett and Jacob when they become hopelessly lost in the woods. She knows she should leave them to fend for themselves but she can’t quite bring herself to and ends up guiding them to safety. In the process Turtle begins to see how she might just have met some people she wants in her life.
Turtle fights against her feelings because she knows she is Martin’s possession and she worries about the lengths he would go to in order to prevent her having anyone but him in her life.
As time progresses and she begins to spend more time with the boys Turtle realises that her life with Martin may not be as secure as she always thought. She begins to see things through Jacob’s eyes and when someone else’s life is put in danger Turtle realises she might have to use all her survival skills to escape from Martin.
My Absolute Darling was a disturbing and emotive read to say the least but having finished it I can see why it has been given such rave reviews. Normally I can read a book within a few days if I enjoyed it but this book took me close to a week to finish even when I began to see what a good book it was. The main reason it took me so long to read is that a lot of the scenes are quite graphic and make for uncomfortable reading, to say it made me feel physically sick on many an occasion would not be an exaggeration.
The quality of Gabriel Talent’s writing is clear throughout My Absolute Darling. The descriptions of the landscape around Turtle throws the reader right into her world and keeps them there through every excruciating experience.
I loved reading the conversations between Brett and Jacob about literature and the contrast their naïve natures provided with Turtle’s brutal upbringing. As a character study, My Absolute Darling was full of fantastic options as each character is well-written and comes alive for the reader.
My Absolute Darling is not a book I will forget in a hurry and is certainly one I will read again if I can bring myself to.

You just can't read this
it's that bad
that you want it to never exist
this tale.
Turtle, Turtle oh dear Turtle.
Aka Sweetpea to her Grand Papa, your heart goes out for the man, in a scene with him seeing before him the monster in his true light come to realisation, the pain in the father in that one instant, all overcoming, all terrible, one that he had contributed to bring forth upon the land, the darkness, the evil, the species he raised, whom has infected and contaminated.
Like every pest, the reader is hooked to the need for somehow his extermination with the many weapons, the guns that Turtle has hooked up upon her bedroom walls, ones that he had her religiously perfect in using, assembling, dissembling and practice daily with.
Her fate in mind, will Turtle disassemble what has been, and is, who she is, what she can be, and how she can be free ?
A name so fitting, turtles with hard outer shells kicked, bumped, maybe seen so much rough whilst within a soft creature.
This is disturbing and caution to reading this in what lays in wait is some very dark tainted abuse in small town.
The story sadly does keep you hooked even with all the terrible detailed disturbingly ugliness, he managed to give some light in the tale with some certain respite in the end.
Other diamonds in the heart of darkness girls in books come to mind, there are in imagery on the screen adaptation, and characters written in a tale like that of Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed, Grace by Paul Lynch, True grit by Charles Portis, The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum, and  Winters Bone by Daniel Woodrell, this one me thinking something just need to stay in books too brutal for the screen.
The is in the vein of Daniel Woodrell, Jack Ketchum and Stephen King combined.
The scenes visceral and vivid, he takes you to sense of dread and despair and some scene have you hanging on with the unfolding escalation of affairs with craft in writing and connection in empathy, a need for saving, for surviving.
Turtle, a memorable character that will stay with reader for a time her plight, and her life described disturb you and unsettle your heart in quieter hours.
Then it came to me in a though, a metamorphosis this was of Turtle to a turtle she became, and then we hope something free a bird maybe.
Like a turtle, topsy turvy one last time she deciphers the chaos, the horrors, then maybe becomes a bird and flees.

A horror that is not dressed in a clown suit a horror dressed as a parent.

"When she was six, he had her put on a life jacket for cushion, told her not to touch the hot ejected casings, and started her on a bolt-action Ruger .22, sitting at the kitchen table and bracing the gun on a rolled-up towel."

"She is tall for fourteen, coltishly built, with long legs and arms, wide but slender hips and shoulders, her neck long and corded. Her eyes are her most striking feature, blue, almond-shaped in a face that is too lean, with wide, sharp cheekbones, and her crooked, toothy mouth––an ugly face, she knows, and an unusual one. Her hair is thick and blond, bleached in streaks by the sun. Her skin is constellated with copper brown freckles. Her palms, the undersides of her forearms, the insides of her thighs show tangles of blue veins."

"On wall pegs, her Lewis Machine & Tool AR-10, her Noveske AR-15, and her Remington 870 twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. Each answers a different philosophy of use."

"Anna continues. “Julia, listen to me, you come to school, and you sit there and stare out the classroom window. You don’t pay attention. You don’t study. You don’t have friends and you don’t feel safe and you come to the first question on that test and you have this feeling of not know ing and you don’t push through it, you just stop there, and you think, ‘I don’t know it,’ and you sit there, hating yourself, that’s what it looks like. That’s my theory. But I think that half the time or more you do know it, and you would know it even better if you studied, and you’d be able to fill out those tests if you pushed through that moment of fear."

“You know how many throats he slit with this knife?” Turtle looks down at her plate. “Forty-two, isn’t that right?” “Forty-two,” Grandpa agrees. “Korea, kibble. And at some point they put him to work in the DMZ tracking down infiltrators, and these poor f***s, these poor f***s had no idea that a bloodthirsty f***g psychopath from a wilderness a world away, a man whose forefathers hunted Indians in the American West, was out there just waiting in the weeds. How could you under stand a thing like that? That was the most fun you ever had, I think.” Grandpa says nothing. His jaw tremors.

This book is so effecting on so many levels. It tells the story of Turtle, a 14 year old who lives with her survivalist father in California. The first thing to note is the prose. it is beautiful and horrifying in the same sentence. The author has an ability to pull the rug from under you at any given moment and I found myself reading with a sense of dread, knowing that at some point, the next lurch would happen but not knowing when. The characters are incredibly well thought out, particularly Turtle and her father, Martin. There are moments between them that speak to love and then there are moments of gut wrenching terror that highlight what a truly abusive relationship can make of a person. The narrative is fairly sedate to begin with, enabling the reader to really get to grips with the characters and find some level of sympathy for the situation. The climactic portion of the book is absolutely unputdownable! This is a really accomplished, thought provoking and ultimately thrilling book and I can understand why so many people are talking about it. Read it.

This one's scary. A gritty novel, with themes surrounding incest, violence and social and moral norms. A lot of pressing questions about society and what we let slip through cracks. Violently gripping, kept me thinking long after I turned the last page. One to recommend if you're into gritty thrillers.

Gabriel Tallent has taken an awful, brutal story and turned it into to something wonderful. The subject matter makes this a tough read, but the writing draws you in and means you can't put the book down.

Turtle is a fascinating, complex character and because the story is told from her POV, we really get inside her head.

The child abuse is tough to read at times, but if you can deal with I recommend you read this book.

Unfortunately I'm unable to read anymore of this book due to the subject matter I'm finding it a very uncomfortable read Although it's very well written and just don't feel able to carry on with it,,this could be down to my frame of mind

It’s just the two of them, 14-year old Julia, called Turtle, and her father Martin. Her mother ran away a long time ago. And there’s her grandfather living close to them, but staying mainly apart. Her father loves her, more than anything else in the world, she can feel it, despite his strange way of showing his affection. He hurts her sometimes, but only because she has not been nice and provoked him. And he loves her, like a man loves a woman. She likes being close to him, that’s normal, isn’t it? But as Turtle is getting older, somewhere deep inside her doubts start to grow. Is all this correct? When she meets Jacob and gets to like him more and more, suddenly the fragile family construction of Martin and Turtle is threatened, even more when Martin brings the small girl Cayenne to their home. Turtle finally realised that she has to do something because nothing is right in their home.

Gabriel Tallent’s debut novel has a weird fascination just like accidents have. On the one hand, you do not want to look (or in this case: read on), because it is all to awful and you know that you had better not read this. On the other hand, you want to see what’s happening and this drags you back to the novel again and again.

Surely, this is nothing to read for highly sensitive readers. It is about child abuse, violence and psychological pressure of the worst kind. However, even though from an outsider’s point of view, this is horrible and unbearable, Gabriel Tallent manages also to convey another perspective which, it remains to be feared, is only too real and can be found in many victims. Julia loves her father, she loves his tenderness and warmth and even the physical contact isn’t something she loathes, quite the contrary. If she did something against it, she’d lose him and thus she has to calculate very accurately what she is doing. This is not easy to understand and even worse to support in a novel, but at a realistic view, this might be a quite common interpretation of the situation.

All in all, not a novel you enjoy to read, but one that takes an interesting perspective and might add something to our understanding.

Having finished My Absolute Darling feels like being chewed up and spat out, covered in muck. Reading this book is a grueling experience, and not one to be undertaken lightly.

Equal parts compelling and appalling, I've seen other reviews describe My Absolute Darling as "unputdownable". Well, I did put it down. I put it down after a very confronting scene at the end of the first chapter. I put it down for over a month while I read other things and decided whether I wanted to continue with it at all.

Now, to be fair, my first attempt at this book came at a bad time. This was the eighth (eighth!) book in a row to throw a surprise incest/child abuse/sexual assault storyline at me. It didn't matter what genre or type of book I picked up, this streak seemed like it would never end. I don't shy away from such difficult content, but nor do I deliberately seek it out, and being constantly blindsided was just too much.

What's more, Tallent does not elide or obscure the horrific incidents as many authors do, he puts you in the room while they are happening and gives you the visceral details. It's incredibly tough to read at times.

When I eventually returned to the book, I found a gripping story, powerfully told and with unforgettable characters. The tension created is palpable, almost unbearable at times, especially towards the end as the inevitable showdown looms and then plays out.

Many scenes from this book will be etched on my memory. Not just the traumatic ones, but the quieter and tender moments too. It's a feat of writing that the setting and characters are so vividly rendered. But I can't recommend My Absolute Darling without hesitation - its dark content and the ambiguity with which it deals with these themes make for one tough read. Proceed with caution.

Did you love The Marsh King's Daughter? Well, this is the hardcore version.

This is probably one of the hardest reviews I'm ever going to write. Because My Absolute Darling is no ordinary novel. This is not the kind of book I usually read. It's not an easy book, by any means. Some will fall helplessly in love with it, others will struggle and abandon it. It's that kind of book.

I don't want to say too much, but I can assure you this book is brutal and twisted. It's about Turtle's coming of age... but this is not your classic young adult tale. Turtle's childhood and early adolescence has been different from anyone else's. Her father, Martin, is physically, sexually and psychologically abusing her and she's conflicted. She loves him and hates him at the same time. He's her father, after all. Her saviour, her only world.

The writing by Gabriel Tallent was wonderful. Hard to read, definitely, but gorgeous nevertheless. We follow Turtle's voice throughout the novel, and her thoughts are devastating, hilarious at times, raw and complicated. She's not particularly nice to anyone, especially women, but how can we possibly hold that against her?

I admit I struggled more than once, but I couldn't stop reading or thinking about it either. I just wanted Turtle to be free. I wanted her to realize that other teenagers live different lives. That she deserved to live surrounded by love and kindness. That she was strong enough to rebel against Martin.

My favorite scenes were the ones featuring Turtle's interactions with the two boys, Brett and Jacob, and her teacher, Anna. They were so genuinely kind and selfless that the contrast was even more palpable. Plus, Brett and Jacob's dialogue scenes were so funny to read. Which was kind of a relief after all the terrible things that were happening.

Did I enjoy this book? I'd have to say no, enjoy is not the right word. Would I read it again? Definitely not. BUT IT'S SUCH A GREAT NOVEL. Read at your own risk.

This debut certainly lives up to the praise from Stephen King. I was invested in Turtle from the get-go, rooting for her to break free from the terror and abuse her fathet inflicts on her. There are dark, brutal scenes which are tough to read but woven throughout is strong characterisation, occasional glimpses of a life free from hardship and pain where people do care, joyful moments where Turtle experiences friendship and the possibility of love, and wonderfully evocative descriptions of place. The author portrays Turtle's inner thoughts, and a strong sense of place fantastically well. Five stars from me. I'll be urging people to read this.

This was a dark, disturbing and difficult to read book, but I could not rate it as anything less than five stars. As hard as it was to read this book, and at times it was so difficult that I had to put it down and come back, I have rarely come across a fictional character that has invaded my mind in such a pervasive way as Turtle did,not only while I was reading her story, but for some time afterwards.
My Absolute Darling is the story of 14 year old Turtle (Julia) who lives with her violent, abusive survivalist father in rural isolation. The things Turtle knows most, and understands best are guns, when it comes to people, her father has twisted her thinking so much that she has become an aggressive,angry ball of hatred and misogyny. The strange mix of love and hate she feels for him eventually comes to a head in a tense and dramatic fashion that will change both their lives forever.
Turtle is a complex, frustrating character, which makes her all the more interesting to read about, and while Martin, her father is clearly the villain of the piece, we do learn something about what may have made him become this terrible person,though it is never at the expense of our understanding that at his core is a despicable, mean and violent man.
One of the most interesting things about the writing in the book was the inclusion of numerous passages about the beauty of nature, and the juxtaposition of natures beauty and Martins so called "nurture" of Turtle is always evident.
This book is definitely not an easy read, but it is a worthwhile one, and one I am glad I finished, though I am sure it will stay with me for a long long time.

This is an important book . It is brave , focused and has a central character who is lovable and will engage your emotions in all ways.
There is a palpable sense of place and emotional honesty, it will reminder readers of lots of other books but it is an unique and original work . Fr a debut novel this is a real achievement .

One of the most horrific of human betrayals must be the abuse of a child by a parent. Not only does this warp a young person's development, but normalizes cruelty to the degree where a child might then inflict it upon others and themselves. Debut novel “My Absolute Darling” by Gabriel Tallent gives a startlingly new and heart-wrenching look at the way a child is made to feel dependent upon her father's abuse. Fourteen year old Julia is raised by her single father Martin in a rundown house on the California coast. The only other familial contact she has is with her decrepit but kindly grandfather, Daniel. She goes by the nickname 'Turtle' but Martin more often affectionately calls her 'Kibble' or 'My Absolute Darling.' Martin is very scholarly and often reads philosophy, but he’s prone to paranoia as he has extreme survivalist beliefs. Their shack is filled with an arsenal of weapons which he frequently trains Turtle in using. She’s a very adept student who can load, clean and accurately fire a range of guns. As Turtle prepares to go to high school and grows older, their isolated home life becomes more strained and intolerable. This is a mesmerizing story full of courage, dramatic scenes and insight into the formation of a severely damaged young individual’s identity.

Tallent has a curious writing style which treads somewhere between a hyper-realized reality and an elevated intellectual drama. The story is highly attuned to the natural world. Frequently scenes are filled with rich descriptions of the plants and animals that surround their rural house. This reminded me of the kind of detail found in recent novel “The Sport of Kings” by C.E. Morgan or the pastoral scenes found in books by Émile Zola. Turtle’s psychology is presented in a complex way to show her skewed perspective of the world that’s been tainted by Martin’s oppositional personality and overbearing ideology filled with hate towards women. For instance, when she sees a well-meaning girl at her school she thinks: "I will grow up to be forthright and hard and dangerous, not a subtle, smiling, trick-playing cunt like you." The blunt unmediated reality of her inner and outer life are so forcefully presented, yet the trajectory of her story and interactions with others feel more akin a highly stylized drama. The closest comparison I can make is to the film ‘The Night of the Hunter’ which pays close attention to the details of nature and children’s loss of innocence under an insidious masculine figure. It’s both concretely realistic and saturated by an elegiac filter that makes it feel mythic.

The most fascinating way the novel deviates from being truly naturalistic is in the social interactions Turtle has with a couple of boys she meets on a hike. Brett and Jacob are just a little older than her, yet they are so learned that they frequently drop literary allusions into their discussions and reference classic literature. This is a consistent trope throughout the novel with Martin who often applies philosophical stances to their situations or even how he names a hated spider that inhabits their house Virginia Woolf. It’s through the friendship that Turtle strikes up with Brett and Jacob that the reader is keyed into a whole level of society surrounding her which Turtle is excluded from. The landscape which felt totally wild, untamed and impoverished through Turtle’s eyes reveals itself as an ordered and privileged place filled with affluent houses and valuable property. This realization forcefully smacks the girl: "Turtle has always known that other people grew up differently than she did. But she had, she thinks, no idea how differently." It’s tremendously powerful how the author presents this shift, yet it also felt slightly jarring. Brett and Jacob’s characters are so idiosyncratic that it’s difficult to believe the bond they hurriedly form with the aloof and combative figure of Turtle.

The greatest power of this novel is in its evocation of Turtle’s development and conflicted psychology. Her father insults her horrifically leading her to hate her personality, her intellect and her body. At one point she thinks "the slit is illiterate - that word undresses her of all that she has knotted and buckled up about herself; she feels collapsed – every bitter, sluttish part of her collapsed and made identical to that horrible clam." Yet she thinks his behaviour is justified and she mentally defends him: "she thinks, you are hard on me, but you are good for me, too, and I need that hardness in you.” Martin alternates physical, mental and sexual abuse with declarations of how much he values her and how they stand as a pair in opposition to the world. This makes Turtle feel that she has no purpose or value outside of this enclosed severely dysfunctional relationship. The author shows how this inner conflict plays out through torturously tense scenes and how painful it is for Turtle to imagine a life without her father’s dominant presence: "She thinks, I don't even know what all right would look like. I don't even know what that would mean."

Other recent novels such as Hanya Yanagihara’s “A Little Life” and Eimear McBride’s “The Lesser Bohemians” have shown the long-term effects of abuse for difficult individuals. But I think “My Absolute Darling” gets a fascinating new angle on this harrowing issue capturing the powerful emotion of a damaged individual’s trajectory. Tallent shows the way a person’s instinct can help guide her towards realizing what’s right for her life. Even though this is an intensely dramatic and sensational story that’s definitely nothing like my own life, I found myself connecting with and relating to Turtle’s shifting internal logic. It’s challenging to reconcile the way you perceive and value yourself in relation to how others’ react to you. Learning to take on and process what others make you feel without letting it distort your sense of being is monumentally difficult. “My Absolute Darling” inhabits this struggle so powerfully.

Great writing, but I found the accounts of child abuse too much to stomach and just couldn't carry on reading.

Just such a gripping, visceral read. A darkly twisted tale, deeply uncomfortable at times but with such a captivating heroine and a nuanced, insightful portrait of an abusive relationship. I loved the contrast between Turtle's curious, stilted world and then the joyful, linguistic acrobatics of Brett and Jacob. And - thankfully - a powerfully satisfying ending that you fear might never come.