A girl is brutally assaulted, manages to get home and her blood and bruises go unnoticed by her family. So Peach decides to just continue with life – stitching herself up, going to school the next day, meeting her boyfriend. But she’s plagued by the attack – the smells, the taste, the feel of it.
This was a strange one – it was completely different to what I expected. The writing is poetic and flowing, but jarring and exposed at the same time. Unfortunately, the metaphorical way it was written was just not my cup of tea. I was left feeling conflicted and a little confused at the end. It’s impossible to describe without reading it, but I imagine you’d know within the first few pages whether or not you’ll get on with it. There have been absolutely glowing reviews though and I can totally see why some people love it – sadly it just wasn’t my thing!

I am sorry to say that I really disliked this book. I didn't enjoy the language or the "weirdness" of the story. As I had committed to read it for Netgalley, I read on to the end but it is not my kind of book. I am not sure if it is a young adult book and therefore appeals to another generation but it is not for me. For example. the issues of the parents being unable to notice the dreadful situation at the start seems so improbable as to be ridiculous - in my opinion.

Something terrible has happened to Peach, but she just wants life to go back to normal.

Something terrible has happened to Peach, but her parents are too wrapped up in themselves and their new baby to notice it.

Something terrible has happened to Peach, so she cleans herself up and self-administers stitches, tries to ignore the stench of meat and oil that follows her everywhere, tries to ignore flashbacks of a strangers gaping mouth and sausage fingers.

This short powerful book is visceral. Several of the passages are painful to read, they are so harrowingly descriptive. Peach starts off in shades of Eimear McBride and ends up in shades of Beckett, while always holding its own distinctive style. It is utterly absorbing – the reader is sucked into the impressionistic world (Peach is soft and easily bruised, sweet baby leaves powdered sugar on the lips that kiss him…) without question. A heart-breaking examination of the traumatic aftermath of sexual assault, it is astounding that this is a debut novel. Not an easy read, but a hugely important one.

At this point I have not finished the novella. It is hard to read in more ways than one. I generally read books for entertainment, and I feel uncomfortable about the idea of this as entertainment. I may try again another time. Hard to rate as I'm sure some will find it original, powerful and outstanding but I'm not sure that it's not just trying to be too arty.

What a strange, wacky book. The blurb had me hooked and from the very first page, I so wanted to know what had happened and what was happening. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. The ending was also confusing, but a very descriptive and interesting book on a theme uneasy for many.

Maybe I'm being completely dense, but half of me feels like I didn't really understand Peach. There are some clear themes (no spoilers), but I confess it left me a little confused. For this reason, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

However, the writing flows like liquid, weaving and slithering through my brain. Glass is talented, there's no doubt about it. The way Peach is delivered is beautiful, dark, raw. Glass has managed to weave a tale that is pure creativity.

This was a hard book to read, its small but packs a lot of thought provoking stuff. I found this hard to read as it does have sexual abuse and violence and it can be quite a trigger but it was worth the read and very heart breaking. Some of it I wasn't sure about as its written in an odd way but still really good book/Novella.

Dark, intense and captivating...With the opening scene of a college student staggering home after having just been violently assaulted this was a viscerally emotive storyline in its depiction of this young woman's horrific ordeal and from her initial denial to finally making some sense of it.

Written in a gorgeous stylistic prose, narrated in a consciousness of streamed thoughts it is reminiscent of Eimear McBride’s, ‘A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing’, and certainly felt as deeply affecting. An extremely powerful and at times distressing read but, if I’m honest not sure I fully understood everything that was going on in Peach's confused traumatised mind. I couldn't quite figure out what was real or imagined which left me feeling a little lost. That said I was unable to leave 'peach' until the final page. Peach's story has left an indelible impression on me and I haven't stopped thinking about this book since.

With the recent success of similar prose style works, i.e., Max Porter's, 'Grief Is A Thing With Feathers', 'Brooklyn' by Jaqueline Woodson, and the aforementioned, Eimear McBride's 'A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing’, 'peach' in my opinion, is certainly one to watch out for next year.

Disclaimer: I received an advanced readers copy (digital) from the publisher for my unbiased review.

A harrowing tale of the aftermath of a sexual assault, the eponymous victim, Peach, provides a strong narrative throughout this short but stunning novel. Initially reminiscent of Eimear McBride's "A Girl is a Half-formed Thing", it steps beyond imitation and finds its own voice about a third of the way through, and from then on it's a rapid descent into the depths of Emma Glass's imagination.
This is not an easy book to read by any means. The subject matter alone is challenging, and Glass pulls no punches in her descriptions of Peach's thoughts, actions, emotions and dreams. Added to that is the stream of consciousness style in parts, which sometimes leaves you thinking "did I really read that?!" and revisiting passages to parse them fully.
That said, if you're up for the challenge, this is a hugely rewarding read. Glass brings a unique voice to Peach's story, and one that I'd recommend sitting down with for a few hours - she'll stay in your head for weeks afterwards.

Peach is the debut novel, or rather novella, of Emma Glass. Told in a stream of consciousness format which is at times graphic, at times poetic, but always immediate and compelling.

Something horrific has happened to Peach but her parents are too wrapped up in themselves and their new baby to even notice. Peach tries to regain some semblance of normality and routine to her life, but she is constantly haunted by what she has been through.

Peach is a traumatic story, but beautifully written. I am looking forward with interest to Emma’s next novel.

An important book about rape, trauma, and the vulnerable female body but what will really resonate with readers (or not...) is the stream-of-consciousness style and the poetic, rhythmic prose. This is very short, barely more than a short story or long poem and while it feels skillful in parts, it also loses its way in others with coy and childish repetition about the 'sausage' fingers and 'sausage' body of the attacker, for example. A firmer edit would, I think, have improved this - all the same, a searing and self-aware piece of work from a writer who may well mature in vision and writing style.

Peach is a visceral book about a girl who has been assaulted, written in an unforgettably immediate style. Peach comes home bloody and plagued by the smell of meat, but her parents are too preoccupied with their new baby to ask the right questions. She goes to college to see her boyfriend Green, but still nothing is right. Her body is wrong. Glass uses a distinctive style written in sharp immediacy to show Peach’s thoughts and actions after she is attacked.

This short novel is an exercise in darkly poetic prose that takes a difficult subject and inhabits the trauma of the experience. At times it is so visceral that it is painful to read and its depiction of the aftermath of sexual assault and the mental processes of the main character mean that any reader needs to be aware of this content before reading, but it is also carefully done, with a skilful use of minimal words and descriptions of physical sensations and sounds. It has similarities to books like Eimear McBride’s The Lesser Bohemians, but far more condensed, focused on detail and spanning a short space of time. Every word feels like an attack or relief in this impressively written book that depicts a terrible subject in an emotive and haunting way.