Many thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC ebook copy.
Unfortunately i could not even finish this book- it started off good but there was something about long lengthy sentences that made my eyes tired and the plot wasn't thick,
maybe i will re-read it again once during this year.

I have not spent much time reading about the pandemic, a couple of books... but not one struck me like this one did. It takes place over the course of a few hours on a day after UK lockdown had been in effect for two weeks.

There are just four characters (plus The Raven, can't forget The Raven!) and those four characters each bring something different to these few hours.

It made me stop and think about isolation, fear of coming in contact with other people who might be "contagious" and breaking the rules... and which rules are okay to break?

I wish I could say I connected with Kate... but I don't break the rules, so I struggled a bit with Kate. However, her conversations with The Raven are quite simply, brilliant!

I really connected with Alice...very much. She broke my heart and my hope is that out of these few hours... a new family might be born!

Moss has broken down the essence of Pandemic Living perfectly. You will find yourself nodding with much of what is "talked about." Moss also tickles your brain and makes you think... in very good ways.

I highly recommend this book!

I want to thank Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC of this book!

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC of this book. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing, even though this book hit a bit too close to home as we are still slogging our way through this pandemic. Very thought provoking with themes focusing on personal responsibility.

I absolutely loved this book. I have been quite hesitant about picking up a book based on the current scenario but I knew I would be in safe hands with Sarah Moss, and I was right. This short novel revolves around a woman who decides to take a risky decision to step out of her house, while she and her son have been advised to isolate themselves in their house. While the core of the story is about Kate, she is merely a means to take us through the repercussions of her behaviour and the pandemic on the lives of people rom different scenarios.

The best part of this book according to me, is the representation of various compelling arguments and perspectives of people who you wouldn't generally agree with. As most of her books that I have read in the past, Sarah Moss zooms into one specific incident in the life of one person while also manipulating the reader to ponder about the larger questions that are relevant to the world. She has also done an impeccable job on representing the effect of time as a construct on our perception and severity of an incident. I thought she raised an important question about time in this book - Does time heal? Or does it make you indifferent about your feelings, hence giving you the solace of being healed?

I loved it and would highly recommend this one to everyone!

Wonderful writing as always from Sarah Moss. I really loved the sense of impending doom in relation to Kate’s ‘walk’ - it all felt so real and raw and it was something that a lot of people will relate to. I wasn’t sure about reading a pandemic related book, but the different perspectives really took away from the Covid - emphasis and I loved the fact it felt very real. Also loved the raven and the description of the landscape - something that is always rich in Moss’s writing. Overall, a good read.

As I'm sure is the case for many readers, I was hesitant to tackle a book that not only referenced the pandemic but was specifically about the pandemic. However, I'm glad I persisted because I found The Fell almost cathartic. The close third person narration and short timescale made it a compelling read, and I found the voices of the characters rang true in a way that allowed empathise with them.
I'm not sure I will be reading more pandemic fiction any time soon, but I'm glad I made an exception for this one.

Sarah Moss has a distinct style, unique. Her three books that I've read employ almost a stream of consciousness, utilizing alternating POVs to fashion her story, and this is her take on the current world under the pandemic. A woman usually energetic and self quarantining with her teenage son, leaves the house for a much needed walk on the hillside, intending to return before he notices. The ensuing hours unfold with increasing immediacy through the lives of the woman, her son, an elderly neighbor, and a member of a mountain rescue team. There is the frustration and claustrophobia of the current situation, plus the fear of the unknown, the helpful research acknowledged by Moss in an afterword. Her books are slim in length, but mighty in content.

Not my cup of tea, but I imagine lots of readers will like this! Will most likely purchase for my library.

As this book is already out in the UK, I’ve already seen lots of (glowing) reviews. In fact, that’s what encouraged me to request it.

Set in November 2020 (which of course had me trying to remember what I was doing/what restrictions were in place), a woman frustrated with self-isolating goes out for a walk on the fell. This is where the blurb should stop in my opinion – the available blurbs give too much away. It’s already a short book and (according to many) tense, so leave some mystery!

I didn’t find the story as gripping or as tense as I’d expected. I thought the conclusion was inevitable, and yet approaching it I was hoping maybe for an alternative ending. Having said that, I did follow the story and get through it quickly – not always the case for every book – and again, I add it’s very short.

In the beginning I found the switching between characters difficult to follow. The first section starts with characters who don’t reappear until quite a bit later and I was left wondering for a while if the next section (featuring the main character Kate and her son Matt) was connected to the first and if Kate was the widow but actually that was her neighbour, Alice. This probably won’t be a concern for other readers though!

I think the biggest obstacle to me enjoying this book more was the character of Kate herself. I found her so annoying! And yes, that’s not a reason to dislike the story and the book but I just didn’t care what happened to her. And she’s in a difficult situation (in general, not on the fell) but then so was almost everyone else – I could relate to not working, staying at home, worrying, yet I didn’t sympathise with her. She seemed (and so did the book in general) to waver between being anti Covid protocol and pro Covid protocol. I’m glad the story didn’t continue into 2021 as she would probably have been anti-vaccine. On the other hand, I did sympathise with Matt and Alice.

Oh, and I HATED the raven. I get the function, but I would’ve preferred Kate’s mind to spiral without the outside voice, this is a book after all and we are privy to her thoughts.

It’s really not a bad book at all. Missing some tension for me, which is really how I felt about Summerwater too. Maybe Sarah Moss is just not for me.

Thank you NetGalley, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

this book is of a kind i never anticipated that i would read: the dreaded 'pandemic novel'. though this book was guilty of many of the things that made me hesitant about picking up such a book (particularly the a brand of cultural criticism that never feels as cutting or authentic as many a fiction writer writing on the 'now' times intends) i still felt that there were things to appreciate about this books. moss is a confident and sure writer, the journey of the characters (read: Kate) feels intriguing without being forced and her voice feels stylistically different from the voices of the other three perspectives. though the sort of commentary on contemporary times felt like a fictionalised reenactment of twitter discourse in the past year, i still think that i'm eager to read other sarah moss (just not this one probably ever again haha)

I heard this author interviewed on one of the BBC's culture podcasts Front Row and even though this isn't my usual choice of fiction (domestic), I found it available on Net Galley and gave it a read, my interest sparked even more by a few reviews on this platform that claimed to stop reading the novel because they found it morally reprehensible. Because the novel's setting takes place during Covid lockdown, Moss is interested in exploring the psychic and social repercussions of forcing people to remain in their house and suspend their daily lives. For some readers, feeling compassion for those who resisted such measures was reason enough to stop reading.

The writing style is a bit hard to get into as it's all indirect monologue and you are thrust into the meandering thoughts of each character as they deal with their own anguished challenges during lockdown, many of these challenges erupt from isolation and subsequent inertia and paranoia. Most of the novel surrounds an event that incites horror, intrigue, envy, and fear when the main character Kate decides to take a walk on the fell. She has been confined to her house due to possible exposure to Covid and has reached a point of not giving a fuck anymore, fed up with the limitations of her house and garden, living 24/7 with her teenage son. Her desire to get on with it (life) is expressed early on as she thinks about the miners who once inhabited the house where she now lives with her son. "...not as if there weren't epidemics then too, the original inhabitants, but they got on with it, didn't they? people died and they were sad, but they didn't wall themselves up."

Once she gets outside, away from the town and its inhabitants, her small, confining house and her near-poverty, however, she cannot stop wandering deeper and farther into the hills. A raven becomes her companion and eventual lifesaver as she continues her walk further and further way from the world that has confined her, and even when she must deal with a life-threatening situation, it seems even at its most dire a better alternative to suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression, and constant fear of being infected by others that the other world, the one of lockdown, holds. (less)

Sarah Moss is fast becoming one of my favorite authors, and "The Fell" is another great example of why her books are must reads for me. Set in England's Peak District in November of 2020 during their second pandemic lockdown, "The Fell" presents four alternating and interconnecting storylines: Single mom Kate, who is supposed to be self-isolating; Kate's teenaged son, Matt; their "extremely vulnerable" elderly neighbor, Alice; and Rob, the mountain rescue volunteer spending the weekend with his teenaged daughter Ellie. When avid outdoorswoman Kate can't resist breaking her quarantine to take a quick walk in the hills, she sets off a chain of events that will link these four people over the course of one long and harrowing night.

I've been reading quite a few pandemic era books, from Ali Smith's early entry "Summer" to Gary Shteyngart's "Our Country Friends" and this is a favorite. Moss's third person omniscient narration for each character puts the reader into their minds in a way that vividly captures all the emotions--helplessness, ennui, loss of agency, fear, etc--that characterized our first COVID-19 year and brought back relatable memories. Quite apart from the pandemic setting, however, "The Fell" also works as a page-turning adventure tale written in language that is beautifully evocative of the natural world. I read it in one very enjoyable sitting and highly recommend both it and Sarah Moss' earlier books.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you Net Galley for this astonishing book by Sarah Moss about single mother Kate, who can no longer stand being caged indoors during the pandemic. This book has a soul. It is magical. I recommend it without reservation.

The action in this slim volume spans a twenty-four hour period in the lives of 4 characters. The setting is Britain's Peak District and the time is November, 2020. The world is obsessed with a pandemic that requires the wearing of masks and quarantines. The author moves deeper into the global and focuses on four people in a village. Rob is a single father and a volunteer with the local mountain rescue group. Alice is a mid-seventies widow recovering from cancer treatment. Kate, known in the village as a "daft hippy" and her sixteen-year-old son, Matt are quarantining because Matt has been exposed to COVID-19 at school.. They busy with themselves with ordinary tasks but Kate increasingly feels the pull of the outdoors and late one afternoon she heads for the the hills without her phone and without telling Matt. When Kate doesn't return home the four lives intertwine. Over a 24 hour period the personal fears of each character are revealed through their stream-of-consciousness narration.
There are touches of humor and acts of kindness as well as insights into personal freedom, social responsibility, immortality and family relationships. Moss is a master of packing a lot into a small book. In The Fell she extrapolates the personal from within a broad societal problem. It's book you won't forget.

After reading a pandemic novel (Wish You Were Here) and a covid memoir (What Just Happened: Notes on a Long Year), I swore I would not, could not, read any others. Sarah Moss is the only author I would make an exception for, but The Fell is much more than pandemic fiction. A two-week quarantine sets the stage for the story of Kate, and several other characters contribute their perspectives on the feelings of claustrophobia, isolation, vulnerability, and the almost overwhelming uncertainty that we have all felt for several years. Sarah Moss has written much of this book in an internal, stream-of-consciousness way, which I appreciated because it seemed to closely match my thinking. There are daily details along with larger philosophical questions. The story takes place over a single day with interesting chapter titles, and as always, Moss' thoughtful prose is a joy to read. My only complaint may be that it was too short, but that is simply because I wanted to be able to keep reading more of my favorite Sarah Moss book (so far).

"There will be holes in the children’s education, a generation that’s forgotten or never learnt how to go to a party, people of all ages who won’t forget to be afraid to leave the house, to be afraid of other people, afraid to touch or dance or sing, to travel, to try on clothes – whisht, she thinks again, hush now. Walk."

Thank you to Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

It feels like we haven't experienced COVID long enough for someone to write a smart, surprising quarantine novel, but Sarah Moss did exactly that in THE FELL. Sarah's characters, who are experiencing a harsher lockdown than most of us, prickle with the claustrophobia and fear necessary to explaining quarantine. I was haunted, especially by the character of Alice. Overall, I really loved this work.

This was my first Sarah Moss read and I thought it was beautifully written. It’s incredibly intimate, making the reader feel as though they’re sitting alongside the characters themselves as each scene plays out. She so authentically captures the angst and tension of a life in lockdown, which felt relatable and in a way comforting - knowing there are others experiencing and feeling the same frustrations and anxieties that I myself am experiencing during the pandemic. I enjoyed the way Moss delicately touches on some moral dilemmas that have arisen in this new way of living - whether to dob in rule breaking neighbours and what’s the ‘right’ thing to do with regards to helping someone when faced with lockdown constraints. It wouldn’t describe it as an overly gripping story, more of a quiet, reflective novel – covering this strange new world and its impact on humanity.

People primarily feeling sorry about themselves, or if not overtly that, then minutely describing what causes them inconvenience or self doubt. This first longer fiction I read about COVID-19 disappointed me.
… you can’t sign out of community and it’s not that she’d usually want to.

The Fell, with its one day in a pandemic focus, felt rather pedestrian and depressing. Kate, a furloughed single mom, is the main character and her quarantine breaking towards the hills behind her English village home goes very awry. Her teenage son Matt is game addicted, a recreational drugs user and in general bored. Then we have a bit better of elderly neighbour who very much fears the virus due to her recovering from cancer.

Despite Sarah Moss writing competently a lot of the book is characters musing on how the pandemic impacts them, what they can't do, worries nothing will ever be the same and reflecting on the overwhelming urge to do things they now can't.
You’ll be lucky to live to regret this is something a fantasy raven tells a character somewhere and I do agree, the characters all show a rather deep lack of self reflective tendencies and what a boon it is to live in a relatively rich country during a global pandemic. The feeling of unrest and discomfort is well captured but in the end just felt oppressive and whiny in a sense.

Life, then, to be lived, somehow is something thought at the end of the book, and again that is such a truth it is hard to disagree with. But I felt it, and the story covered in The Fell, is just not enough to satisfy me as a reader.

I really didn’t think I wanted to read another COVID-novel. I really enjoyed Sarah Hall’s Burntcoat, which seemed firmly rooted in the fictional world. But when another of my favorite literary Sarahs, Sarah Moss, author of the fantastic Ghost Wall, announced she too had written a COVID novel, I was willing to brace myself again.

In The Fell, we meet Kate, who decides to go for a walk during her two-week quarantine period. But when Kate doesn’t return, her teenage son Matt rings the alarm, and the search is on. In a treacherous area, with falling temperatures, and minimal provisions, time is of the essence.

I won’t lie, it took me three attempts to get into the rhythms of this book, but once I started in earnest, I consumed the whole thing in one day. The reader is welcomed inside the minds of the characters, following their trains of thought as they go off on tangents. Each character has such a unique voice; I imagine The Fell works well as an audiobook.

Aspects of The Fell felt very familiar to me. I spent the first thirty year of my life in the UK, and the people and culture are still a very big part of my life. The fear of “disobeying” the government, small-minded people snitching on their neighbors; unfortunately, it all rings incredibly true. Luckily, the main characters of Kate, Matt, and their neighbor Alice, reflect the friendlier Brits I know and love.

The Fell is a brief, timely novel, vividly capturing a moment in time that may not be looked upon fondly. However, the all-too-believable situation certainly helped me to connect to the characters. Established fans of Sarah Moss will really enjoy The Fell; another short, sharp novel for a brilliant writer.

Welp, I guess we're deep enough into the Covid-19 pandemic now to start having it show up in fiction. Sarah Moss's <i>The Fell</i> centers around one community (or one neighborhood, really) stuck in lockdown, bouncing from point of view to point of view of people (mostly) stuck in their houses, with varying degrees of success coping with that psychologically. Readers of Moss's previous book <i>Summerwater</i> will find the format quite familiar; that is the only other of her books I've read, so perhaps it is a unifying theme across her fiction. This book has a bit more to hook you, though -- where <i>Summerwater</i> trucked in the merest suggestion of unease, this one centers around one of the point of view characters stir-crazily having left her house to go hiking along the titular fells, and suffering (at least) a broken leg in the process, and the question of her fate provides a decent amount of narrative tension. Overall, though, each character is mostly dealing with their own shit, so to speak, and the value of the book seems to be as a snapshot of people's coping strategies under lockdown, which honestly isn't all that interesting to me right now -- we all lived it, and are still living it, and maybe some people want to read an introspective meditation on the psychological toll of lockdowns but it didn't do all that much for me.