This is Elizabeth O'Connor's first novel - hard to believe given the multiple levels of meaning in this slim volume. The location in time and space enables both a distant mirror and a very personal view of how cultures interact and rub off on one another. The less you know going in, the better. Highly recommended.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Pantheon for providing me early access to this title — it’s out NOW!

‘Whale Fall’ was the atmospheric, stark and poignantly written book I’ve been looking for. I was in love with the juxtaposition of the historical (1938), cold and remote setting of a Welsh Island as described and experienced by Manod, a girl who has spent her life there. A giant whale washes up on the shore and for Manod it becomes both a bad omen and symbolic of something bigger, beyond the island. Students come to study the life and culture on the island and Manod becomes a kind of guide as they try to understand, but in that comes an exposure to something both exciting and exploitative.

There is something so universally recognizable in isolated, coming of age stories like this, but It goes so much deeper and for that it is sharp and upsetting. What can the ambition of an outsider do to a vulnerable community, and what does it mean to confront change even if you’re not completely ready?

It was beautiful, absolutely enamoring. It reminded me of ‘The Colony’ by Audrey Magee (published in 2022), ‘Ghost Wall’ by Sarah Moss (published in 2018) and ‘Clear’ by Carys Davies (also published in 2024). If you’re looking for a brilliant character study and a captivating, chilly setting, look no further — a quiet but compelling read for sure!

Strong writing - exquisitely atmospheric - but, for me, slow and depleting (and I normally love a slow read, but somehow this just didn't land for me - I wonder if it's because the overarching tone was so bleak). I was surprised by my lack of curiosity about / investment in the characters, particularly Manod; the ending should have struck me more than it did, but I felt removed from the story. I understand the hype, and in its best moments it reminded me of Haven by Emma Donoghue, but it just wasn't for me (or at least, wasn't for me at this particular moment). Thanks to NetGalley and Pantheon for an ARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

A whale washes up on the beach of an isolated Welsh island. Shortly afterwards, two academics from Oxford follow and the world changes a bit for a local girl who dreams of bigger things. Set during WWII and a very quick read

3.5⭐️

I so wanted to love this, and was excited to dive in. But, while it provided a nice atmospheric buildup, it didn’t feel like it ever truly got off the ground. It was a great start, but it could have used more story and more characters I could connect with.

Thank you Elizabeth O'Connor, Pantheon, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a story with a lot of interesting themes and important things to say, but with an execution that fell flat for me. I think a good portion of my disappointment comes from this just not being my cup of tea. Unfortunately, I thought this would be much more of an active story but the quite understated writing and extremely morose mood didn’t work for me.

***I received an ARC from Pantheon and Netgalley for free and am leaving an honest review***

It’s been forever since I’ve read an entire book in one day, but this one was so impossible to put down that I stayed up way past my bedtime. It is a great, quick, atmospheric read. Manod was a fantastic character to root for. While the short length definitely packed a punch, I would have loved to read even more and delve deeper into Manod and her family.

The story takes place in a remote welsh island , it’s a slow, short story , well written and entertaining, however I kind of did find it predictable

Ethnographers from the mainland descend on a small Welsh island to gather material for a book. They engage as a helper a teenaged girl who is motherless and the only custodian of her younger sister. As they win the girl’s trust with promises of seeing faraway places and one day getting her a college education, and flatter her with their admiration of the importance of her lifestyle, even unto a romance with one of them, she returns these high opinions and trusts them with the island’s precious tales and embroidery art she creates. The finale comes nearly as a body blow to the reader, when she discovers their grandiose plans for her are but a fantasy, fueled by her own hopes and the writers’ greed. Very engaging and emotionally wrenching story.

I am reading books for a one book one town event that will take place next year. While I personally loved this book, I find the readers in the town to be very limited in their willingness to consider other cultures and perspectives. I will recommend this book to my book groups and friends who read. I will also buy a copy for the university library where I work. I felt this book took me to this welsh island landscape in a very specific atmospheric way. The story was well told and sad.

This was an interesting and short read about a girl who lives on an incredibly tiny island off the British coast. When a group of students arrive on the island to document the locals' way of life, our main character gets sucked into their orbit, showing off and helping them with their work.

This was a lyrical and poignant story of a young woman living on an isolated Welsh island. When two ethnographers visit, she starts to rethink her life, seeing it through the lens of these worldly scholars. My favorite part about this book was the evocative descriptions of the island and it’s inhabitants.

Whale Fall by Elizabeth O'Connor has gorgeous, lyrical prose. It is an atmospheric and contemplative meditation on perception. Manod is a young woman curious about the world around her. She lives on a remote Welsh island (based on an amalgamation of islands around the British Isles) taking care of her younger sister after her mother's illness and subsequent disappearance. She is aware of how 'mainlanders' view her and her island. One day, a whale becomes stranded in the shallows of the island seemingly heralding change. Then, two English ethnographers arrive from a university to study the locals and Manod becomes their assistant as she speaks English. Through Manod, they learn about the island and its ways, though their 'findings' are not always coherent with reality. Manod in turn begins to dream of a different future for herself.

Fantastic novel. I loved it.

Many thanks to Pantheon and NetGalley for this eARC. All opinions are my own.

Although not much technically *happens* in this book, it still succeeded in invoking a sense of foreboding and dread in me. The hopelessness of an unfulfilled life, feeling trapped & like nobody around you cares to help. Beautifully done.

Sparse, beautifully written novel of a young adult’s first real contact with the outside world. Manod lives with her sister and father on a remote Welsh island. Shortly before WWII starts, she acts as translator for two British ethnographers who are writing a book about the island and its people. Through them, she learns about love, exploitation and false promises. While the novel is indeed a dark tale, the reader is left with a sense that Manod will escape her sheltered world.

Whimsical. Magnificent. “Whale Fall” by Elizabeth O’Connor looks at how far one will go for the truth. The book follows Manod, a woman of marriage age torn between whether to start a new life on mainland or stay on the island to care for her sister.

When a whale washes up on the shore, Manod’s Welsh Island community debates if it’s a good or bad sign. Told through transcriptions, folktales, observations and first person narration, the novel follows the whales slow decomposition and the arrival of British researchers.

With a population of 47, the island is a place untouched by the cities and 20 years behind in fashion. They get news snippets from mainland visitors who debate whether war will erupt. With no knowledge of how to swim, the people are quite literally trapped on the island.

Manod reminded me of a cross between Anne of Green Gables and Moana. Not one to meet many visitors, she soon gets taken advantage by the researchers and tries to impress them. I loved how the book flowed and how the author would take a moment from the present tense to spark a memory and flash back. Will love to see more from this author!

Thanks to @knopfdoubledaybooks and @pantheonbooks for the #advancedreaderscopy on @NetGalley! Such a stunning cover! Be sure to check this novel, which is out now.

Whale Fall is a stunning, debut novel that takes place on a fictional, remote island off the coast of Wales. Although it is 1938, the population on the island, which numbers only fifteen men, twenty women, and twelve children, is at least ten years behind the mainland in terms of fashion, politics, and ideologies. When a dead whale washes up on the shore, the islanders take it as a portend of doom, and following not far behind the whale is the entrance of two English ethnographers who seek to study the island’s culture, collecting its customs, tales, games, and geography for university study. A bright, eighteen-year-old island girl named Manod, who feels caught between the pressure to marry and leave the island and the need to stay on the island and care for her younger sister in the wake of their mother’s death, becomes enamored with the English researchers. They hire Manod to help them translate stories and communicate with the Welsh speaking islanders.

The story of Manod’s experience is punctuated with notes from the ethnographers and recreations of the tales they collect in their research. One tale features a woman with three daughters so beautiful the ocean sweeps them away in a jealous rage, returning them only as gulls flying in the wind. There are several variants of this tale, one which returns the daughters as whales, along with selkie stories and references to the Mari Lwyd. Although the novel celebrates folklore and those who are drawn toward it, Whale Fall also provides a poignant commentary on the exoticization of isolated communities and the impossibility of maintaining authenticity when studying other cultures through the lenses of our own. The researchers and the islanders exact irreversible changes upon each other that affect both Manod’s individual coming-of-age and the community’s sense of cultural identity.

At the background of Manod’s human narrative is the ever-present decay of the whale just off the coast of the island waters. The title of O’Connor’s novel forces readers to think of the researchers’ interest in the dwindling population on the island in relation to a natural “whale fall,” a term used to describe the slow plunging of a whale carcass to the bottom of the ocean. Although the death of a whale is a tragic loss, its decomposition supports various communities of marine life who scavenge on the flesh for months, and the researchers in the novel, who live on the stories of a disappearing culture, are presented as scavengers who take what is not theirs and use it for their own intellectual benefit. In direct contrast to the rotting whale is Manod’s younger sister, a wild child who speaks only in her native tongue and collects the bones of dead animals, storing them in jars until she finds the scraps she needs to recreate whole skeletons from the pieces. The tide-like push and pull between decomposition and reanimation, between the human world and the natural world, between the island and the mainland, between preserving stories and losing them, between death and life, pulses beneath the narrative of one girl at the crossroads of her obligations and her desires. Heartbreaking and harrowing, Whale Fall is a must read for fans of folklore and all those who enjoy contemplating our power and powerlessness as tellers of tales. I loved it!

Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of the book in exchange for a fair review.

Set on a fictional Welsh island in 1938, Whale Fall is a coming of age tale which centers in on a recently graduated 18 year old Manod, daughter of a lobster fisherman and older sister to Llinos.

We learn early that Manod is bright, yet limited by the time period, gender norms, and her community traditions. Manod is best in class and can speak English, yet instead of being encouraged to pursue an education on the mainland is asked by an instructor to help another classmate with his entrance essay. She is approached by another boy in town with hopes for marriage but routinely declines until he, too, leaves for the mainland to find work and a wife. Despite her attachment to her small community, Manod seems to want something more. What exactly that is—she isn’t sure yet.

When a whale washes up on the island, it sparks interest, fear, and folklore from the community. It also brings two outsiders intent on studying a vanishing culture: anthropologists Edward and Joan. With Manod’s help translating Welsh into English, instructing locals for photographs, and explaining cultural significance, Edward and Joan piece together local legends, songs, and photographs for their book. At first, Manod is dazzled by their interest and praise, feels encouraged to pursue education on the mainland and can envision a different kind of future for herself. However, during their short time there becomes disillusioned by the perceptions of her community and inaccurate accounts of their way of life.

This book touched on some interesting social themes prevalent today as well which I thought about the most after finishing the book, such as gentrification, cultural tourism, and often the inaccuracy and exploitation of telling other peoples stories for them.

This story is written beautifully, and I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys books that feel immersive and slow, with settings deep in nature and with wildlife.

Fans of both Audrey McGee’s #TheColony and Carys Davis’ #Clear should feel right at home in Elizabeth O’Connors debut novel, #Whalefall O’Connor was one of Granta’s 10 Best Novelists for 2024 and in the article talks about how she wrote the book while working in a cafe, literally scribbling thoughts and sentences down on receipts and food order slips.

The book is set in 1938 on a remote Welsh Island where a dead whale washes up at the start of the novel. The island is inhabited by a small community including our protagonist Manod, a young woman living with her father and younger sister, her mother having passed away years earlier.

When two English ethnographers (a person who studies and describes a particular society or group. I didn’t know either!) arrive on the island Manon gets employed by them to help with a variety of tasks, and being increasingly drawn to each of them in different ways.

I listened to this on a long drive from the desert, and McGee’s lyrical writing is truly beautiful, and I have to add that as an audio choice it’s truly fantastic, read by a group of narrators who bring these characters, especially Manod to life. McGee captures the ache of youthful yearning married with the hope of escaping to a world full of promise and possibility. Thanks to @prhaudio and @pantheon for the ALC and ARC.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Whale Fall by Elizabeth O'Connor.

I had the pleasure of listening to this which I appreciated because I am very unfamiliar with the Welsh language, so I loved hearing the names pronounced appropriately. I would have butchered them in my head.

I you read this for the writing, it's a five star read, hands down. O'Connor sets an atmosphere that I would happily bathe in. Her words practically sparkle with poetry. She is a wordsmith no doubt.

However, I struggled with the actual story. I had to start over more than once and focus hard on what was happening, and what actually happened was...not much? I just didn't feel that moved by it like a lot of other reviewers did, so perhaps this book just wasn't for me.