John Boyne writing never fails to draw me in.This is a book of four novellas interconnected on the topic is difficult sexual abuse but the way the author handles the characters kept me emotionally involved.# NetGalley #the elements

This author is an auto read for me.This is a well crafted book with intertwining characters involving highly sensitive subject matters. It explores relationships, marriage, sexuality, and other issues with honesty. I usually do not read short stories but the four presented in this novel felt like a full story.

I am so glad that he put all these books together to publish in America. They all have a specific message and work very well together and of course, our obviously well written. One of my favorite authors and he never disappoints.

I was very excited to receive an ARC of this novel, because I have historically found John Boyne’s writing to be superb. And The Elements was no exception. As per his usual, Boyne touched on sensitive topics – this time it's child sexual abuse and sexual assault. The books is essentially 4 novellas woven together to create one story, each relating back to four elements - Water, Earth, Fire and Air. The characters are well developed, the story line moves well.

Why 3 stars? Well, I didn't like any of these characters. This is probably a me issue, in fact I'm sure of it. At times I had to slog through because I feel zero connection to the story, even as well told as it was. These things happen. But please, if you are a Boyne fan, or you just enjoy good writing and are not scared to read about the dark side of human existence, you should absolutely delve into this one! Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co for giving me the chance to read and review this novel.

There hasn't been a book that has conflicted me about answering the question "Will you recommend this book" since A LITTLE LIFE. The Elements was extremely well written and will stay with me for a long time. That said, it requires trigger warnings for sexual content in almost every way possible.

If you're prepared for that kind of content, then THE ELEMENTS will definitely reward your time. An engrossing, beautiful, messed up story that is maybe one of the most unique things I read this year.

This book is brilliant and I think John Boyne wrote four incredible novellas that are linked together through a remote island off the coast of Galway and central themes of complicity, denial, guilt and cycle of sexual abuse of minors.

The subject matter is very very tough to read, as it focuses on childhood sexual abuse. It is not an easy read, but Boyne’s writing is succinct and blunt and his attention to settings and character development are amazing to read. (I will say I almost DNFed Fire, which is an account of sexual abuse from the perpetrator.)

Here is a review of each novella:

Water: 4 stars
about a woman whose husband (who is a public figure) has been committing sexual violence and how that affects her, her daughters, and how she views the world/how the world views her. Element of water plays a strong role as she escapes to an isolated island on the coast of Ireland and grapples with her complicity.

Earth: 5 stars
a boy’s journey to escape his abusive childhood turns into a young man’s journey to heal all that has broken him. Evan’s character is one you struggle not to sympathize with, but as the story unfolds you see him become a professional footballer and make unforgivable decisions. It is hard not to sympathize with him as Boyne tells his story through discussions on homophobia, class consciousness, and complicity (which is definitely a big theme in the first novella).

Fire: 3.75 stars
This was the hardest one to read, and I almost could not finish it. This is told from the point of view of Freya and her story is one that really focuses on the cycle of abuse and the effects abuse can have on someone. The way we see her backstory unfold and how it affects her present day. She is a despicable character to be honest but once again his ability to write these characters and connect everything together is so masterful.

Air: 4 stars
The final installment in this tetralogy (?), and the final few pages are so incredible in how they wrap everything together. This one is more about the impact of sexual abuse and the journey of healing from it. It follows a man and his son on a trip and it mainly just focuses on how the man’s childhood has affected his current and past relationships. Idk if that makes sense.


His writing? 5 stars
The stories? Maybe 4 stars? Idk?
The way they all connect slightly and the way he wraps it up? 5 stars

THE ELEMENTS ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5. Release date 9/25/25. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. To start off, John Boyne is an author for me that tears me apart and pieces me back together. The Hearts Invisible Furies is in my top 5 all time favorites. The Elements (water, earth, fire, air) will do the same. 4 stories that intertwine of trauma to show how complicated and messy this world can be. Read all trigger warnings first. For fans of A Little Life, Hearts Furies, and novels of the same caliber I would highly recommend this one. Otherwise, I would advise to read all trigger warnings first.

Excellent but difficult read. Four stories of sexual abuse that intertwine in a way that demonstrates the cycles of abuse and how badly our society is failing victims of abuse.

This book was challenging emotionally and content wise. It drew me in as a reader from the beginning because it felt like we were placed in the middle of each characters tumultuous lives without knowing how or why they got to that point. I thought this book really put an emphasis on the unfortunate and harmful cyclical nature of abuse that can span generations. I did struggle with aspects of this book because it seemed like their was such a focus on the abuse and harm perpetuated by certain characters but then only a slight mention of the consequences and punishment they would face.

This is truly a remarkable story. It will stay with readers ~ the complexities, the horrors,
each of the characters suffered ~ thus is exactly why I never miss a book by this Author
and I’m not deterred by the 500 pages because I know the richness in his characters,
the depths of the personal pain, are so complicated, and so well done.
I am happy with the conclusions for everyone, following each journey from continent
to continent, and I applaud the Author for this absolutely brilliant book. I was
touched by this book.
My thanks to Henry Holt for the copy of this book for review purposes.

This book is intense. I’ve read other novels by the author, John Boyne, and even my teenage daughter read his book, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, for her 8th grade English class. But the writing in this book is on another level. (and I would NOT recommend it for a teen/YA audience) I need to warn potential readers that it contains sensitive content on sexual abuse and suicide.

The structure of the book is broken into 4 sections: Water, Earth, Fire, Air

Each section is told from the perspective of a different character, but minor characters carry through between the sections. I was pleasantly surprised to see how the four storylines were connected.

There are many important themes explored in this book:
- Men who act like teenage boys and ask the world to excuse them, rather than grow up and behave like adults, which is what they are, but choose not to be.
- It deals with facing consequences for what we’ve done or learning to deal with what has been done against us.
- It’s about being complicit rather than accountable.
- It’s about wishing that the next generation won’t know the pain, betrayal or disappointment that we’ve endured.
- It’s about looking at someone who hurts others and wondering about the hurt that they’ve endured that caused them to turn out the way they did.
- It’s about coming to terms with childhood trauma, so that we can show love and kindness to others.
- It’s about healing and refusing to be a victim and instead choosing to be a survivor.

The sentence level perfection in the last couple of paragraphs tying all the elements together is how the ending of a novel is meant to be. It was phenomenal.

Once again, John Boyne has crafted a book that drew me in and kept me enthralled. It is a powerful book. In The Elements, four interconnected stories explore sexual crimes and the different parties involved - the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator and the victim. The main character of the first story is a wife who remained obtuse to her husband’s crime and has now run away in the aftermath of him being found guilty. Next, there's the footballer who is on trial for supposedly filming his buddy’s rape of a young woman. Then a female doctor who rapes young boys because of a crime she was the victim of. And finally, a forty year old man who was once the victim of the doctor. The stories are all tangentially intertwined until the end, when everything comes full circle. The book presents a pebble in a pond aspect, watching the repercussions move outward.
Boyne manages to present each character in a straightforward manner. It takes a special talent to write from the first person POV in some of these situations. I didn’t feel sympathetic to the first three, but I also didn’t look away. Each was nuanced and I felt I was given a clear eyed view of their thoughts. Overall, it’s a book that covers different aspects of culpability, guilt, identity, forgiveness (or not) and survival.
As always, the writing is beautiful. This is a deeply thought provoking book. It’s a book I’ll be pondering for a while.
My thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt for an advance copy of this book.

Tough but compelling read. I really enjoyed the format of the interconnected stories. Thank you Netgalley.

The Elements is a compilation of four novellas. These stories were meant to be read together. The plotting is so nuanced, the character development so complex that this novel is hard to put down, despite how difficult parts of it are to read. The novel begins with the element of water, and a woman escaping to a remote Irish island after her husband is convicted of the sexual abuse of children. She needs to grapple with that as well as whether she can salvage her relationship with her surviving daughter. From this stabbing start, John Boyne follows a minor character into the next element, and so on. Each one of these novellas deals with abuse, guilt, trauma, and ego, with a hint of redemption, finally.

Why would you want to read The Elements? It's because John Boyne is a master. Each segment is told in the first person, and we see so, so clearly what each character is and what made them. Yes, I did stop at one point to ask myself why I was reading this, and the answer was because I simply had to. "The Elements" is a remarkable achievement.

Thanks to Henry Holt & Co., Edelweiss and NetGalley for a digital review copy of in exchange for my honest review.

5.0. Wow! A truly amazing and extraordinary novel! John Boyne is one of my favorite novelists and he has not disappointed in his latest, The Elements, four novellas titled Water, Earth, Fire and Air. Although four separate stories, Boyne masterfully weaved all elements together and makes it one work of art. His writing is simply breathtaking. His characters were extremely well defined, and attention to detail and settings were so realistic. As in many of his novels, he takes on controversial topics, in this one, sexual assault, and its profound and tragic impacts on all, victims, family members, loved ones, and society, among other things. In parts it was so painful to read as he truly captured the essence of the human condition, but the writing kept me going, so much that I could not put it down. What he did in this novel is just unbelievable by tying together so many truly disparate parts, and in a way you didn’t even know he was doing it. I always rate an author on their endings and frankly many authors do not have successful endings in my opinion, whether too contrived, predictable, nonsensical, etc, but this ending was very well executed. I cannot wait for his next one. Boyne is an incredible writer and many, many thanks to Netgalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for an unbiased and candid review.

I've been a fan of John Boyne far a long time. I was thrilled to get a copy of his newest to dive into. This one is four interlocking novellas that all have connecting themes of sexual abuse. I loved all the characters in this book but gotta say Evan was my favorite. I enjoyed the time I spent getting to know all these characters and they will be with me for long time to come. I gave this one four stars and will definitely be recommending.

TW: Sexual assault of minors

I'm putting that trigger warning front and center because no summary I've read about this book has mentioned the fact that all four sections of this book contain one if not multiple instances of rape, mostly of minors. It's also four interconnected stories from four different points of view of *different* crimes, not the same crime. So we get over a dozen instances of rape, intimately discussed. It's an upsetting read, especially the third section which is devoted to the perpetrator of, to her count, over 100 counts of child rape.

I usually sail through Boyne's work, no matter how lengthy, and this book was no exception. It's mostly well done but the third section soured it for me. The rapist is sooo cartoonishly drawn that it didn't seem as believable as the rest of the narrative. She's a trauma and rape survivor who decides to take her revenge out on preteen boys, aged 14, just like the kids who raped her at age 12. It's not nearly as thoughtful as the other three parts.

The conceit of using elements to tie together the book doesn't really work--water and fire made more sense with their connected narratives than earth and air did. It really just seemed unnecessary, like a gimmick used to sell the book but ineffective at adding anything to the story.

The most uncomfortable I got in the whole book was probably the cross-examination of a rape victim in the second section. It was so viscerally upsetting because it happens so frequently--victims made to revictimize themselves repeatedly in order to get justice while they're slandered and destroyed in the process. Boyne made the defense attorney cross-examining the female victim female as well, and he made the rapist in part three a woman as previously mentioned. Yes this defies gender norms around sexual assault, but it feels kind of icky to read a book written by a male who uses female characters in this way.

There's plenty good here too, but given the prevalence of sexual assault, I would have preferred knowing what I was getting myself into.

The Elements is an engrossing read of four interwoven novellas that has the reader examining different perspectives on crime. How does an act of crime affect a person? This novel lets you see the act from the perspective of the victim, as well as an accomplice, an enabler, and the perpetrator. Weeks after finishing this novel, I find myself still thinking about it, and the outcomes each character faced in their narrative. I look forward to hand selling it upon publication, so I can discuss it with others! Book clubs will find an abundance of discussion material in this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt for this ARC. This book is broken down into 4 stories - Water, Earth, Fire and Air but all dealing with the controversial subject of sexual abuse. Though the topic is hard to digest for each of these 4 families (and the reader), John Boyne has an incredible talent of telling a story that is very well written. #TheElements #JohnBoyne #HenryHolt #Sept2025

This novel brings a different perspective to a crime, a perspective from four different viewpoints - the perpetrator, the victim(s), the accomplice and the facilitator. Each narrative is connected until they all come together in horrible, life-altering ways.

Boyne tackles the incredibly serious subjects of sexual assault, suicide and revenge with poise and grace to make this a novel that is easy to read and understand.

This book is incredible, the writing is superb and the ending is cause for celebration. It deserves more than 5 stars without a doubt. Thank you, NetGalley and Henry Holt and Company for the advanced reader copy.