This was such a raw and visceral read. "My Favourite" doesn't shy away from portraying the brutality and wreckage of human violence, yet it never revels in it. The narrative is poetically solemn, nuanced yet clear, steeped in the tragedy of existence. The real horror lies not just in the violence itself, but in how it warps perception, slowly numbing its victims. This is not an easy book.

It is a true gift for another human being to reach inside your head and heart, and extract the very thoughts and experiences you have kept buried for years. Childhood trauma is a deeply private and guarded experience. Its shameful, humiliating - it isolates, it is the death of relationships and friendships. It never sleeps, its always the shadow lurking over your shoulder, the voice incessantly berating you in your head, "your not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, talented enough - not enough, not enough, not enough."

Jeanne, her sister Emma, and her mother Claire are terrorized by Louis (father and husband). Jeanne's life is defined by the abuse they all suffered throughout their lives. As she grows up, becomes a woman, has lovers, finds love - how can she let it go? How can she forgive a man that structured her whole life with pain? This is what we, the reader, are yearning to know as this deeply harrowing novel progresses.

This book is beautifully written. No question about it. It is deep, it is moving. As I stated above, if you have experienced any type of childhood trauma, you will be able to identitfy with what Jeanne goes through. Trigger warning though for those who are sensitive to abuse and deep emotional trauma.

The plot is minimal and somewhat directionless in this book, it was wholly character driven, with plot feeling almost unnecessary. The main experience is Jeanne's pain. It spoke to me in profound ways. I know not everyone is a fan of character driven books, but for me, this worked.

I was saddened by the ending, but can understand it, and empathize. Hope is a thing that one clings to, but sometimes it is not enough.

My Favourite is a heart-wrenching, heart-breaking and jarring story of abuse, grief, love and loss.

I found this book difficult to read with its dark and uncomfortable themes but I’m glad I persevered through my uncomfortableness to finish it. It’s the sign of a good book when it rattles the skeletons in your own closet, makes you jump at the monsters under your own bed and forces you to relate with a fictional character so much it scares you - like looking in the mirror and seeing your own trauma and grief.

I always applaud myself for getting through these kinds of stories - it’s an act of rebellion, a sign of healing and a nod to a fellow survivor. Though our stories are drastically different, they are the similarly the same.

I wouldn’t recommend this to the light-hearted, the fragile or the broken. It’s not an easy read in theme or character, but it’s a book that still sits uncomfortably in my mind as a reminder of how abuse can alter a person’s trajectory so drastically and unforgivingly.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this story, I’m sure it will haunt me for a long time. And that’s a good thing.

This was a very emotionally-raw, confronting, precisely written character study about a survivor, Jeanne, of the horrific violent abuse of her father. I found this shocking, very sad, but also compelling and hugely convincing about Jeanne who tries to escape her traumatic childhood, but continues to be dragged back into the terror and destruction it has caused to her family and her own sense of self.

The precise, spare prose was direct, nuanced and evocative. Short novels such as this are often successful in their poetic depth and this was a perfect example of this.

This was not a journey towards complete healing, but rather an honest portrayal of a woman claiming the agency that her mother and sister never had. The anchors she's offered are ultimately rejected as the protagonist chooses choices that may well lead to self-sabotage. It's a decision of risk that could all fall apart but could also lead to redemption and exorcism of her past. The clever subtlety of this novel draws the reader towards asking if this agency will ultimately lead towards a fresh start or if the seeds of self-interest, hatred and violence within Jeanne that are revealed will grow into something which grows darker and destructive. This is not neatly wrapped up and is stronger for it.

This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

Well this hurt. This was beautifully written and wonderfully translated only to tell the most devastating story of how childhood trauma can take over your life and sometimes you can never escape it. The last few pages, specifically the last line of the book shook me to my core and left me speechless. I will never recover.

“I remain in the limbo of chaos. A state of destructive restlessness. And I know I’ll never tear myself away”.

In Switzerland in the 1970s, a father’s torment goes unchecked in a small village in the Valaisian mountains. Whispers and gossip suggest that everyone in the small village knows of the abuse, yet they avert their gaze. Jeanne suffers, however it is her mother and sister that take the brunt of her father’s rage. When a doctor pays a visit after a particularly brutal attack on Jeanne, she is not afraid to tell him that her injuries were caused by her father. When he pretends to misunderstand, she reiterates herself; her injuries are not by accident, it was her father. This doctor’s cowardice remains with Jeanne well into adulthood as tragedy continues to follow her.

Jeanne's life is nothing short of harrowing. She must grapple with her childhood and the despair she still feels towards her mother and the doctor that failed them. Jeanne leaves her small village as soon as she possibly can and we follow her into adulthood as she attempts to build a life replicating some sort of normalcy.

Despite Jeanne’s best efforts, her trauma still simmers steadily beneath this veneer of a normal existence and it doesn’t take much to boil over and for Jeanne to slowly unravel. She is trapped within herself and the most devastating part of this novel is how she cannot break away from the shackles imposed by her childhood. As the reader you feel helpless as Jeanne struggles against herself. Any distance she manages to create between herself and her childhood eventually collapses, leaving you to question if Jeanne will mentally always remain trapped in that house high up in the mountains.

Towards the end of the novel Jeanne must grapple with whether she can ever forgive her father and I thought this posed some very interesting questions for the reader of whether people who do terrible things deserve forgiveness; or whether we merely grant forgiveness upon them, not for their sakes but for our own. Should you grant forgiveness to someone not to ease their pain, but to ease yours? Jeanne is aware of the reasons she should forgive her father, yet it sickens her to try.

My Favourite is a truly extraordinary debut exploring themes of abuse, trauma and grief. The writer does an incredible job of depicting how repressed rage and grief can ripple and spread within a person until it consumes them whole. Jeanne is a deeply complex and understandably flawed character that the reader can’t help but feel anything but despair for. The content of this book is of course not enjoyable within itself but it made for gripping reading and I thought the writing was beautiful and captivating. The book is also fairly short so your sorrow won’t go on for too long I promise.

My Favourite is packed with trauma, pain and the darkness left behind by years of abuse.

Jeanne has been failed by everyone. At a young age she knew she had to leave her abusive father and her mother Claire who seemed to accept her role as another victim of her father. Others were aware of the abuse inflicted by their father unto them, but no one ever helped or cared. As time progresses, Jeanne makes it out by going to a paid boarding school.

Once adults, Jeanna visits her sister Emma and learns many more dirty secrets about her father that she wasn't aware of. Jeanne meets women who she takes as lovers, but there is always something missing, broken within her. Emma's death becomes the catharsis that makes her spiral even more. Followed by her mother's death, Jeanne finds out that her mother was aways there for her even when she didn't know. These deaths will either put Jeanne back on track or end up finishing her entirely.

TW: rape, incest, animal cruelty, domestic violence

Thank you Netgalley and Independent Publishers Group / The Indigo Press

"I'm haunted, tarnished by my past howling at me all through the night, rearing its head when I least expect it. All it takes is the sound of shouting, a plate being broken, a ruckus in the street, and all the fear and hatred resurface...I wallow in my father's violence when I should be growing up."

In the aftermath of My Favourite, I sit in my favorite spot and think about this little life. Sarah paints a picture of a girl shattered and a woman undone. For many, this book may just be the portrait of a sad life; but for me, it is the insight of a person forever haunted by the family that should have loved them the most. There is something that becomes so fundamentally cracked and broken about someone who has experienced childhood abuse, and Sarah captured that essence so perfectly in under two hundred pages. I am breathless and inspired all at once, my heart breaking for all who have to live in the inescapable shadow of familial trauma.
My husband just asked me how I liked this book because he's watched me stare at the wall for the last 10 minutes. I told him I loved it, want a physical copy of it, and that it made me ill. Bravo Sarah, this truly is a blue work of art.

This story is about the relationship between two sisters; one is the unnamed narrator of the story, and the other is Adele, otherwise known as the favourite. Their mother reminded me so much of my own, emotionally unavailable and absent. My mother always says she doesn’t have a favourite and she loves all three of her children equally. My brother and sister and I do not have sibling rivalry as in this story.

I liked the beginning of the book; the resentment the narrator feels shines through the initial pages, and I felt for her. The different ways the sisters were treated sickened me, and I could feel the narrator’s inner turmoil. But as the book continues, the character development starts to feel shallow, and Adel’s life is just touched on via the narrator’s point of view. I wish we got more of Adel’s side of the story.

The pacing of the story is uneven, with a lot of internal dialogue and the going over of memories again and again. I know sometimes it can be a good thing to learn about the character, but they lacked a sense of where the story was going. It was hard to follow along. I wish their attempts to reconcile were more developed and less emotional, which is not usually the case for me. It felt more melodramatic than psychological. It was too simplistic and didn’t feel authentic enough. I found the ending to be very abrupt and unsatisfying. It tries to offer closure, but it lacked the emotional punch I was looking for. There was lots of unresolved tension that needed to be addressed.

The premise was compelling, but the author failed with character development and pacing. I wanted to learn more about family dynamics and the scars that abuse can leave. This was an underwhelming read for such heavy topical matter and was a missed opportunity to explore that. Maybe something got lost in translation?

For such a short novel, this book packs a heavy, heavy punch. The main character, Jeanne, grew up with a violently abusive father, in a community where many knew of the abuse and everyone turned a blind eye to what was going on in the household. Though she escaped to boarding school, the abuse continues to affect her emotionally as an adult, and her mother and sister suffer, as well. The author tells the story in a semi-linear timeline, with flashbacks to memories. The story is heartbreaking and difficult to endure as a reader, as it should be.

Thank you to Netgalley and Indigo Press for the digital ARC of My Favourite by Sarah Jollien-Fardel, translated by Holly James. The opinions in this review are my own.

A heartbreaking story about trauma, forgiveness, and love, beautifully written.

Thank you The Indigo Press and NetGalley for the advanced reader’s copy.

Holy heck. What did I just read… a debut that needs many trigger warnings (abuse to start or read the synopsis at least).

It’s Jeanne’s story. Her voice that starts with the abusive hand of her father and leads to recovery. Or a semi-balance of one.

Bottom line, it won’t be a book for everyone. I’m even a little uncomfortable with it. And I have read many memoirs of pain like this. I also struggled with the affair. It just made me so… ick. Even if it’s a true story and clearly her pain manifesting from childhood, the vibrations of it leading into affairs, switching sexual preferences and many more things.

Also: the doctor. Seriously, the worst parts of society when people ignore the signs and pleas for help.

This book is devastating, it really just throws trauma after trauma at you. It was an easy read, but I still think it could have been shorter. It felt like there was a lot of repetition, and I couldn’t tell if that was due to the translation or if the book was just reiterating the same things each time. It also jumps back and forth a lot which I found a little confusing, and it’s tough to develop the characters well when they’re only in 50 or so pages, so I just didn’t feel attached to much in the story.

My Favorite is a sharp punch to the gut! Jeanne grew up a horribly abusive household. Her father spent years terrorizing her, her mother, and her sister. The consequences of this abuse follow her well into adulthood, and shapes the ways she views the world, and her methods for navigating it.

The novel is written in a forward moving, yet non linear manner. Sarah Jollien-Fardel's writing style is deeply engaging. She handles placing the audience in painful situations with tact, and she always pulls us out before we drown fully in the sorrow. This novel is incredibly heartbreaking, and brings up questions around blame, forgiveness, and the pain inflict on ourselves and others.

I wonder if it is a matter of translation, but at times this novel does feel disjointed, and little unclear. Overall, this was an impactful read. Huge thank you to NetGalley, Independent Publishers Group, and The Indigo Press for the ARC

I wanted to rate the book five stars but the more I think about it, the more disappointed I am.

The book itself is excellent but tragic and very graphic. The themes of domestic abuse are never easy, but in My Favourite, they are very very heavy, and the experience of the main character is unimaginable. The writing style and emotions felt authentic, and there are not so many books, the idea of which is to show the negative impact on the child who grows up in such a family.

My problem with this story is simple. It portrays sexuality in a wrong and even harmful way. I don't know if the author intended it. But unfortunately, it reads like the very familiar to every woman narrative, that she can only be happy with a male partner (the heroine was literally a lesbian the whole book).

I know that anything can happen in reality, but this is fiction, and fiction often contains an idea. I feel like it's harmful to write something like that when lesbian relationships are still considered "not normal" in so many communities. You can cut the male romantic interest out of the plot, and nothing will change. That's why I am giving this book only three stars.

Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a free arc in exchange for an honest review.

An extremely dark and moving exploration of abuse and trauma. This book wont be for everyone as it is very heavy and I even found myself having to put it down frequently to process what I was reading and to give myself breaks so it didn't get too much. I think the author conveyed the protagonists pain very well and I found the storytelling compelling and emotive. A really beautiful but heartwrenching book.

This book was pretty good. It did have some dark moments so those parts were hard to get through. But the storyline was good, it flowed well and it did keep me entertianed and interested while reading.

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

My Favourite is a novel that will stay with you, an unflinching and occasional brutal study on the impact of violence and abuse and the scars it leaves long after the physicality is over. Beautifully written and translated, the prose is tight and the trauma is portrayed tightly and evocatively. Emotions and impact are written thoughtfully making a very compelling if occasionally unbearably sad read. So well done.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC.

While the subject matter was hard at times to read and deal with, the book held my attention and it only took several hours for me to finish because I couldn't put it down. I identified with many parts of the story and therefore could easily place myself in Jeanne's shoes, which is rare for me to do with a character. It's an emotional journey for sure, and a book that's going to stay with me for a long time.

Sarah Jollien-Fardel's novel My Favourite is a poignant exploration of trauma, resilience, and the quest for personal freedom. Set in 1970s Switzerland, it follows Jeanne, who, along with her sister, endures the relentless abuse of their father in a village where silence and complicity reign. Despite the community's awareness of their suffering, no one intervenes, compelling Jeanne to escape to Lausanne in search of autonomy. There, she grapples with her past, finding solace in fleeting relationships and the calming waters of Lake Geneva, yet her unresolved anger continues to shadow her attempts at a new life.

Reading My Favourite was an emotionally intense experience. The author's concise prose and unflinching portrayal of the main character's struggles evoke a profound empathy for those affected by domestic violence. The narrative delves deep into the complexities of guilt, shame, and the enduring impact of childhood trauma, illustrating how the past can shape and sometimes hinder one's pursuit of happiness. It was honestly hard to read sometimes but I'm grateful that I did.