Resin was superb, again with an authentic child’s voice, in a claustrophobic tale of the lengths one man will go to in order to protect his family. With its fairytale quality, this was creepy and macabre in equal measure, and with its encroaching forest setting, the landscape used seemed to perfectly mirror the dark tale that unfolds.

After reading this book in a single, gut wrenching sitting, I was left breathless, a little freaked out and wondering what the hell I'd just read. This brief but affecting story is grim, creepy, tense, disturbing, stomach churning - all that good stuff! The quality of the writing is sublime, the story telling flawless. The characters are awful - in the best way! - and it is testament to the author's talent that the monstrous acts of Jens don't stop the reader understanding him as a loving and loved human being that is merely reacting in a fully understandable manner to the awful things that have happened to him. Liv is a fascinating character - is she just an innocent bystander? Is she genetically predisposed to being a murderous weirdo?! It's all so horrible...and so good! The nasty little twist at the end is a treat too. But on a serious note, it does explore the effects that loss and grief can have on the mental health of vulnerable individuals and there are moments of poignancy that are extremely affecting. Overall, this is a hugely thought provoking and entertaining book.

I thought Ane Riel- Resin was superb, again with an authentic child’s voice, in a claustrophobic tale of the lengths one man will go to in order to protect his family. With its fairytale quality, this was creepy and macabre in equal measure, and with its encroaching forest setting, the landscape used seemed to perfectly mirror the dark tale that unfolds.

I found this title really fresh and compelling and really struggled to put it down. Thoroughly heart breaking at times it must be said. Liv is such a little trooper I found I kept going through the grimmer parts of the book just for the hope of her escape. You know when you wonder how those stories on the news could possibly happen? Here's a detailed description of a fictional gradual descent.

The first sentence of this book actually gives a glimpse into how dark and disturbing Resin actually is, it’s definitely not one for the faint hearted as it’s deals with some rather uncomfortable and horrifying subjects, but in the author’s defence there are only a few vivid scenes and the rest is left to the reader’s imagination. Translated from Danish, Ane Riel’s novel is traumatic, emotional and deeply disturbing but on the plus side it’s beautifully written, rich in atmosphere and at times bone chilling creepy

Full review will be added once I’ve shared to my blog

A Wee Summary
Resin is one of those novels that it’s hard to say that you ‘enjoyed’ because it makes you feel so on edge, so deeply uncomfortable. So perhaps I can say that this is an unsettling but good read.

Liv is six years old when her father reports her missing and dead. She lives isolated on an island with her mother and father, hidden from the world. Her father, Jens Horder, was brought up here too, on the Head, a small island attached to a larger one by a strip of land known as the Neck.

Her Grandfather had been a carpenter and instilled a love of trees and nature into his younger son. Liv never met her Grandfather but she had gleaned a similar interest from her father.

Nowadays, the house doesn’t look as it did in her Grandfather’s day – there is stuff everywhere. Her Dad hoards things, convinced that they will be of use, scared that anyone will try to take them away from him. That’s why he told the police that Liv was dead, then no-one could take her.

As I read and uncovered the history of the Horder family, I became increasingly unsettled, and yet unable to stop reading.

My Thoughts
While this book is dark and disturbing, it also captures the emotional relationship between parent and child. Liv’s innocence of youth and her sheltered life add to this, providing quite a contrast from the constant foreboding feeling I had as I read.

It is also a very atmospheric novel. Riel has captured this island location beautifully, with the feel of isolation further compounding the story.

I’m finding Resin a very difficult book to describe without giving away any spoilers. I should give you a warning though that this book contains animal cruelty and infant death. Consequently, it won’t be a book for everyone.

What I can say is that this is a disturbing, but memorable read that will keep you on edge from the first page until the very last.

Translated from the Danish, Ane Riel’s novel is a deeply disturbing, yet hypnotically engaging, story of family, of loss and of preserving memories. It would be unkind to give away any of the twists and turns of the plot, but the basic premise is this: Jens and Maria live on a tiny peninsula, keeping themselves apart from the rest of the world. Their daughter Liv dies when she is six years old; at least that’s what they tell the authorities, to stop the possibility of her being taken away. In ever increasing horror we witness the events unfold, mostly through the child’s viewpoint but also through the letters of the mother, so obese she is confined to her bed and having lost the ability to talk. It is only when the pub landlord Roald, having become suspicious and wondering who the child is, wanders onto the headland that we see though his eyes the true nightmare of the state of the cottage and its land. What unfolds then hurtles the book towards its end.

This is an unsettling, bruising book. I found myself at times almost reading through my fingers as the story moves towards its climax. And right up to the last sentence the book keeps its surprises coming. The metaphor of the resin tapped from the trees by Jens and his daughter becomes one of how we preserve memories, how we can literally capture time – in the same way that an old hourglass is stored horizontally so that time is stopped. I was reminded of two books as I was reading this: ‘Room’, with its focus on how we see a confined space through the eyes of a child; and ‘The Wasp Factory’, with its androgynous central character and troubling violence.

I suspect this book will live with me for a while – some scenes are genuinely disquieting. But it is gripping, and I cared about the characters. Liv’s mother writes in one of her letters: ‘I don’t know whether to call our life a fairy tale or a horror story. Perhaps it’s a bit of both. I hope that you can see the fairy tale.’ A really wonderful book.

(With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.)

Content warning for child abuse, animal abuse, and unpleasant language used around weight and size (I'm not sure whether you would class it as body-shaming or not, but it definitely didn't feel good to read). It's also generally just quite a disturbing book, so if you're interested in reading but are concerned about the subject matter, let me know and I can give more information about specific topics.

**Please be advised there will be minor spoilers for the book in this review, simply because the synopsis provides such limited information about the actual substance of the book that writing a review without giving away more information than that is nigh on impossible**

Onto the review! The book follows Liv and her family - her twin brother Carl, father Jens, mother Maria, and grandparents Else and Silas - and their lives in a small house on the outskirts of Korsted, the largest town on the small island where they live. Though the majority of the story focuses on Liv, there are sections from the perspective of other family members, and some before her birth, about the childhoods of Jens and his older brother, Morgens. As Liv grows up, her father's behaviour becomes more erratic, and her understanding of the world becomes more and more shaped by what she learns from him. As his metal state deteriorates, what happens on the Horder property starts to deviate more from what might be considered 'right', and the outside world starts to close in around them.

Liv is the main character of the book, though we do hear from other characters at various points. I thought her voice was well-developed and realistic, which is often not the case with authors writing young children, particularly those growing up in unusual and difficult circumstances. There are some amusing points where Liv has seen or heard about something that she doesn't understand but which the reader will, and her attempts to reason out an explanation can be charming. Through her parents, we see more of how things have reached this point, and how relatively easy it can be for people to essentially fall off the grid. I'm not sure I particularly liked any of the characters other than Liv, but I did find them fascinating to read about.

Most of the book takes place in and around the Horder's house and land, but we see other parts of the island through a couple of outside characters, and through Liv and Jens' trips to gather food and other objects. To me, it felt like an incredibly claustrophobic place, full of gossip but where people don't actually speak about their problems or true feelings. Again, it's easy to see why someone like Jens might have retreated away from the wider community.

I have to commend both Riel's writing and the translation here. I've not read the original, but this didn't feel like a translated work, and I mean that in a positive way. There was none of that stilted, awkward structure you often get with translated work, and given the praise the original received, it seems to me that the translator, Charlotte Barslund, has done a really great job with this book. I think part of the reason I struggled so much with it is because it's so well-written - the descriptions are incredibly vivid, and there's so much tension that I found some sections quite nerve-wracking to read. I can appreciate why this book was so well-received, and why the majority of the reviews on Goodreads are positive.

There is one character in the story who, over the course of the book, gains a significant amount of weight and ends up confined to a bed. Although the treatment of this character isn't exactly fat-shaming (I think due mostly to how limited the influence of the outside world is), it's definitely unpleasant. This character is essentially at the mercy of everyone around them, and their desire for increasingly greater amounts of food ends up putting the other characters in danger. Though no characters are really treated well in this book, I did feel like the treatment of this character and they way they are described physically was particularly cruel.

This is, overall, a pretty disturbing book. Had I had more information about the content, I'm not sure I would have picked up the book at all, as it's not the kind of thing I generally enjoy reading. Would I recommend it? I'm honestly not sure. If you're not going to be upset by the content, it might be worth reading due to the quality of the writing, and the charming and sometimes creepy perspective of Liv.

The best final sentence to a novel I've ever read. This book a surprising mixture of tense family thriller and quaint Scandinavia isolated community life plus a dash of naive child narrator. Love it.