Classic sunsoaked summer reading, this: big house, seaside, family secrets, golden teenagers with maximal hormones behaving badly towards each other. Identify with the awkward, private narrator, simultaneously love and loathe the callous Kit, actor and showoff. Great fun.

What I liked about the book was how easy it was to read, the writing style was easy to digest and the scene setting of the seaside town was relatable. I’m afraid that’s where the things I like end! The story moved so fast with such little description that I’m still not entirely sure what happened all the way through. There was very little description or development of characters and the whole thing felt very rushed. I think as a storyline it had potential but it wasn’t padded out enough and many of the sub storylines were so vague they may as well have not been included.

So, I'm finding it quite hard to explain how I feel about this book. It's not quite Rich People Problems, but it's sort of adjacent to it. It's the story of one family and one summer - and in particular of a teen boy who everyone falls in love with and who knows about the power that he has. It's great - but in a really subtle way. I was reading it waiting for something awful to happen, but that's not what this is about. It's cleverer than that - it's about everyday events and normal summer things. The climax is a tennis match and it's so good. There aren't a lot of really good sport-in-book scenes in novels - but this is one of them, near the top of my list (the top being the cricket scene in Murder Must Advertise). So good.

It's being shelved on Goodreads as YA and it's published by a YA imprint but I think I could give it to someone who "doesn't read YA" and they wouldn't notice. NetGalley has it as YA and women's fiction and it really is in that in-between land.

Although I enjoyed reading this book there were a few elements that puzzled me.

The first being that we are never fully introduced to the main character/narrator. Neither their name, age or gender is ever revealed. This confused me for a lot of the book. Had I forgotten their name? I actually had to flick back to the start where each of the other siblings are introduced to make sure I hadn’t missed it.

For me the character was female and the oldest of her siblings. I have read reviews where others read this character as male or non binary. They will have had a completely different experience reading this book than I did which I guess is very clever of the author, but a little infuriating for the reader. I couldn’t stop wondering who the character was or if/when we would find out, which I found quite distracting.

I felt the plot went through peaks and troughs of pace which made it a bit stilted at times and rushed at others. The climax of the story was surprising but again felt a little rushed and came completely out of the blue so left me feeling a bit confused again. Family life was depicted fairly well, everyone off doing what they wanted for the summer.

Overall it was a pleasant enough read full of teenage emotion with a couple of twists and turns. If you can brush away the confusion then it’s an enjoyable beach book.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing a copy of the book for an open and honest review.

The Great Godden is an easy, comfortable read with great characters and atmosphere. As always Meg Rosoff grabs you and drags you into her wonderful, lyrical world.

My first read by author Meg Rosoff was a wonderful and enlightening experience!

In The Great Godden my attention was immediately captured with an intriguing and ambiguous short opening chapter. In this beautifully written, coming of age novella, the reader meets Kit and Hugo. Kit is the good looking, irresistible brother, whilst Hugo is the more insular, silent one. Their American actress mother has little time for either of her teenage sons. In a heady, lazy summer of fun, intrigue, teenage angst, and deception marked by planning for a wedding, learning lines for Hamlet, and the traditions of male bonding, are these two brothers from LA everything they seem?

I adored this story of love, discovery, longing and lust. The extra element of mystery added by Meg Rosoff in not naming her narrator was a neat touch that worked for me, and I spent some time reflecting on who that person might have been. An insightful, enthralling and memorable read that I found totally riveting.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Bloomsbury Publishing via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

This is a tricky one. I liked it very much.It was atmospheric and had a great build up of tension. Having said that I would only recommend it to a particular kind of teen reader - I'm not sure it has wide teen appeal.

A splendid and welcome return to YA from Meg Rosoff whose books are always such a treat. Short, full of angst, The Great Godden fits well in the traditon of those summer coming of age tales, à la Bonjour Tristesse. Many will consider her style “literary”, rather a rare reflection for YA (sadly and wrongly) and this makes the book equally attractive for adult readers and therefore a great crossover. But more importantly the writing style the turn of phrases, the language used, they all show Rosoff’s great respect for her potential young readership, which for me is summed up perfectly in this sentence: “When people express nostalgia for you, I always suspect they have inadequate recall”
. Rosoff gets her young readers, and never talks down to them wand she does so so well. Perfect summer reading!

This was a strange book . . . I didn't really get it? But I kind of liked the atmosphere? But I'm also not entirely sure what the point was? It all felt very detached, and I only realised when reading other people's reviews that we never learn the narrator's name. I didn't even notice that while reading. It's a very quick read - 245 pages with large font and margins - and it felt like it lacked substance. Very much, as another reviewer put it, a "hipster book".

The Great Godden by Meg Rosoff is a young adult coming of age book with an almost timeless quality to it. Set around one family’s summer trip to their holiday home on the coast, a house which is described as being “picturesque and annoying in equal measure”, it is an intriguing and immersive read about what happens when there is a cuckoo in the nest.

The family at the centre of the book head to this house as soon as school ends for the summer. There are four children, the beautiful and enigmatic Mattie, her horse mad sister Tamsin, their brother Alex who is obsessed with the natural world and our protagonist whose name and gender are never revealed. There is an overflow house on the beach where Hope and her boyfriend Mal stay. Hope is described as “Dad’s much younger cousin; Dad was twenty-two when Hope was born” and she teaches drama at University. Mal is an “insanely handsome” actor and source of all things fun. This summer is going to filled with sun, drunkenness and games culminating with the annual sailing trip and tennis tournament.

As our protagonist says, “The actors assembled. The summer begins”. Enter stage left the Godden brothers; Kit and Hugo. Fresh from LA, they are the sons of a famous actress who just happens to be Hope’s godmother. She is a distant mother, shipping her sons off to boarding school and sending them to stay with various friends and family members in the holidays.

Kit is the beautiful elder brother whose arrival ruffles feathers amongst the assembled family. Hugo is the night to Kit’s day. Whilst Kit glows and is an exuberant force, Hugo is quiet, distant and remote. Sixteen year old Mattie makes a bee line for Kit and for a while it seems like they’re going to have a lovely summer romance, but Kit is not all that he seems.

This is an alluring read about an enigmatic young man who holds a group of people in his thrall. There’s a hint of darkness in the way that everybody seems to flock to him like moths to a flame. I don’t want to say too much about what happens but suffice to say that the depiction of power dynamics, gas-lighting and toxic energy is incredibly well done and ever so powerful.

This is a young adult novel though, so lots is hinted at rather than explicitly explored and the onus is on the reader to fill in the gaps. Whilst I quite liked this distance I would also like to read a grittier, more grown up version too because the themes are so important. The allure is in what is not said or shown but this did leave me wanting more, particularly when it came to some of the relationships.

It took me a whole to realise that I had no idea what our protagonists name or gender was. In fact I was halfway through the book before I realised that I didn’t know either of these things and it turned everything on its head for me. For various reasons which I won’t go into (sorry, but no spoilers) it also means that the book can be read in a few different ways. It’s so clever and such an interesting narrative device.

I’d describe The Great Godden as being a bit of We Were Liars mixed with the sultriness of Tigers In Red Weather, a dash of I Capture The Castle and a soupcon of Call Me By Your Name. It’s utterly readable, completely immersive and for a short novel (its only 256 pages) it packs a lot in. Great characterisation, some beautiful imagery and as I mentioned earlier a timeless quality – if it wasn’t for the occasional mention of technology I wouldn’t have known it was set in the present. This is a great summer novel. Totally immersive with a hint of darkness it’s one of those books which gets firmly under your skin. Highly recommended.

For a bit of "Me" time The Great Godden is a light, fun read to spend a few hours with and Meg Roscoff will transport you to summer at the beach.
The story line is a bit obvious at times, you can guess chapters ahead what is coming up and the two Godden brothers a bit cliched. The ending is also a bit flat and doesn't feel like it fits with the story.

I was given a copy of The Great Godden by NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

This is a great easy summer read. I finished it in 2 sittings. Set in a summer holiday house it is the story of one family when everything changes. It offers sharp insights into teen thinking and behaviours. A quite lovely book.

More of a diary entry from one hot, hormone-fuelled, final summer before adulthood and the glamorous son of a movie star who glides into the lives of our narrator and family with ruinous effect. Meg Rosoff’s style is lyrical and captivating - this is a short book, but even still slips down faster than you would expect - but there’s far less intrigue to the plot than the description implies. It’s partly down to the book’s central conceit: an unnamed eldest child of indeterminate gender, whose siblings are reduced to one-line footnotes - the Instagrammer, the horsey sister, the younger brother who really likes bats (!). With little insight into the narrator’s dreams, motivations or inner life, I found it hard to connect with the story on anything other than a surface level - hazy, indolent and pleasurable a surface as it was.

The annual, safe, repetitive, but wonderful family summer holiday of the narrator is disturbed one year by the arrival of the sons of a Hollywood film star. Kit Godden is a beautiful, golden, self-assured, polite and friendly young man who fits in immediately. Hugo, his brother, is his dark antithesis.
This is a story of first loves and relationships, coming of age and learning about the world; but it’s also a story of the damage that people can inflict when love is abused.

A wealthy family spending a summer at the beach; bored teenage sisters, sibling rivalry, and the convenient arrival of a gorgeous American teenage boy at a neighbouring house. It seems on the surface like a fairly sultry, steamy YA novella about unrequited love, with plenty of lingering glances and loaded silences, but there is rather more to it than that. As the summer progresses, and relationships become tangled, there is an element of manipulation, gas-lighting, dishonesty and cruelty.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now was one of my favourite books as a teenager, and apparently she's not lost her touch. The Great Godden summons the feeling of being on the verge of growing up - of making momentous decisions for the first time and realising how your actions affect others, of figuring out where you belong. Only as a young person do you have those listless summers with no responsibilities but to enjoy yourself. Learning not to judge people by first impressions is also an important lesson here, demonstrated by the two brothers. A great book for anyone of any age.

I really enjoyed this - with its coastal setting and romantic teenage intrigue it's a perfect summer read. I loved the narrator and her rambling family with their annual traditions, while the inevitable shake-up that Kit's arrival brings makes for a compelling book..

I simultaneously like and dislike the writing style of the book, it was interesting to read a book from a narrator we do not know much about and who is observant but at the same time I could not connect to the story because of this. I also felt that the character was very judgemental when I expected them to be more observant and impartial.

The characters were all okay, the narrator did not have any strong feelings for most of the characters and the focus was on their actions/dialogue which meant I did not really care for them. The plot revolves around a summer spent in a holiday house and nothing interesting happens in terms of the plot however the book was not boring instead it focused on the interactions between the characters. It is quite a sad book especially regarding the treatment of one of the sisters and the narration style really emphasises the behaviour of one of the characters in the book.

I did not like the ending, I just expected something else to happen in terms of what happened afterwards.

3/5

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in return for an honest review!

This book has the hazy golden shimmer of messy teen summers. It's a great read. The narration is quick, witty, and self-aware throughout, and you read through this whole Godden summer as if you're living it--or hearing about it on the phone from a very dear friend.

I loved this book. Rosoff's writing is always surprising and unconventional, and she has a track-record of shunning norms when it comes to gender and relationships. Most notably, in The Great Godden, is the gender of the main character. We're never given one. Nor a name. Some people are simply neither "he" nor "she", and that should be recognised in books. The best bit? It's never mentioned. It's not a big deal--and it's not a big deal that the love interest, Kit, flirts outrageously with people regardless of gender.

I loved it so much I pre-ordered the hard-back.

Highly recommend for anyone wanting an unapologetically honest and brutal commentary on adolescence in the hazy days of summertime!

My god, she’s good.

People who don’t know Meg Rosoff’s work may be lulled by the simple premise and the low page count, but there is always far, far more lurking under the surface, and The Great Godden is no exception. Even as a fan of Rosoff’s for 15 years, I was taken a back by this novel and I adored it.

The writing is beautiful, the characters rich and the story sharp and twisting. The Great Godden is a masterful take on toxic relationships and the summer that changes everything. Absolutely glorious.

And I *love* it when you get to the end of the novel, look back at the title and get a little jolt of satisfaction when it has that whole extra layer to it.