A modernist, free-form, stream-of-consciousness ride through a day in the life of a nameless young woman who lives and works in central London, this book is like nothing else I’ve ever read. Once you get into the flow of the irregularly structured prose, you quickly start to marvel at this entirely accurate (and at times, very funny) depiction of just how many distracting thoughts pop into someone’s head as they navigate each day. The choice of layout forces you to slow down – to truly appreciate each feeling that the protagonist experiences. Disjointed text and lines leaping across pages insist upon you paying proper attention to the narrator – but it’s not long before her frustration at her perceived lack of success and fury at being on the receiving end of the wrong sort of attention – ‘itemised’, as she puts it, by male coworkers – bubbles to the surface. The ‘little scratch’ of the title doesn’t sound like much, but it’s her self-punishing way of managing the frustration and pain over time. It has scarred her; she is trapped by her trauma, haunted by what’s happened to her and unable to shake the thoughts that echo, Groundhog Day style, through her brain at unprovoked moments. An astonishing and truly unforgettable first novel from journalist Rebecca Watson, this book is absolutely not to be missed, especially for the uncannily accurate depiction of pre-pandemic, humdrum, clock-watching life
in a modern office.

As featured in Book Club in February Cambridge Edition Magazine

*Thank you to @faberbooks for sending me a copy of Little Scratch in exchange for an honest review*

(TWs: rape, sexual assault, self harm)

Little Scratch is the evocative and emotional gaze into the mind of a young woman over the space of a 24-hour period, after she has been sexually assaulted. We follow her thoughts as she moves through the day, which shifts between mundane normality and the constant reminders by the things around her of what happened. We see how much of her brain this trauma takes up and how often it is triggered, but we also see a young woman trying to understand her place in the world.

This is a dark read at times, and intense always, but it’s also humorous, and the internal monologue of the protagonist is one that is, truly, dripping in wry commentary and enjoyable to read. Her responses to the world around her are relatable and very, very funny.

It’s told in an experimental style, lacking standard formatting and punctuation, with her thoughts taking up the space they need on the page. You can feel her when she’s closed in, and when she’s trying to break out. I know people have found this challenging to read, not just for the subject matter, but for the formatting.

I would really recommend this book if it’s not something that’s going to trigger you. I read it in one day and was blown away by it. It’s available now ✨

Thank you for early sight of this book. I have posted about it on Twitter and Instagram, and reviewed on Amazon and Waterstones. Due to the unusual aesthetic of this book it was sometimes quite difficult to read in the PDF format, so I may have missed some elements.

Little Scratch is that rarest of things, a novel which is trying to do something different. It's so refreshing to read a new author who is playing with form as well as style. This short debut follows a very relatable unnamed narrator over the course of one day, through her stream of consciousness. The stand out sections for me were around power in the workplace, and it should be noted that there is reference to the aftermath of a sexual assault. Watson scatters her protagonist's thoughts around the page, which won't be to everyone's tastes, but made for an interestingly chaotic reading experience. I'm already looking forward to seeing what she writes next.

This book is a masterpiece. Truly original and ground-breaking, it has funny moments, times where the main character's thoughts are completely relatable, and times when they break your heart. Written as a stream-of-consciousness account of one day, the layout is difficult to grasp at first, but once you understand its anti-linearity, it rewards you with the most accurate account I've ever read of being inside your own mind.
This is the kind of book I would read over and over again and never get tired as I would keep finding new bits that I missed, and see new angles to the inner struggles and turmoils of the main character. Her own desire to talk about her struggles but inability to do so, and her difficulty with harming herself and trying to think of herself more kindly were so poignantly and intimately displayed that you feel as if the author is writing your own experiences. This is really the most rewarding, innovative book I have read in a long time.

DNF/Couldn't Read
Unfortunately I could not read this book because the format on kindle was not readable and was just impossible to get around.

Little Scratch follows the unnamed narrator through a single, ordinary workday. Nothing unusual happens. She wakes slightly hungover, commutes to work, watches the clock; she looks forward to soup at lunch, and has awkward conversations with co-workers. She meets her boyfriend after work, and they go to the pub and then home. Nothing extraordinary happens, yet Watson packs into this short book all the careening, inter-connected thoughts that make up a person's consciousness.

The text is aligned to show multiple layers of thought, often in two columns, so it can take a while to get used to. It reads quickly, like the thoughts tumbling frantically through the narrator’s mind, you are forced to read layers of thought or conversation simultaneously or one after another as they form distinct threads or intertwine.

At the centre of the book is the thing the narrator is not thinking about. The thing that happened to her. (Was done to her). The thing she cannot bring herself to tell anyone about. The thing she is reminded of, constantly, as otherwise innocuous observations or events suddenly drag up memory, anxiety, panic, and numbness.

Little Scratch is brilliant. I could not recommend it enough.

Unfortunately I could not read this book because of the fact that the format on kindle was not readable.

It may it so difficult to follow and in the end I gave up.

Published earlier this month, Little Scratch by Rebecca Watson has been universally praised. In this debut novel we follow a day in the life of a young woman who works in a mundane office job. We’re in her head from the moment she wakes up, to the moment she drops off to sleep.

She’s extremely self-conscious, suffering ever-present anxiety and impulses to self-harm, troubled by a recent trauma. The memories often break through, but of course she hasn’t the time (or possibly the inclination) to fully process the experience. She is assaulted by constant distractions – email, WhatsApp, Twitter and colleagues making small talk, but those intrusive, traumatic thoughts are always there under the surface.

Watson breaks the mould of standard literary form in a few ways here – firstly it’s a stream of consciousness, but this inner monologue is presented in an entirely unique way, with words scattered across the page as different thought processes happen simultaneously and overlap. On some pages there are two (or even three) columns – reading each column makes sense in its own right, but to understand the whole you must cross-reference the columns with each other. It’s certainly not an easy read, but the form successfully reflects the fragmented state of a traumatised mind. I was gripped from the start and raced through the book within an afternoon.

I could empathise with the main character as her experiences mirrored my own in many ways, and I’m sure many young office workers in big cities will feel the same. Frantically getting ready for work with a hangover, battling the morning commute on a packed train, facing the constant scrutiny of an open plan office, dealing with office predators and intrusive bosses, the constant stream of emails, finding brief moments of solace in supportive WhatsApp messages, gulping down bland, hot soup for lunch. Going out for drinks, then doing it all again the next day.

For this woman, the office is a place of fear and hostility that must be endured. She experiences very little positive human interaction during the day, aside from a few encouraging but superficial comments from other women – ‘nice shoes,’ ‘I like your dress’ etc. In a recent article for the FT, where Watson is now Assistant Arts Editor, she admits the novel would be very different if it was set today when many of us are working from home. The traumatic event at the centre of the novel is itself a product of such a toxic office environment.

When we all return to the office, will those old ways and power structures continue on as before?

Let’s hope not..

Did Not Read / Did Not Finish
Unfortunately was unable to read this book as the EPUB format provided for the Kindle was not legible. The double page spread of the book was spread out across a single page, meaning that the words were too small to comfortably read. Zooming in was not possible, so reading the book was not possible.
Unable to review N/A

I found this an astonishing read. The rhythm and the care taken to build this heartbreaking and (yes, still) beautiful book - so much else there within those short pages. Appreciate that it is absolutely not going to be for everyone, but give its pace and styling a chance to light and the fire will catch. Wonderful.

This book is something else.
At times chaotic and at others quiet poetic this truly is a stand out piece of writing.

I note that most people have referred to Little Scratch as a “stream of consciousness” but for me it comes across as more of a dialogue between the conscious mind of our character and her subconscious brain. At times it even reads like the conscious and subconscious we’re battling it out to see which one would get to have their say.

I’d honestly go as far to shelve this one under poetry-albeit not the same poetry of Wordsworth, Keats and Byron et al, but the poetry of a generation that have never lived in peaceful times-those who watched people die live on TV before they hit their teenage years, and who are battling their own minds more openly than any generation before them.

This book is experimental, and confusing, and relatable and clever and I can’t recommend it enough.

I read Rebecca Watson's debut "little scratch" in two breathless sittings.

"Breathless" also describes the unique composition of this novel: In what amounts to one continuous stream of consciousness/less, our narrator takes us through every thought she has in 24 hours sometime after being sexually assaulted.

This book packs a horrifying and familiar punch. Many readers, especially womxn, will understand the immense effort of moving through a single, monotonous day in the wake of trauma.

If you don't like anything experimental - out-of-order prose, stream of consciousness, ontomatopoeic description - proceed with caution. That said, I used to place myself in that category and was surprised by how quickly this book took hold of me.

It's not long in pages or time covered, but I was thrown so deeply into the narrator's thoughts that I felt I knew her intimately after just ~200 pages. With accessibility in mind, I am very curious if/how the style of this book works in audio.

I like the idea of this book but the formatting is all over the place. You really have to work to read this one. Parts are very long winded, a page of the same word written over and over again, it takes a long time to actually get anywhere. I get what the author is trying to do but for me it wasn’t an enjoyable read.

Thank you to Fabre and Fabre for this advance copy.

Little Scratch is a day in the mind of our unnamed protagonist as she wakes, goes to work, then meets her boyfriend at a poetry reading afterwards. But in a real insight into her mind, this novel is written as a stream of consciousness, detailing every thought and tangent as she experiences them. It exposes the mundanities of her day job and the trauma, anxiety, and self harm she goes through as she exists in the same building as her boss who raped her, and the conflicting messages in her mind as she tries to process how to go on.

I have absolutely no idea where to begin writing this review.

Let's start with the format, shall we? I hated it. It was actually painful trying to get through this, it was that difficult. This book was one long sentence, all 200 pages of it, and that made it incredibly difficult to first find a good place to stop reading and put it down but also to pick it back up and find a good place to slip back into it. Yes there may be commas as some of the only punctuation in there, and line breaks, but this means nothing when the sentences keep going. Also, there are times the writing breaks off and enters two columns down the page - sometimes these columns are to be read separately, sometimes you read it like normal, straight across both columns then down to the next line, but which one was it? You'd come to a new page and not know where the fuck to carry on reading.

And I KNOW that by doing this, Watson was trying to show the characters train of thought, and the multitasking and the tangents that we go off on, but it doesn't work as a book. It doesn't work as a piece of literature because it was impossible to follow. Not only that but half of didn't make sense. Was this because I wasn't reading the words in the way that I've been taught to read the whole of the rest of my life? Was this because I was trying to read two separate sentences which had just been thrown up in the air and all chucked together? Who knows, but for most of this interal monologue I was lost.

And if it hadn't been an ARC, if it hadn't been so sort, and if it wasn't somewhat quick to get through, I definitely would have put this down and not finished it. There was no joy in reading it because it was like being set an impossible task. And there was no pay off at the end once I'd finished, not even with the content of the story where I could go 'I totally understand why it had to be written like this so I could understand this character.' No. Nothing like that. I HATED the fact this book was written this way, and I was so annoyed at that fact that that is clouding my judgement of how the author dealt with this character's experiences and thoughts, because I had to work so much to figure out what they were.

So, the content of this story. Boring, mostly. Monotonous. I'm pretty sure our character carried out one task in her whole work day, went for lunch, scratched her legs, hated her boss. Which, yes I know I'm being blase there at her self harm and encountering her rapist, but that stuff wans't brought up until well into the actual book. So for the most part it was pretty boring.

The character's reactions and her response to her boss who has raped her were actually pretty well dealt with. There is conflict in her mind, should she report him? She knows most of those reports go unactioned. She knows men get away with it. She knows she might not be believed. She knows the statistics. She knows it might ruin things with her boyfriend (who, by the way, is referred to as 'my him' throughout and is so annoying and grating). The fact that she deals with all this by scratching her legs is accurate, a coping mechanism seen after a lot of trauma.

And I get that, and I appreciate that in this book. I just hated the way it was written. And I can't get past that, I can't enjoy any aspect of this book because it was a pain in the arse to actually understand it. I think maybe it would have come across better in audiobook format? If there was someone else interpreting the formatting and sentence structure of this book so I could focus on the character and the content. But I'm still not sure I would be a massive fan of it.

Hopefully this book does appeal to some people - I imagine a lot of it's target audience would find the way it is written so refreshing and honest, but unfortunately I am not one of them. I've held off for a couple days after release day to publish this, but it just was not for me in any way.

Little Scratch tells the story of a day in the life of an unnamed woman, told in an experimental way. This is usually my type of book but unfortunately the format doesn't quite translate across into the ebook format with the font being too small (making it larger makes it blurry) and the format doesn't fit the page so I had to give up.

I am going to look out for this book in physical form as I am interested in this novel.

I was initially drawn to this book as it is written in a poetry style format, which I always tend to love. However, this is completely unique and unlike any other book in verse, I have ever read. It challenges the reader to piece together the narrator's thoughts and memories as the story moves from the bottom to the top of the page and from right to left. Although being a relatively short book, it has no distinct chapters or page breaks meaning it is a constant flow of storytelling. I think the lack of chapters worked amazingly in this story as it encourages the reader to say engaged and read on as there are no natural rests in the story to take a break, which works well with the idea that the narrator's mind finds no peace and can't shut down.

This book definitely pushed me outside my comfort zone, both in terms of its take on the poetry style and the content. It includes graphic images of assault and the readers get an insight into the real thoughts and feelings of a rape victim. I would have loved this book to discuss the issue of rape and sexual assault a lot more and provide the narrator and the reader with some finality and closure. I think there is a fine line between exploring important issues, such as rape, to give the reader a better understanding or to demonstrate it's destruction and including harrowing topics in a book just for the sake of it, almost like a 'buzz word'. I understand further elaboration of the topic in this book would subtract from the literary merit, however, authors should be careful with how the discussion of these topics could impact their readers.

Take your typical day, and write down every single thought, feeling and converstation as it happens. That's little scratch. A short, stream of consciousness novel, focusing on one day in an unamed womans life. Totally different to anything I've ever read before, reading like modern poetry, Rebecca Watson experimental debut novel explores several difficult themes including office politics, anxiety, self-harm, sexual violence, rape and harrassment at work.

I found this so immersive and true to life. So much of the narrator was relatable, blunt, sarcastic with a dry sense of humour but also how she describes her anxiety being all encompassing and the feeling of being over powered by it wholy converying the effects of trauma.

This definitely isn't a book for everyone, but I'm interested in seeing what Watson's future novels look like & I really want to listen to the audio book now based on other interesting reviews!

I am normally all for experimental writing but, on this occasion, I couldn't get into it; a case of 'it's not the book it's me.'
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for review.

'Little Scratch' is one of the hardest books I've read in long time. It takes every single emotion you have (and some I didn't know I had) and sets them all alight. Empathy, anger, sadness... But also genuine hope and a sense of pride for the way people can put one foot in front of the other and still function after horrific experiences.

Human beings are resilient, but not invincible. Watson cleverly and sensitively shows that daily routines and the mundane repetitive tasks can be a form of shelter I never expected.

Trigger warning to anyone that has experienced any sort of sexual violence, but I can promise it will be worth the read.

This is an extraordinary novel - relatively slight but demanding the reader’s attention due to the unusual format and the stream of consciousness narration. Little Scratch documents every single thought in one day of the life of the unnamed narrator, a young woman who has recently suffered a sexual assault in the workplace and is trying to ignore the intrusive thoughts she’s having about it. As well as a moving and in-depth exploration of the trauma the protagonist has experienced, this is also a great novel about being young, rushing for the tube with a hangover, dealing with housemates you don’t get along with and dates on a Friday night, as well as a study of the workplace familiar to anyone who has clock-watched when they’d rather be anywhere other than their desk. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, highly recommended.