I wish I could give more than 5*.
What an excellent and clever book. Written through the eyes of two children, Amy and Lan, about their lives growing up in a type of commune. Living on a farm where children run wild and have adventures, animals are born with everyone watching and learning. There’s beautiful sunsets, sunrises, plus torrential rain and snow. However, this idyllic life cannot go on when there’s a shift between the grownups.
The end was written so beautifully and with such emotion.
I loved this book!

I struggled with this book, possibly because of the child's point of view. It is not easy to write a compelling book for adults from a child's point of view, although others have done it such as Kit De Waal.
The set up is good - a number of families all living together in an old farm, trying to make a living from the land. I wasn't compelled to keep reading however which is a shame.

This novel qualifies as a coming-of-age novel, or perhaps that should be ‘coming-of-family’ novel. It introduces us to Amy and Lachlan (the Lan of the title). Also in the mix are Lan’s mother and step-father, Amy’s parents, and another couple by the name of Martin and Rani. The eight of them decide to move to rural Herefordshire to set up a commune. If this sounds very twee, fear not as the novel also depicts the less-than-perfect facets of life as a big blended family in an isolated spot and on very little money. I was initially doubtful that the points of view – the innocent, childlike voices of Amy and Lan – would be successful in portraying the novel’s serious interpersonal issues, but Jones pulls it off very well. The daily tribulations are depicted very well and the characters, however idiosyncratic, are very believable. This is an excellent thought-provoking novel and a good introduction to this talented writer – I was glad I had the chance to read it and would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for my free ARC that allowed me to produce this review.

Total surprise of a book! Loved this novel and was completely gripped. I haven't read any other books by Sadie Jones but I had thought that they were previously packaged with a more mass-market angle whereas this book (and package) is literary and brilliant! It could have been written by Sarah Moss or Mellissa Harrison.
I loved the farmyard setting and coming-of-age plot. Plus the pace. The only negative was the backwards and forwards between families - it was hard to tell who was who at times but I think that was the point. Amy and Lan are so close growing up that it does become somewhat a blur. I was quite devastated by the ending but I think that's the point too!!! Brilliant and I hope this book does well.

The fullness of a rural childhood

This a beautiful book, in the sense that the author shows us beauty even in the hardships, disappointments and tragedies of growing up on a shared farm in the English/Welsh borders.

Having three and a bit families together on a single isolated property requires a fair amount of self-discipline if it is to be completely successful and some of the adults in this story lack that. One of the messages of this book is that if you go to live beyond the ken of the authorities and most social conventions, and you lack self-discipline, there’s a pretty good chance that you will betray those who love you and thereby betray yourself. But the greater message is that setbacks, failure and even betrayal only mean that there’s more of the story still to come. Perhaps we should be careful about seeking the modern must-have goal of “fulfillment”, because fulfillment tends to be the end of the story!

The children in this story change as they grow up, whilst remaining true to themselves and loyal to those, animals and landscape as well as humans, that they love.

This is one of my favourite books this year. I loved the story of these two children and their families living on a farm. I was caught up in the lives of them all and enjoyed the self sufficiency of the farm. I felt like I knew these people and the ending made me feel emotional.
Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

In this novel Sadie Jones tells the story of five years living at Frith, a communal farm, through the perspective of two children, Amy and Lan (Lachlan). It is an easy, engaging and enjoyable read which does not shy away from the hardships of farm life or the realities and frailties of human relationships. There was a lot of gentle humour in the book and some interesting characters, child, adult and animal.
I initially assumed the story would follow the characters through to adulthood but in fact it stops not long after they start secondary school. This did leave me a little bit thinking 'so what?' at the end of the book. I do think Jones has written well from a child's perspective and describes the farm setting really well. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the visits from the city living tourists to the newly established Tumbledown Cottage rental on the farm. Some of the adult characters were rather stereotypical and/or one dimensional. I include in this the character of Gail, Lan's Mum, who considers herself a bit of a white witch and takes every opportunity to seduce her best friend's husband while taking no responsibility for her children or the work of the farm.
Overall I enjoyed the book but do not rate it as highly as Jones' earlier works.
Thanks to the publisher via Net Galley for a complimentary ARC of this title in return for an honest review.

This story strongly reminded me of Lindgren’s Bullerby Children…only hardcore.
The two narrators, Amy and Lan, are growing up on a smallholding shared by three families plus lodgers and people that just forgot to leave. Despite financial worries of the smallholders, the children quite happily live on the farm with its many animals - idyllic to a point, yet a very basic lifestyle.
The adults, having left their jobs in the city for rural life in the West Country, battle demons and temptations that are only glimpsed by the children.
Not grim and gritty like Jones’s “Outcast”, but no sugar-coated tale of Eden either.

I struggled a bit with this book. I really liked the descriptions of the farm and it evoked wonderful images but the writing style from the children's perspective was sometimes confusing as to who was talking. Overall I enjoyed it though.

I loved this wonderful book about the lived experience of two young children on a farm that doubles up as a commune. The story charts the rise and fall of a social experiment in communal living, where everyone lives their truth until it gets too much to bear.
The brilliance of seeing things from the children's point of view is both their take on it, and what they miss because they are not old enough. The reader is cleverly shown glimpses of the anger and resentment behind the ideal of communal life.
I also appreciated the relative gentleness if the book, as Sadie Jones's last book still gives me nightmares

The story is told by two children living in a sort of commune in the countryside. They are born within days of each other and have known each other from birth. As the book progresses, the reader comes to realize that life is not so perfect as it appears in Frith (the name of the group of houses) . The relationships between the adults are described as seen through the innocent eyes of children and you see that Amy's father and Lan's mother are becoming an item.
I liked most of the characterizations, some are more fleshed out hen others, but this reflects the viewpoints of the children telling the story. The ending leaves things up in the air (I won"t say anymore) and I will be thinking about it for a few days yet.
Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

I absolutely adored this book, I loved that it was told from a child’s perspective, really gave it an edge. It just goes to show that children are more astute than we give them credit for.

5 of five stars

A beautiful depiction of the complexities of adult relationships seen through the eyes of children. I loved seeing how Amy and Lan’s understanding of events changed as they grew older, as well as how the dual perspectives gave an insight into how their own friendship changed as they matured. The descriptions of day to day life on the farm felt very real, with the rural idyll regularly undermined by the harsh realities of farming life.

Really great book, could not put it down. Characters are compelling and the story draws you in from the first page.

4+ stars

This is a coming of age novel told alternately across a five-year period (2005 to 2010) by Amy and Lan (Lachlan). Lan’s mum Gail and stepdad Jim, Amy‘s parents Harriet and Adam along with Rani and Martin Hodge club together to buy and renovate Frith, a Herefordshire farm where they all live in different cottages. I love the self-sufficiency element but it makes no bones about the difficulties, though initially for Lan and Amy and the other kids, Frith feels like heaven.

The alternating points of view works extremely well, although it’s sometimes hard to differentiate one child from the other which may be deliberate as they do seem like halves of a whole. The adventure and magic of Frith comes across strongly in their narratives and I’m under a Frith spell, it enchants me. It’s vivid and very funny in places though the tone changes towards the end. Some scenes are such fun picturing such as Gabriella Christmas, the calf in the snug!

The characterisation is excellent and you are prompted to remember via Amy and Lan just how insightful, perceptive and truthful young kids are in their incisive remarks on the adults . They are all fleshed out, your picture Harriet working hard on the farm, Gail not so much, lovely Jim, good looking and noisy Adam who is also a tad work shy. The dynamics between the adults and how it changes brings a darker tone later on in the novel with money being short leading to disagreements and with different desires and directions. Outsiders perceptions of Frith life is illuminating too. The dynamics between the children are less clear but you realise Bill is, well, Bill.

Overall, this is a very good blend of the beautiful and magical with the raw brutality and occasional harshness of a farming life, which has its sadnesses and its combined with sensitivity and heartache.

I enjoy this very much, Sadie Jones is an excellent and vivid storyteller.

With thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK/Vintage/Chatto and Windus for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

The Amy and Lan of the title are childhood friends, whose families give up the rat race to go back to the land and try self sufficiency. They buy a huge ramshackle piece of land with various buildings and build a community together. The story is told through the eyes of the children, so is often funny and poignant. It's a lovely coming of age narrative that I enjoyed immensely.

Amy and Lachlan (Lan) are best friends. They live with 3 sets of adults communally on a farm in SouthWest England. The novel starts when they are seven years old and up no good with no supervision messing about with an axe in the barn. The story follows them through to their teenage years in this "free range" lifestyle and is narrated through their eyes using child like language whilst revealing the history of the adults and the stresses and strains of their lives.. The narration by children didn't really work for me. I found it all a bit dull and tedious. I didn't feel connected to the adults or feel I knew enough about them and got a bit bored by the daily lives of the children and the conceit of watching and describing events through them.

Amy and Lan

Amy and Lan are practically twins. They celebrate their birthdays on the same day and are seldom, if ever, apart. Living commune- style with their parents on a farm in the South of England, this novel describes an idyllic and bucolic setting I thought only existed in dreams. And maybe it proves I was right.

Of course there is death, manure and danger on the farm, but Amy and Lan glide through this with joyous immersion in a childhood many of us dreamt of for ourselves and our own children. Self-sufficiency is the dream and sometimes the group seem within touching distance.

The novel is written from an engaging childlike perspective. Starting with they are about 7, the novel follows them as the ‘big kids’ until early teenage. But what the novel is really about - the stresses and difficulties of the parents - is always just out of reach and too tenuous to grasp. Or perhaps what the novel shows us is that actually the kids *do* know everything that’s going on - Amy and Lan’s behaviour belies a knowledge they never explicitly express. Instead these ‘details’, unimportant in the face of pet goats, chicken eggs hatching in your bedroom and a baby calf are hidden and ignored. A bit like the details of wearing shoes, or knowing what you are studying at school.

I really enjoyed this novel in all of its joyful - and sad - glory.

This could be a book that divides people because of how it is written, but I really loved it. It’s the story of two children born to mothers who are great friends at the time. They are born close together and in the same period as all their 4 parents plus another couple decide to drop out of London life and buy a smallholding in Wales. Amy and Lan (short for Lachlan) are very close and they tell the story, first as 7 year olds, and then as the story progresses as older children. They hardly notice what the adults are doing and they are very much on the periphery of Amy and Lan’s experience of the wild life on the farm. The animals are very important to them all and they even let a motherless calf live in one of their rooms at one point, an amazing and very vividly described experience. The adult’s story is the one in the background that the reader senses in small clues and things that the children overhear. By the end of the book I felt I knew them all like family myself and the farm itself is so real it felt like a place you could visit. The reason some readers might not like it is that it’s written in the voices of children, simple and naïve, so the language is very plain and direct. It takes a while to get used to but I think it was important for the plot not to write it as the all knowing later adult, which is how books about childhood are sometimes done. I don’t want to give much of the plot away but it ends in 2010 and I would love to read the next stage for them all.

This is a well written book with a good storyline about the hard realities of adult life on a farm told through the voices of children. I enjoyed the alternating narrators, although occasionally I did have to flick back to see if it was Amy or Lan as they are very similar.

Although I did find this book slow paced and a bit mundane at times, I did enjoy it, it just didn’t grip me.