13 year old Sal and her 10 year old sister Peppa are on the run. They've had to escape a brutal past and an even more brutal end to the past. But Sal is prepared - she has all the kit for survival in the Scottish wilderness. Her backpack is filled with maps, waterproof clothing, food, penknife, fishing gear and the SAS Survival Handbook. She's watched enough YouTube survival videos to become the next Bear Grylls. But life in the woods in October is tough - it's cold and snowing. How long can they hide out before someone finds them?
When I started to read this, I wasn't sure I was going to like it, even though I loved the premise of the story. The detail of their first few days in the forest was slight overkill for me. Many of the descriptions seemed almost like word-for-word transcript out of a manual, and I skipped most of those parts. For me, it started to get interesting when Ingrid's character was introduced (even though it was a rather unbelievable coincidence that someone else was hiding out in the same forest). I loved their relationship, and the story just seemed to quickly build from there. I loved the banter between the sisters, and how Sal kept trying so hard to keep Peppa's spirits up, while trying at the same time to keep them both alive. Through her abusive past, Sal has had to quickly grow up, and she is a believable strong mother figure to her sister.
A marvelous debut novel.
Randolph is an architect, and he lives in an apartment block with his wife Rebecca, and their two children. They live a happy, normal life, until the basement tenant, Dieter Tiberius, accuses them of sexual abuse towards their children, and starts to hound the wife with poems and accusatory letters. Their life starts to fall apart. They seek legal advice, but no-one can help them - not the police, nor the landlord, nor social services. Things become so fraught and desperate, that Randolph decides to take matters into his own hands.
All his life, Randolph has grown up surrounded by guns. His father always had them in the house, and Randolph was continually afraid that his dad would use them on him or his brother in a fit of rage. But it is now that Randolph turns to his dad for help.
The story sounds frightening enough as fiction, but the book is actually semi-autobiographical. The author has based the story on something that actually happened to him in real life. The book is also about class war, the justice system, and politics in Berlin during the 70s and 80s. In fact, I'd say that more than just background information, it takes over the whole story. There is more in the book about family relationships and class wars than there is about the actual incident. It's also a shame about the cover - it looks like just another crime thriller novel, and it doesn't mention on the cover that it's based on a true story.
I quite enjoyed the story, but I got a bit bored with the political argument sections, and I also got so frustrated with the lack of help that Randolph and his family were getting in the face of such harrassment.
