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Everything Under

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Everything Under

By: Daisy Johnson
Narrated by: Charlie Sanderson
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About this listen

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018

Words are important to Gretel, always have been. As a child, she lived on a canal boat with her mother, and together they invented a language that was just their own. She hasn’t seen her mother since the age of 16, though - almost a lifetime ago - and those memories have faded. Now Gretel works as a lexicographer, updating dictionary entries, which suits her solitary nature.

A phone call from the hospital interrupts Gretel’s isolation and throws up questions from long ago. She begins to remember the private vocabulary of her childhood. She remembers other things, too: the wild years spent on the river; the strange, lonely boy who came to stay on the boat one winter; and the creature in the water – a canal thief? – swimming upstream, getting ever closer. In the end there will be nothing for Gretel to do but go back.

Daisy Johnson’s debut novel turns classical myth on its head and takes readers to a modern-day England unfamiliar to most. As daring as it is moving, Everything Under is a story of family and identity, of fate, language, love and belonging that leaves you unsettled and unstrung.

©2018 Daisy Johnson (P)2018 Audible, Ltd Family Life Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Small Town & Rural Magic Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

"Daisy Johnson is a new goddamn swaggering monster of fiction." (Lauren Groff)
All stars
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Exquisite use of language, almost poetic, but ultimately too confusing to take in in this format, especially if you listen at night. I will probably resort to the hard copy book form.

Beautiful but complicated.

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Beautifully written and narrated. Lyrical imagery that draws upon the mythic and nature. Gives me plenty to think. about.

Powerful tale

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An amazing story, not easy, not linear, but complex and beautifully written. It follows the twists and turns in the lives of damaged people in a dreamlike way. I loved it

Dreamlike and brilliant, like tapestry

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I could listen to this kind of inventive, lyrical prose all day long - in fact I did do. It's a complcated story, mainly because the chronology is messed with but I see that that is because it is all part of tbe 'riddle' theme. To say I loved this novel is heavily underlined by the fact that, not only is the chronology complex, but my tablet was misbehaving all the way through and kept jumping back and forwards by sometimes large amounts. Any other time i would have swapped devices but i was enjoying the prose so much that i just went with it.
Even though tbere is the underlying theme relating to Greek mythology, all the (real) characters are believable and I cared about each of them. I hardly ever enjoy a book if i can't believe in the characters.

Enchanting

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loved how this book is written. poetic, magical, the style draws you in. I did not have a problem following it or understanding the various layers of metaphor. the story is very dark but I could not stop listening to it. would definitely recommend.

beautiful and dark

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