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little scratch

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little scratch

By: Rebecca Watson
Narrated by: Rebecca Watson
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About this listen

A unique audiobook experience, written and performed by one of the most talented young authors to have emerged in recent British fiction.

Nominated for the Desmond Elliot Prize

little scratch tells the story of a day in the life of an unnamed woman, living in a lower-case world of demarcated fridge shelves and office politics; clock-watching and WhatsApp notifications. In a voice that is fiercely wry, touchingly delicate and increasingly neurotic, the protagonist relays what it takes to get through the quotidian detail of that single trajectory - from morning to night - while processing recent sexual violence.

little scratch is about the coexistence of monotony with our waking, intelligent lives. It is a powerful evocation of how the external and internal aspects of our lives exist in a helix and what it means to live out the course of a single day consumed by trauma.

Rebecca Watson is Assistant Arts Editor at the Financial Times. Her work has been published in the Times Literary Supplement and Granta. In 2018, she was shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize.

©2020 Rebecca Watson (P)2020 W F Howes Women's Fiction

Critic reviews

"Extraordinary." (New Yorker)

"A daringly experimental debut." (The Guardian)

"[An] astonishing debut." (Financial Times)

"An incredible debut.... It’ll be on every prize list." (Stylist Magazine picks for 2021)

"Startlingly original." (Vogue)

"Wry, funny and heartbreaking." (Sophie Mackintosh)

"little scratch is a story that is urgent. It is a story that needs to be told." (Meena Kandasamy)

"Reads like the cinders settling in the air after an explosion...daring and completely readable." (Colin Barrett)

"little scratch is a little miracle...impossible to read it and not wish there were more books like it." (Alan Trotter)

"Confident and vital...little scratch is an absolute gift." (Naoise Dolan)

All stars
Most relevant
....I wasn't sure I was going to. But I did. It started as a bit of a slow burn, but I quickly got into the unconventional writing style and really connected with the author/narrator. I believe that when an author is a good narrator as well, it brings an added element to an audio book, and for me this was the case here. I really enjoyed the daring/innovative writing style and think too few authors are brave enough to really experiment with words/style/prose. So yes, this book worked for me. The breathless style, the 'current' storyline, the immersion in the nameless central character. It made me think too, of the unseen consequences that actions can have. Bravo.

I really enjoyed this book...

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A starkly original debut, little scratch allows you to spend a day inside the still-reeling mind of a young woman getting on with her life post-trauma. Rebecca Watson’s writing carries similarities to Eimer McBride’s A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing in its experimentation with form and flow, but this novel is in a league entirely of its own. To listen to it is an intense experience and I would recommend listening to it in one sitting. The legion of critics praising this novel aren’t wrong - Rebecca Watson is destined for greatness!

An ingenious debut!

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I did not enjoy this at all. It was very monotonous. Also far too sweary.

Boring

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