Girl Unknown by Karen Perry

This was a tricky review for me as though this was a well written and incisive book, it never really grabbed me until near the end.

I think the main reason for my ambivalence is the overly wordy voices of the two narrators: married couple just-returned-to-work mum Caroline and History lecturer David Connolly. Parts of the dialogue just didn’t ring true, although academics do sometimes talk in a more highfalutin way than the rest of us. For instance, what does “… their sparring voices like daubs of paint in the night” actually mean? They are both academics and their narratives are written in a dry, academic way, something I’ve always disliked, even in books that I’ve enjoyed in the past (What She Left by T.R. Richmond springs to mind).

For me, there just wasn’t enough plot. Though there is a detailed picture of a modern Irish family that it interesting to an extent, this is much more of a literary novel than the psychological thriller I was expecting. Indeed, the book could easily have made a great short story or novella, as the ending did take me by surprise. But, though there were moments of suspense, there wasn’t enough to hold my attention for a full novel. It’s essentially a character study of a marriage in trouble. Without giving anything away (It happens in the first chapter), the plot involves a teenage girl, Zoe, approaching David and telling him she thinks he’s her dad from one of his previous relationships. Is she really who she says she is?

But taken as a literary novel, it’s much more enjoyable. There is much to admire in the frequent passages of poetic writing that occur throughout the book but these often don’t sound convincing when used in dialogue. Until the surprise ending, this is essentially a slow-burning domestic drama written in a very loquacious way, so if that’s your thing, you should enjoy it, but it wasn’t for me.

I would like to thank NetGalley for providing this book in return for a fair and balanced review.

3/5