A review by rouge_red
Grasshopper by Barbara Vine

reflective slow-paced

4.25

Slice-of-life, coming of age, with some mystery and tense moments. It does intrigue and suspense in a very interesting way and I really liked it. Most of the novel documents the day to day life of our MC, Clodagh Brown and a group of twenty-somethings that all seem to be stuck in limbo. All of them have their reasons for not being able to live "normal" lives, and it doesn't' help that they're all not able to move forward stuck in this group. All throughout the book, I didn't imagine any of them being able to make it to their 30s because something about each one of them felt like they could only exist in a certain space in time. And except for Wim (we're not sure what happens to him after the hospital), everyone does move on to adulthood. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think Ruth Rendell did a really great job at balancing the tenseness with the mundane parts of these people's lives. Something about the story felt real.