I made the mistake of picking up this book at midnight! I just finished the whole book and it was almost as good as her first best-seller Room. She has such an incredible skill for ascribing emotion to her characters without ever becoming too explicitly descriptive. The whole story is an unwinding of complex humanity, darkness and innocence entwined in a truly realistic way. Definitely a good read, and apparently a quick one, since it only took 5 hours start to finish. And yet, in a short read, Donoghue actually manages to bring to light the atrocities often committed under the guise of religious zeal. Not a light subject to handle in five hours! This is both a tragic tale of abused innocence, and one of brave perseverance, neither one really winning in the end. This is definitely a story that will stay with me for a while.
