Tuesday 19 July 2016

The Other One by Nico Reznick


The Other One by Nico Reznick
Published in March 2016 by B*Star Kitty Press

Where to buy this book:
Buy the ebook from Amazon.comAmazon.co.uk

How I got this book:
Purchased the ebook

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"My name is Cordelia... not like that means anything. I’m not the interesting part of this story. No one has any reason to invest in me as a character. I’m ill-defined and incidental. This entire thing: it’s never been about me. It’s always been about her."
Cordelia has a twin sister. That is to say, she used to. Maybe she still does. No one’s too sure exactly where Annabel is now. But at least – alive or dead – she hasn’t been forgotten. Since Annabel’s abduction, aged six, Cordelia has come to learn that there are other ways of vanishing besides simply disappearing. Overlooked by her own traumatised parents, patronised by police investigators and marginalised by teachers and former friends, growing up in the long, dark shadow of her absent sister, Cordelia realises that she has simply become “the other one”.

Regular blog visitors will already know that I am a big fan of Nico Reznick's writing. This is my third five star review for her work with the others being for her poetry collection Gulag 101 and her novel Anhedonia. The Other One is short and sharp and I am finding it difficult to write about without giving away anything important. I definitely appreciated discovering and unravelling its mysteries for myself so don't want to reduce that enjoyment for anyone else! Reznick's narrator, Cordelia, is a great character - bitter in her isolation, but without being overly self-pitying - and, despite her sixteen years, makes acute observations on the world as it appears to her and the factors which influence peoples' relationships with each other. The Other One is a particularly chilling novella and I loved how Reznick slowly ramps up the unease and, although I had by then sort of worked out what had happened, the truth of the ending was an expertly timed shock.


Search Lit Flits for more:
Books by Nico Reznick / Novellas / Books from England

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