pdotb@wyrms.de reviewed O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
Pretty bleak
4 stars
Content warning spoilers, death of a child
So, it's not really what you'd call a cheery book. Janet is a very bookish girl who never really fits in, either with her family (her father seems indifferent and her mother impatient) or at boarding school. Her only real friends seem to be animals. She struggles through her childhood and then is murdered at sixteen. The prose is quite charming, and there are some laugh-out-loud moments and other wry observations, but the ending is abrupt and hard to fathom, and just adds to the overall feeling of bleakness.