This novel was one of four that I accepted for review from Viking, and it was the one I was least sure about. I liked the initial premise, the question of whether doing a bad thing makes you a bad person, and I am always intrigued by debut novels. Not knowing much more than that, I dived in.
All the Good Things is a short book that packs a lot of punch. Our narrator Bethany is only twenty-one but she has had a very eventful and challenging life, and is in prison at the start of the book. The frame of the novel is a task set by Bethany's counsellor to list all the good things in her life (hence the title!) and each chapter is what she writes about each of these. They range from 'Smelling a baby's head right into your heart' to 'The promise of a blank page' and many more in between. Early on we learn that Bethany had a child, and that she loves running, and that she grew up in the foster care system. Her father is absent and her mother suffers from increasingly bad mental health, and so she is put into foster care. The Penguin website states that author Clare Fisher is interested in 'social exclusion and the particular ways in which it affects vulnerable women and girls', and this is essentially the topic of the novel. Bethany is let down by so many people, and finds herself easily lead astray. Deprived of parental love, she grabs onto any relationship she can, even if it's clearly not right. She becomes pregnant, and it's sort of all down hill from there.
Bethany is very young, and the language and style is appropriate to this. Like any reader, I appreciate an immersive and believable narrative voice (like Jack in ), but for me reading Bethany's narrative was like reading a more grown up version of a Jacqueline Wilson novel. You can see that this is a vulnerable young person, and they are in less than ideal circumstances, and you can almost see everything that's going to happen to them. It's incredibly sad, and in some ways it felt like a warning or a social message - hence my comparison to Jacqueline Wilson (especially her novel ). It's educational for someone with no experience of the world in the novel, but it lacks a certain finesse and I felt like All the Good Things was meant to be read by someone younger than me (and I'm only 29). Now, I loved Jacqueline Wilson as a child, so I'm not trying to tear down this novel, but for me it was a little too realist, a little too bleak, and I felt like it was trying to teach me something when really I just wanted to try and enjoy the writing and the story. The things that it is trying to teach are very important, but the tough subject matter and style meant that I couldn't just enjoy it.
I must praise Clare Fisher for her realism, her refusal to shy away from unpleasantness, and her dedication to the narrative voice. There are some really heartbreaking scenes where you just want someone to help Bethany, or for her to help herself, and these are brilliantly written. I think the ending is supposed to be hopeful, but I found that after a whole book filled with disappointment, sadness, and pain it was hard to get on board with the small glint of hope at the end. Once I reached that point I felt horribly sad for Bethany and her misfortune, and I was glad to have reached the end.
All the Good Things is a very accomplished debut novel, but ultimately I think it just wasn't for me. But, I think a lot of readers will really enjoy it, and I must recommend it for the quality of the writing and the convincing realism.
*
Published in June 2017 by Viking, an imprint for Penguin UK. My thanks to the publisher for the review copy.