Our Endless Numbered Days

I don't think I've ever read a book that was so close to losing me and managed to suck me back in before I put it down. And not just manage to pull me back but to make me re-frame all the things that were bothering me. Ultimately, I loved this book, but I do feel a little bit short-changed by it at the same time.

First; things I loved about the book. I loved the writing. Fuller does an excellent job of making a really believable and interesting child character in the first person without resorting to emulating child speak. Personally, I often have a hard time with child narrators in adult fiction eg. I began reading Room, and while I could tell that it was done extremely well and I could see why people were raving about that book, it just took me out of the story. But, here, Fuller has managed to put some objective distance between the actual events and Peggy's recounting of them that allows for a really wonderful unfolding of the story that are full of very shrewd child-like observations and imaginings without sacrificing the lyricism of the prose.

There is a direct quality to Peggy's narration of first-hand events in the first portion of the book that I really loved, and during the portion of the book set in the forest while she's a teenager, some first-hand events are now described in vague and ambiguous terms. I generally enjoy being asked, as a reader, to read between the lines, or parse allusions, but this seemed so at odds to the storytelling in the rest of the book that I found it jarring and frustrating. “Is she saying that x-y-and-z just happened, or isn't she?” But then the denouement of the book was such a feat, and miraculously caused me to look at all the things before it that had frustrated me in a series of “a-ha” moments. The ending is not unpredictable per se, I was not particularly surprised by any of the twists, but the way it unfolds and changes certain moments and illuminates them in a different way was so impressive. It struck me as a risk that nearly didn't pay off, as I did come quite close to putting the book down.

Once those frustrations were stopped in their tracks, rolled back, and reworked much to my delight, the only real criticism I was left with was pacing. We get the beginning and the end of Peggy and her father's nine years in the woods, and nothing in between, and we also get moments of life after she's returned to London (not a spoiler, the first page starts here). Frankly, I wanted much more. It's not that the jump from eight to seventeen isn't done well from a technical perspective, I just wanted to spend more time there. I wanted the psychological environment of those last few months or year to have had more time to develop and be explored. And the time we spend with Peggy in London readjusting to life was so, so good that the fact that there isn't more of it seems like a missed opportunity.

It's a beautiful book and Fuller is an excellent writer - I'll definitely keep an eye out for other books from her - and ultimately I was left very satisfied but just wanting more.