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Mice: A Novel
Unavailable
Mice: A Novel
Unavailable
Mice: A Novel
Audiobook8 hours

Mice: A Novel

Written by Gordon Reece

Narrated by Polly Lee

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

An electrifying psychological thriller about a mother and daughter pushed to their limits.Shelley and her mom have been menaced long enough. Excused from high school where a trio of bullies nearly killed her, and still reeling from her parents' humiliating divorce, Shelley has retreated with her mother to the quiet of Honeysuckle Cottage in the countryside. Thinking their troubles are over, they revel in their cozy, secure life of gardening and books, hot chocolate and Brahms by the fire. But on the eve of Shelley's sixteenth birthday, an unwelcome guest disturbs their peace and something inside Shelley snaps. What happens next will shatter all their certainties-about their safety, their moral convictions, the limits of what they are willing to accept, and what they're capable of.Debut novelist Gordon Reece has written a taut tale of gripping suspense, packed with action both comic and terrifying. Shelley is a spellbinding narrator, and her delectable mix of wit, irony, and innocence transforms the major current issue of bullying into an edge- of-your-seat story of fear, violence, family loyalty, and the outer reaches of right and wrong.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 18, 2011
ISBN9781101483503
Unavailable
Mice: A Novel
Author

Gordon Reece

Gordon Reece studied English Literature at Keble College, Oxford and taught at KCS, Wimbledon, and Brentwood School in Essex. After completing his MA in literature he retrained as a lawyer. He has lived in Spain and Australia and currently resides in the UK. His books include picture books for trade and educational publishers, comics and graphic novels. Mice is his first novel.

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Reviews for Mice

Rating: 4.142857142857143 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mice was an engrossing read. A unique play on the idea that the quiet, nerdish people that seem to make such good teasing victims finally fight back to such an extreme that two people are murdered. Well, in fairness, the first murder victim is really more of a justified self defense case or, at worse, provocation manslaughter. As the characters are revealed to us, circumstances unravel them in unpredictable ways. What is at first a meek, submissive teenage girl who is bullied to the point of great bodily harm, later becomes a strong, willful young lady emerging fully into her own life and no longer haunted by nightmares. Reece's writing style is masterful. The pace of the story itself is so intense and real that I could not put this book down until I was finished. As a reader, I fully enjoyed being along for the transformation of the mice into lions, making this read a worthwhile venture.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Shelley and her mother have found the perfect home. Honeysuckle Cottage is deep in the English countryside, with no nearby neighbors. It's their safe haven, a retreat from the unpleasantness of life in the real world. Here they can live their quiet, isolated lives in peace. Disfigured by the injuries inflicted upon her by three former friends, Shelley has tutors, so her interactions with the real world are few. The peacefulness is shattered one night when an intruder puts an end to their smug satisfaction. How would you react in this situation? Did these two women find the best solution? Deliciously creepy!Satisfyingly creepy!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I wanted to like Mice a whole lot more than I did. It starts out well with a well-paced inexorable description of a high school girl being bullied - from verbal abuse to physical assault. This piece of the book felt connected and real - you could sense the emotional involvement of the writer. The bullying is the preceding set of events that lead to the out of the way cottage and the events that follow. It's when we get to the cottage that things become dull and disconnected. You can feel the author stepping back.The violence in the book is extreme. I don't mind violence in a book, but I want it to be necessary to the story. The violence in the first part of the book is necessary, the violence in the second part of the book trips over into the unnecessary category quickly. There is an attempt at a connection between the violence experienced by the young Shelley and the violence that she and her mother go on to commit, but the connection is tenuous, at best. There is plenty of suspense and horror, but mostly of the direct-to-video slasher movie variety. Overall the book stands on the sidelines, shows us the icky stuff it found under the rock in the playground, and wanders off with neither commitment nor context.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "Is that what our middle-class culture created? People formed more by the books they'd read than the lives they'd lived?"Shelley and her mother have finally escaped from their persecutors - Shelley from school bullies who used to be her closest friends and Elizabeth from her domineering husband. They've found a new start in a beautiful cottage in the countryside and are getting on with their lives. When a burglar enters their house on the eve of Shelley's sixteenth birthday, the cowering women fear for their lives once more...The first thing to be said here is that the book is written in Shelley's voice and Reece writes an extraordinarily convincing 16-year-old girl. She's a little immature, can be a bit of a know-it-all, but the scars left by the bullies (physical and mental) are there for all to see.Secondly, this is a really scary book! I don't often give up on books because they frighten me (admittedly, I never read horror, and I did give up on Deliver Us From Evil because of the awful torture being doled out by the bad guys), and "an electrifying psychological thriller" on the inside cover should have been plenty of warning, but this got to me in a way that other, more graphic novels (Taboo, The Survivor) did not. In the end I had to speed-read from about page 150 to the end because I couldn't take the horror any more!The plot is not terribly complicated, which is one of its strengths - Reece spends 100 pages setting up the characters, about 50 on the main event, and the rest of the book preying on Shelley and Elizabeth's sanities. The setting is so prosaic, a little countryside cottage, that the events become all too plausible and realistic. The writing is not high-quality in the conventional sense, but like Emma Donoghue's Room, the author has achieved an authentic child narrator and sacrificed a little lyricism in that pursuit.Highly recommended to those who like this kind of harrowing psychothriller. Not recommended at all to women who live alone in creaky buildings.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Shelley Rivers and her mother, Elizabeth, are emotionally battered and bullied – Elizabeth by her ex-husband and Shelly by the schoolmates who nearly kill her. No one seems to be interested in protecting them. Justice for the wrongs leveled against them is elusive. What they both want is to escape to the country and hide. They purchase a English country home called Honeysuckle Cottage – a place which is remote and private – and enjoy their evenings together drinking hot chocolate, playing duets and watching television. But on the eve of Shelley’s sixteenth birthday, their quiet world is shattered when a creaking floorboard signifies that someone uninvited is in the house. As events unfold, Shelley makes an impulsive decision that will forever change their lives.We think we control the course our life takes, we think we’re the captain of the vessel with our hand on the wheel, but in fact it’s luck (or fate or destiny or God or whatever we choose to call it ) that’s really in control. We might as well take our hands off the wheel and go to the back of the boat and sleep, because it’s this other force that really decides whether we make it to the shore or we sink without a trace. – from Mice, page 314 -Gordon Reece’s debut novel is narrated from the first person point of view of Shelley whose self-esteem is at a low point when the book opens. She is awkward, overweight and brainy – the perfect target for bullies at her school. Reece reveals the worst that bullying behavior involves – teasing, physical aggression and a system that does little to protect the victim. And the narrative asks the question: What defines the bully vs the victim? Is it personality? Is it appearance? What is the crucial defining moment at which a person makes the decision to lash out at another human being?Does the way we look affect our personality? Or does our personality affect the way we look? Does the warpaint turn the tribesman into a fierce warrior? Or does the fierce warrior put on the warpaint to advertise his cruelty? Does a cat always look like a cat? Does a mouse always look like a mouse? – from Mice, page 18 -As the plot unfolds, both Shelley and Elizabeth will begin to re-evaluate who they are as they are driven to the breaking point. Decisions they make and the consequences of those decisions drive the narrative. The novel is certainly plot driven vs. character driven. Elizabeth and Shelley could be anyone who has suffered emotionally (or physically) at the hands of another.Clearly, Mice is a psychological thriller, but I was surprised to see that it also became a black comedy of sorts. There were times I found myself laughing and then realized that what I was reading should not be funny…but it was. Twists and turns of plot keep the tension high until the final page.I read this book over the course of one day – a very speedy read for me. Readers looking for a fast-paced, roller coaster of a ride will definitely enjoy Mice. This is not “great” literature, but it is highly entertaining genre fiction. The perfect summer read.Recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Shelley and her mum have both been bullied; her mum by her dad and Shelley by girls at her school. They decide that a move to the country will help them to get over the trauma of the last few years.But they could not be more wrong! An intruder disturbs their sanctuary, and something inside Shelley snaps, forcing her to make a life changing decision. An intriguing and compelling thriller, written in the first person. This is a story will leave the reader wanting more. The plot is strong, leaving the reader asking themselves a question; is it ok to solve violence with violence, or will bullying lead to the bullied to subject others to the same fate? The story contains violence which makes this a read for the more mature teen. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Shelly has been living in a hellish nightmare, first there was her parents divorce and the messy court case that followed, then there was the incident at school that had been building for some time and left her scarred both inside and out. Now after months of suffering Shelly and her mother are finally able to begin to put their lives back together.Like her mother, Shelly was quite, timid and lacking the courage to stand up for herself, in other words they were both mice. Hidden away from the world in their comfortable little cottage in the country neither thought anything bad could happen to them, they thought they were safe, they thought wrong. One night something happened that change their lives foreverMice left me with mixed feeling, on the one hand its an incredibly sad story of bullying and harassment and on the other its a shocking tale of murder. It explores the darker side of humanity that tests the limits of how much people are able to endure, whether from their own actions or that of others. But whichever way you read it, it is a thrilling and engrossing story that I highly recommend you read for yourself.