The Cement Garden
Book description
In the arid summer heat, four children - Jack, Julie, Sue and Tom - find themselves abruptly orphaned. All the routines of childhood are cast aside as the children adapt to a now parentless world. Alone in the house together, the children's lives twist into something unrecognisable as the outside…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Cement Garden as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This novel is a story of love gone wrong. Four siblings have secrets and a need to survive. Death, incest, and lack of boundaries define the family after the death of their parents. How much do we learn from our family about right and wrong? Why is their moral compass lost? Or did they ever have one? Fascinating study of family dynamics and the tragic effects that bad parenting can create.
From Felicia's list on thrillers with a Gothic theme.
Ian McEwan’s first novel, it’s about a family of siblings left to their own devices after they lose both parents in a matter of weeks, hiding the fact from the authorities and subsisting in a strange existence of their own making. A disturbing coming-of-age tale that explores teenage angst and discontent, while toeing the line of that most forbidden of family taboos that shall remain unnamed, since it’s so easy to reduce this novel to being about just that. There is tenderness and deep emotion here, for sure, but it’s played quietly and between the lines. I’ve read it many…
From Umar's list on the meaning of family.
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