RaveThe IndependentAlthough honesty doth not a reliable narrator make (and Eva is an impeccably unreliable narrator), when combined with perspicacity and dark wit, it magics a not-particularly-nice person into a sympathetic character. This is no small achievement on Shriver's part … At a time when fiction by women has once again been criticised for its dull domesticity, here is a fierce challenge of a novel by a woman that forces the reader to confront assumptions about love and parenting, about how and why we apportion blame, about crime and punishment, forgiveness and redemption and, perhaps most significantly, about how we can manage when the answer to the question why? is either too complex for human comprehension, or simply non-existent.
