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Topi (2011)

by Gordon Reece(Favorite Author)

3.57 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

8809758919 (ISBN13: 9788809758919)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Giunti

review 1: This book starts off quite quickly, which is a relief because I simply cannot stand slow-paced books. We are introduced to the characters of Shelley and her mother Elizabeth, typical “mice” living in London. Elizabeth’s husband has recently divorced her to run away with his secretary to Spain. Elizabeth, despite being a very intelligent lawyer, isn't a lady of very strong character; she couldn’t even bring herself to tell her mother that she hated the knickknacks she gave her year after year, much less stand up to her husband when he told her to quit her job to take care of Shelley, and when he made her hand over the house and most of her money and assets during the divorce. Elizabeth would just sort of stand there and take it, like the mouse Shelley described her ... moreto be.Shelley is also a self-proclaimed mouse, unable to stand up to her bullies who had previously been her best friends. I felt like this part of the book made me feel the most because of how painstakingly the author described the bullying. It was just bordering on the line between being realistic and too unbelievable to be true, which just made it that much more effective. Of course, I was never blind to bullying, but this book took it to a whole new level. Especially the fact that it was girls doing the bullying! Normally you see boys beating up their victims; girls just usually use their words and play cheap pranks on their targets. This was a completely harrowing part of the story that ended with the bullies burning up Shelley’s face, and this is when the mother and daughter make their move to Honeysuckle Cottage, way out in the country where no one would ever think to disturb mice like them; “it was a place to hide, not a place to live”. The sad part is that despite Elizabeth being such a good lawyer, she didn't even attempt to try to get the bullies a punishment of any sort when the school said they couldn’t prosecute them because of “lack of evidence”. I would think a face full of burns inflicted by bullies would constitute as evidence enough though. For sometime it seems like nothing is going to happen, until the eve of Shelley’s sixteenth birthday, when a drug-addled burglar breaks into their house. After ransacking their safe haven, that has become home to their wonderful life for the past months, its seems that Shelley has become tired of being such a mouse, fed up with being so inconsequential and being abused and taken advantage of by other people that she finally snaps and murders the man in her own front garden with the knife that he’d previously been threatening her with. And with this incredible turn of events, the reader’s mind implodes.There are so many different questions that are raised in this tendentious part of the book; I personally had never read anything of this sort before and was stunned not only at the fact that Shelley murdered someone, but the fact that they were going to try to cover up the whole crime. And even more when they actually succeeded. We see Shelley grow up so much during this part of the book, and try to come to terms with her actions, what the consequences could have been, and how much it has matured her. In a really strange way (but somehow justifiable when you read the book) it helps her get over her bullying, the divorce of her parents and even the murder itself. Gordon Reece has crafted such an enthralling piece portraying how people, when pushed to their limit, can do things they were incapable of even dreaming of.
review 2: "Muis" (ik las het boek in het Nederlands) vertelt het verhaal over de 16 jarige Shelley en haar moeder, beiden een "grijze muis". Shelley heeft wat kilootjes teveel aan haar lijf hangen en wordt op school aanhoudend gepest. Haar moeder, een beloftevol advocate, gaf haar carrière op voor haar man, die ondertussen naar Spanje is vertrokken met een groen blaadje die de leeftijd van zijn dochter zou kunnen hebben. Beiden laten over zich heen lopen, gaan confrontaties uit de weg en zouden het liefst van al gewoon verdwijnen.Dat is eigenlijk ook wat ze doen. Wanneer de pesterijen op Shelley's school de spuigaten uitlopen en ze zwaar verbrand in het ziekenhuis belandt, is de maat vol en gaan moeder en dochter verhuizen. Naar het platteland. Geen buren in de omtrek. En Shelley krijgt thuis les zodat ze op het einde van het jaar toch haar eindexamen kan meedoen. En dan loopt het helemaal fout wanneer ze een nachtelijke inbreker op bezoek krijgen en de grijze muizen plotseling van zich afbijten en zo in een spiraal van gebeurtenissen terechtkomen."Muis" is enerzijds een pageturner die je moeilijk kan neerleggen; op zo'n manier geschreven waarbij momenten waarop je denkt "oef, het komt allemaal goed" onmiddellijk gevolgd worden door een volgend probleem dat zich stelt. Spannend. En intrigerend: hoe ver kunnen mensen andere mensen drijven door ze jarenlang te tergen. Een voor mij herkenbaar boek ook, aangezien pesterijen op school (en hoe dit aankomt) mij niet vreemd zijn.Anderzijds doet "muis" bij mij iets knagen vanbinnen: in welke mate mag je als slachtoffer je slachtofferschap gebruiken om zelf verkeerde handelingen te stellen? De vanzelfsprekendheid waarmee dit met momenten gebeurde, stoorde mij. Net zoals het feit dat niet alle personages even goed werden uitgediept (vandaar de "muizen"?) en het vrij onwaarschijnlijk lijkt dat Shelley op de meest bizarre momenten hele stukken uit Shakespeare citeert….Ik hou er een gemengd gevoel aan over, aan die grijze muizen. Geef mij maar bont gekleurde beesten! less

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