Haven by Emma DonoghueMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was close to five stars for me, but I can see why some struggle with it. It is NOT a fast-paced book, but it is the slowness that invites you to experience the intense isolation and bare-bones intensity of the story. Set on a remote "island" (more of a rock) in the Atlantic, Haven is a story about three souls, all of them bound by faith, and how those ties become challenged by religion. The austerity of the backdrop puts the psychological in the foreground, and the end result is compelling. It did not immediately engage me, but I felt it was very worth sticking with it. Donoghue really calls into being the fine threads that might tie together obedience and obsession and how our existence can sometimes sever those same threads to find our own agency and reason to live.
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