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Cuckoo
Rose has it all - the gorgeous children, the husband, the beautiful home. But then her best friend Polly comes to stay. Very soon, Rose's cosy world starts to fall apart at the seams - her baby falls dangerously ill & her husband is distracted. It appears that once you invite Polly into your home, it's very difficult to get her out again.
403 pages, Hardcover
First published March 3, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 250 reviews
October 23, 2013
I am kind of stumped on how to review CUCKOO. I finished reading it a few days ago and I thought letting it sit with me and reading a few other peoples reviews would help...but nope...it didnt.
I went back and forth from giving it 2 stars to 4 stars, and finally after changing it about 5 times-settled in the middle at 3.
This book reminded me a little bit of the movie-The Hand That Rocks the Cradle-but instead of a crazy nanny, Rose (the main character) allows her best friend Polly and her two horrible children into her home.
In the movie The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Claire (the main character) gets some wonderful advice (which she ignores) from her best friend Marlene. In a nutshell it was- "Never invite an attractive woman to live in your home with your family!"...and why woman in fiction (and real life) ignore this is beyond me. It usually never ends well. Numerous characters throughout the novel give Rose similar warnings and she ignores all of them, as well as her own inner voice telling her "Girl this Bitch is Craaaaaaaaazy!"
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CUCKOO is one of those books I enjoyed reading, but I hated everyone in it. Rose as much as anyone. I am not sure if I was supposed to hate her or not. In reading other reviews A LOT of people loved Rose, or at least liked her and sympathized with her. It made me kind of feel like I was kind of being overly judgmental and mean to this poor fictional character.
I went back and forth from giving it 2 stars to 4 stars, and finally after changing it about 5 times-settled in the middle at 3.
This book reminded me a little bit of the movie-The Hand That Rocks the Cradle-but instead of a crazy nanny, Rose (the main character) allows her best friend Polly and her two horrible children into her home.
In the movie The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Claire (the main character) gets some wonderful advice (which she ignores) from her best friend Marlene. In a nutshell it was- "Never invite an attractive woman to live in your home with your family!"...and why woman in fiction (and real life) ignore this is beyond me. It usually never ends well. Numerous characters throughout the novel give Rose similar warnings and she ignores all of them, as well as her own inner voice telling her "Girl this Bitch is Craaaaaaaaazy!"
CUCKOO is one of those books I enjoyed reading, but I hated everyone in it. Rose as much as anyone. I am not sure if I was supposed to hate her or not. In reading other reviews A LOT of people loved Rose, or at least liked her and sympathized with her. It made me kind of feel like I was kind of being overly judgmental and mean to this poor fictional character.
August 26, 2012
While half way through this book my dad told me of a documentary he watched about cuckoos. A male cuckoo will call a different species of bird away from its next of eggs so that the female cuckoo can sneak in and lay an egg amongst the others. The cuckoos leave their young to be raised by this other bird. The cuckoo egg will almost always hatch first. The cuckoo chick grows large quickly, usually around three times the size of the 'host' bird. Because of this it needs to monopolise on the food coming to the nest and methodically evicts the rest of the eggs out of the nest by rolling the egg up onto its back and flicking it out of the nest.
I found the title of this book had a whole new meaning!
I found the title of this book had a whole new meaning!
March 9, 2011
A friend in need is a friend indeed . . . when Rose’s oldest and dearest friend becomes a widow, Rose is there with open arms and a shoulder to cry one. Rose thinks nothing of opening her home up to Polly and her two small boys who have just lost a father.
Rose has always loved Polly’s unique, non-conformist personality. But the longer she stays in Rose’s house, the more it seems she doesn’t quite fit the role of ‘grieving widow’. Polly isn’t acting the way a bereaved wife is supposed to. And when Rose starts to feel redundant in her own home, even neglected as a wife and mother, she can’t help but wonder if Polly is the cause...
Only one thing is certain; ‘their first mistake was inviting her in’.
‘Cuckoo’ is the debut novel from Julia Crouch.
This is one smart and sharp psychological thriller. What makes Crouch’s book such a shiveringly good read is that it’s mired in possibility. The ‘threat’ to our protagonist is a beloved best friend – a friend who has just suffered a crippling loss. Who amongst us wouldn’t lend a hand or open our doors to a friend who is suffering? Therein lays the scare at the heart of ‘Cuckoo’, as Crouch asks the question ‘how well do we know our friends’?
Polly’s disruption to Rose’s home-life is a slow-burning madness. Rose starts to feel insignificant as both a wife and mother when Polly insists on lending a helping hand around the house. Polly helps in looking after Rose’s children; she assists her husband with his work. She cleans the house and prepares dinner . . . and slowly, but surely, Rose starts to feel irrelevant. But how much of it can be attributed to Polly’s grief? Or is it all in Rose’s head?
Things had fallen apart. It was as if she had been brought in because of the absence of a mother. She had the feeling that there was a vacuum where the woman she had thought she was once stood, and that she was now beside it, looking on.
In that case, she thought, who fills the space I occupy now? And this was a question she really couldn’t bring herself to answer.
The blurb (reminiscent of ‘Single White Female’) and cover (complete with garish pink suitcase) and may scream ‘female readership’, but I disagree. Crouch’s debut is chilling and twisted enough to reach across genders and appeal to both men and women. No doubt women will connect more with Rose’s feelings of threatened wife and mother, but men will find a delicious whodunit in Rose’s spiraling paranoia and Polly’s corruption.
Crouch has tapped into a new thriller setting that has already enjoyed prime-time at the box office. ‘The Roommate’ came out recently, and focuses on similar frighteners as ‘Cuckoo’. The horror lies in the familiar – when we feel threatened in our own home, by the very people we call friend
Rose has always loved Polly’s unique, non-conformist personality. But the longer she stays in Rose’s house, the more it seems she doesn’t quite fit the role of ‘grieving widow’. Polly isn’t acting the way a bereaved wife is supposed to. And when Rose starts to feel redundant in her own home, even neglected as a wife and mother, she can’t help but wonder if Polly is the cause...
Only one thing is certain; ‘their first mistake was inviting her in’.
‘Cuckoo’ is the debut novel from Julia Crouch.
This is one smart and sharp psychological thriller. What makes Crouch’s book such a shiveringly good read is that it’s mired in possibility. The ‘threat’ to our protagonist is a beloved best friend – a friend who has just suffered a crippling loss. Who amongst us wouldn’t lend a hand or open our doors to a friend who is suffering? Therein lays the scare at the heart of ‘Cuckoo’, as Crouch asks the question ‘how well do we know our friends’?
Polly’s disruption to Rose’s home-life is a slow-burning madness. Rose starts to feel insignificant as both a wife and mother when Polly insists on lending a helping hand around the house. Polly helps in looking after Rose’s children; she assists her husband with his work. She cleans the house and prepares dinner . . . and slowly, but surely, Rose starts to feel irrelevant. But how much of it can be attributed to Polly’s grief? Or is it all in Rose’s head?
Things had fallen apart. It was as if she had been brought in because of the absence of a mother. She had the feeling that there was a vacuum where the woman she had thought she was once stood, and that she was now beside it, looking on.
In that case, she thought, who fills the space I occupy now? And this was a question she really couldn’t bring herself to answer.
The blurb (reminiscent of ‘Single White Female’) and cover (complete with garish pink suitcase) and may scream ‘female readership’, but I disagree. Crouch’s debut is chilling and twisted enough to reach across genders and appeal to both men and women. No doubt women will connect more with Rose’s feelings of threatened wife and mother, but men will find a delicious whodunit in Rose’s spiraling paranoia and Polly’s corruption.
Crouch has tapped into a new thriller setting that has already enjoyed prime-time at the box office. ‘The Roommate’ came out recently, and focuses on similar frighteners as ‘Cuckoo’. The horror lies in the familiar – when we feel threatened in our own home, by the very people we call friend
August 21, 2014
Hot mess alert! This was very 'The Hand That Rocked The Cradle' esq. Very apt title, the main characters certainly were 'cuckoo'. The sign of a books enjoyment really shouldn't have anything to do with character likability, but I just didn't like them. A very messy triangle, a main character that I could have slapped, shook, screamed at - could she not see what was happening?! Poor little baby Floss, breast fed daughter of said crazy woman, she would have been in a total drunk state, not to mention brain damaged from careless prescription drug use of supposed best friend. Rose and Polly are childhood friends, lies and sex and art combine where life gets very interesting for everyone when secrets and jealousies simmer and erupt. Another part of the story that made me laugh was the ease at which Rose could tidy house, feed baby, bring in Polly's two boys, mother them, bake pies etc etc. The writing was fine, this book just wasn't for me. A bit of a trashy thriller, maybe better as a holiday read.
February 26, 2014
Every once in a while, a book comes along to remind me what true disappointment feels like.
On the jacket of Julia Crouch's Cuckoo, it says that cuckoos are birds that steal other birds' nests, but a more accurate allegation would be that Cuckoo is a book that steals you of any interest.
The only actually interesting characters in the book dies right on page one, though I weirdly took a liking to the main character, Rose, despite my overall annoyance at the entirety of Cuckoo.
This sort of someone-slowly-takes-over-someone-else's-life, single-white-female type of narrative has been done time and time again, and Ms. Crouch failed to bring little new to the table. There were no twists I didn't literally predict from the first fifty pages, and and the book's villain is an absolute bore. The thing about writing a book like Cuckoo, where the readers know who the villain is from the get go, is that you have to have tricks up your sleeve to make up for that fact. Ultimately, though, Cuckoo has nothing.
On the jacket of Julia Crouch's Cuckoo, it says that cuckoos are birds that steal other birds' nests, but a more accurate allegation would be that Cuckoo is a book that steals you of any interest.
The only actually interesting characters in the book dies right on page one, though I weirdly took a liking to the main character, Rose, despite my overall annoyance at the entirety of Cuckoo.
This sort of someone-slowly-takes-over-someone-else's-life, single-white-female type of narrative has been done time and time again, and Ms. Crouch failed to bring little new to the table. There were no twists I didn't literally predict from the first fifty pages, and and the book's villain is an absolute bore. The thing about writing a book like Cuckoo, where the readers know who the villain is from the get go, is that you have to have tricks up your sleeve to make up for that fact. Ultimately, though, Cuckoo has nothing.
July 15, 2012
I don't tend to write reviews because quite frankly i can never be bothered but this is a book that deserves one. I loved this book and i do mean LOVED it. I read it in 3 hours in one sitting and thought it was terrific. I found Rose rather annoying, and i didn't like the setting- having lived in Bath i can't quite picture what Crouch was trying to portray but i think that's my own bias and not anything to do with her writing style or skill- obviously i view that particular area in a totally different light and that made it hard to see the setting realistically for me personally. But that's kind of beside the point (:S)
In spite of that, Rose struck me as a typical Bath west-country try too hard yummy mummy but i still warmed to her, more so as the book progressed and we found out more of her dirty little secrets... The real reason the book is so brilliant though is the ending. Of all the endings i could have envisioned i did not see that coming at all. Talk about being lulled into a false sense of security! I started this thinking i knew exactly how it would end and i was wrong and that's why i adore it so much, in spite of the Guardian loving, organic,left wing yummy mummy drivel that Rose (hypocritically) tries so hard to shove down your throat throughout the book. I'll definitely be reading Ms Crouch's next book!
In spite of that, Rose struck me as a typical Bath west-country try too hard yummy mummy but i still warmed to her, more so as the book progressed and we found out more of her dirty little secrets... The real reason the book is so brilliant though is the ending. Of all the endings i could have envisioned i did not see that coming at all. Talk about being lulled into a false sense of security! I started this thinking i knew exactly how it would end and i was wrong and that's why i adore it so much, in spite of the Guardian loving, organic,left wing yummy mummy drivel that Rose (hypocritically) tries so hard to shove down your throat throughout the book. I'll definitely be reading Ms Crouch's next book!
November 7, 2015
This book contained
Endless breastfeeding
Constant alcohol consumption whilst breastfeeding. Really and you wonder why your baby is vacant.
Unlikeable characters ranging from smug middle class escaping to the country armed with the wellies and Barbour jackets to the drug addled anorexic singer.
Even the children were horrible. I love a good profanity but a nine year old using the c word and no one
mentions it. Unbelievable.
The constant cheating without a second thought.
The worst thing though was the creepy behaviour by the tortured artist husband pressing his erection into her neck when of course she is breastfeeding.
This is the second book I have read by this author now and I think I am done. Too many other good books out there.
Endless breastfeeding
Constant alcohol consumption whilst breastfeeding. Really and you wonder why your baby is vacant.
Unlikeable characters ranging from smug middle class escaping to the country armed with the wellies and Barbour jackets to the drug addled anorexic singer.
Even the children were horrible. I love a good profanity but a nine year old using the c word and no one
mentions it. Unbelievable.
The constant cheating without a second thought.
The worst thing though was the creepy behaviour by the tortured artist husband pressing his erection into her neck when of course she is breastfeeding.
This is the second book I have read by this author now and I think I am done. Too many other good books out there.
April 7, 2012
Definately a 'read-in-one-sitting' book! They don't come much darker, more disturbing or more ambiguous than this!
As the blurb says Rose appears to have it all, an idyllic country home, two gorgeous daughters, a handsome, talented husband...and then her oldest friend comes to stay and things take a nose-dive. Polly, recently widowed (make your own mind up about that) comes to stay indefinately with her two wild sons and the two families become entwined in a series of mishaps that lead them all into disarray and decay but who is really to blame? Is it wild, kooky Polly, former drug addict and famous singer, who was once the mainstay of Rose's life before 'respectability'? Or is it Rose, outwardly so sensible and straight but with a shockingly disturbing past and long buried secrets?
Julia Crouch writes with such disturbing briliance, teasing away at the reader, taking you one way and then another, building the tension up to a crescendo that suddenly dissipates leaving you feeling somewhat shaken and appalled and perhaps not quite knowing the truth of what you have read.
Definately one to draw your own conclusions from but one that most certainly will not disappoint.
As the blurb says Rose appears to have it all, an idyllic country home, two gorgeous daughters, a handsome, talented husband...and then her oldest friend comes to stay and things take a nose-dive. Polly, recently widowed (make your own mind up about that) comes to stay indefinately with her two wild sons and the two families become entwined in a series of mishaps that lead them all into disarray and decay but who is really to blame? Is it wild, kooky Polly, former drug addict and famous singer, who was once the mainstay of Rose's life before 'respectability'? Or is it Rose, outwardly so sensible and straight but with a shockingly disturbing past and long buried secrets?
Julia Crouch writes with such disturbing briliance, teasing away at the reader, taking you one way and then another, building the tension up to a crescendo that suddenly dissipates leaving you feeling somewhat shaken and appalled and perhaps not quite knowing the truth of what you have read.
Definately one to draw your own conclusions from but one that most certainly will not disappoint.
November 7, 2022
“Rose needs to get out of here… It’s driving her cuckoo…”
I read a review that said ” This was like watching a train wreck. It didn't get any better, though I hoped like anything that it would.”
And I kind of agree with that… It started out very promising, and I really wanted to know how everything ended with holes in canvases and in blood….
I can’t say I was entertained.
I read a review that said ” This was like watching a train wreck. It didn't get any better, though I hoped like anything that it would.”
And I kind of agree with that… It started out very promising, and I really wanted to know how everything ended with holes in canvases and in blood….
I can’t say I was entertained.
April 27, 2020
Good thriller.
February 14, 2011
When I sat down to start reading Julia Crouch's debut novel I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. The synopsis appears to give you an idea of what the book is but as you get drawn deeper and deeper within the book the plot almost seems to swallow you in. I found that the further into the book I got the harder it was to put down, I was more and more gripped with the more I read.
The major characters are all really well written. I found them to be very three dimensional, no character was all good or all bad. I loved that it was written from Rose's perspective, I found that when she was wondering about what was going on I was wondering too. Within in this I liked the fact it was written in the third person rather than the first - for me this helped to build the suspense.
Cuckoo feels very realistic as you read it. I think it taps into the world of friendship so well, most people will find thoughts that resonate with how they've felt about a friendship in the past. I think the fact it is so believable makes it all the more creepy. There are twists and turns throughout the book, but the ending still managed to blow me away. This was a book that stayed with me for days, I kept catching my thoughts wandering back to it.
If this is what Julia Crouch writes for a debut novel I'm very excited to see what's going to come next.
The major characters are all really well written. I found them to be very three dimensional, no character was all good or all bad. I loved that it was written from Rose's perspective, I found that when she was wondering about what was going on I was wondering too. Within in this I liked the fact it was written in the third person rather than the first - for me this helped to build the suspense.
Cuckoo feels very realistic as you read it. I think it taps into the world of friendship so well, most people will find thoughts that resonate with how they've felt about a friendship in the past. I think the fact it is so believable makes it all the more creepy. There are twists and turns throughout the book, but the ending still managed to blow me away. This was a book that stayed with me for days, I kept catching my thoughts wandering back to it.
If this is what Julia Crouch writes for a debut novel I'm very excited to see what's going to come next.
August 11, 2013
I liked this book and it certainly held my attention, I was eager to find out what happens to Polly and Rose the two best friends from Brighton who'd first met at the age of 7.
The book is set in a rural part of England near Bath and describes the pain and pleasures of renovating a home to bring up the perfect family, then.... Polly's husband Christos has died and she wants to bring her boys back from Greece and Polly offers to let them stay.
At first I sympathised with Rose but as the book goes on it is slowly revealed how she is no innocent. The relationships between all the characters are well defined, Rose and her husband Gareth have recently gone through a bad patch and he is reluctently persuaded to let Polly stay, then things start to unravel but whose fault is it? I can't say too much without spoiling the story but no character in this book is a role model.
I have wavered between a 4 and 5 start review mainly because I wasn't overly convinced by the last section when Rose and Polly visit Brighton but make no mistake this is a great debut book and is not to be missed.
The book is set in a rural part of England near Bath and describes the pain and pleasures of renovating a home to bring up the perfect family, then.... Polly's husband Christos has died and she wants to bring her boys back from Greece and Polly offers to let them stay.
At first I sympathised with Rose but as the book goes on it is slowly revealed how she is no innocent. The relationships between all the characters are well defined, Rose and her husband Gareth have recently gone through a bad patch and he is reluctently persuaded to let Polly stay, then things start to unravel but whose fault is it? I can't say too much without spoiling the story but no character in this book is a role model.
I have wavered between a 4 and 5 start review mainly because I wasn't overly convinced by the last section when Rose and Polly visit Brighton but make no mistake this is a great debut book and is not to be missed.
March 11, 2011
There are tensions in the story from the start. Polly has been Rose’s friend since they were 6 and they’re now in their late thirties and you soon realise that their shared history is going to be significant to the story. Rose has a very ordered and domesticated life that she wants to immerse herself in and Polly, an ex-musician, couldn’t be more different. The arrival of Polly and her two sons throws the household into chaos.
As the story unfolds it becomes apparent that Rose is keeping secrets from Polly and Gareth and you can’t help but think that these are going to lead to trouble. There is a sense of mounting tension in the book, all the more disturbing for the comfortable domestic setting that makes it easy to identify with. When I took a break from the book I went back to it with a real sense of dread.
We only see the story from Rose’s perspective, so you never know the truth about the situations she finds herself in and sometimes I wondered about her own motivation in the way she acted. This is a great first novel, but more middle-aged & middle-class than something like a Nicci French thriller. I found it hard to put the book down (sense of dread aside) I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. For me it just left too many questions unanswered, and from a personal preference I do like the author to tell me what had happened, rather than leave it to my imagination.
As the story unfolds it becomes apparent that Rose is keeping secrets from Polly and Gareth and you can’t help but think that these are going to lead to trouble. There is a sense of mounting tension in the book, all the more disturbing for the comfortable domestic setting that makes it easy to identify with. When I took a break from the book I went back to it with a real sense of dread.
We only see the story from Rose’s perspective, so you never know the truth about the situations she finds herself in and sometimes I wondered about her own motivation in the way she acted. This is a great first novel, but more middle-aged & middle-class than something like a Nicci French thriller. I found it hard to put the book down (sense of dread aside) I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. For me it just left too many questions unanswered, and from a personal preference I do like the author to tell me what had happened, rather than leave it to my imagination.
May 31, 2019
In 'Cuckoo', Rose is living her dream life with her husband and children. She spends her idyllic days doting on them. However, everything changes when when she learns that her best friend, Polly is widowed after the untimely death of her husband. Inviting Polly to stay with them turns out to be a mistake…
The exciting albeit run-of-the-mill premise piqued my interest. The idea of someone you care about moving in with you and wreaking havoc on your life was incredibly promising. Unfortunately, the execution was atrocious to the point where somehow the author managed to make such a thrilling storyline dull as hell. It was impossible to not take issue with the following:
Snail-like pacing
I kept waiting and waiting for something, ANYTHING remotely interesting to happen. It took forever to arrive, namely . That incident was supposed to be a big deal but you wouldn't think so, considering how it changed absolutely nothing. No one was forced to leave the house.
Long-winded and pointless
This book should've been titled 'Housewife' because I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was reading about a housewife carrying out her chores. The content was repetitive and boring, revolving around what Rose did (inclusive of the specifics) throughout each day: Clean the house. Cook. Drink wine. Drink tea. Take a bath. Make shopping lists. Buy groceries. Breastfeed. Watch over the four kids.
I was also bombarded with details of what they had for every meal, what the kids were doing or saying, what skimpy clothing Polly was wearing, how Rose's husband Gareth was getting on with his stupid art. WHO CARES.
The infodump about Polly's dead husband, Christos which started early on was a hint of what was to come - more tedious and irrelevant details. Certain sentences took me out of the story as they were badly written or straight up dumb, such as:
She rubbed body cream on her body, foot cream on her feet, hand cream on her hands and elbow cream on her elbows.
"Wow, now I know where I'm supposed to be applying body cream, foot cream, hand cream and elbow cream!" said no one ever.
She looked at her supper. It was a thin, liquidized vegetable soup made with no discernible oil, butter or stock, served with a small piece of wholemeal bread. An apple sat unadorned on the tray as a nod towards dessert. To drink, she had a glass of tapwater.
Of course the tapwater is meant for drinking… and her supper could've been easily summed up as: The unappetizing vegetable soup was served with wholemeal bread, apple and water.
Unbelievable characters, relationships and changes
Polly bothered me right from the beginning because she had no presence or personality. She was a formerly popular singer who's attractive and constantly noticed by men. I found this unconvincing as she was described as unhealthily thin and dishevelled with a skanky / weird dress sense. Despite being an artiste, she displayed zero creativity and merely spent time cooped up in her room writing song lyrics.
Polly and Rose were supposed to be best friends (or used to be) but I couldn't picture them ever being that close due to the awful writing. They came across as strangers who could barely get along yet kept tiptoeing around each other. It didn't help that Gareth initially couldn't stand Polly then had a 180 degree change of heart towards her. That transformation came out of nowhere.
It was exasperating that Rose failed to see the obvious . On top of that, she allowed Polly to continue to stay even though . Seriously?
Lame incident and revelation
The last few chapters reeked of laziness and desperation to shock the reader. The "showdown" was unintentionally comical as . This was followed by .
The big secret about Rose was such a letdown. Basically years ago, she had . That's it?!
The ending left me fuming as it felt incomplete and cheesy. Rose .
Overall, 'Cuckoo' made me cuckoo (drove me crazy) with its extremely slow pacing, lengthy descriptions and unlikeable characters. The storyline went nowhere.
The exciting albeit run-of-the-mill premise piqued my interest. The idea of someone you care about moving in with you and wreaking havoc on your life was incredibly promising. Unfortunately, the execution was atrocious to the point where somehow the author managed to make such a thrilling storyline dull as hell. It was impossible to not take issue with the following:
Snail-like pacing
I kept waiting and waiting for something, ANYTHING remotely interesting to happen. It took forever to arrive, namely . That incident was supposed to be a big deal but you wouldn't think so, considering how it changed absolutely nothing. No one was forced to leave the house.
Long-winded and pointless
This book should've been titled 'Housewife' because I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was reading about a housewife carrying out her chores. The content was repetitive and boring, revolving around what Rose did (inclusive of the specifics) throughout each day: Clean the house. Cook. Drink wine. Drink tea. Take a bath. Make shopping lists. Buy groceries. Breastfeed. Watch over the four kids.
I was also bombarded with details of what they had for every meal, what the kids were doing or saying, what skimpy clothing Polly was wearing, how Rose's husband Gareth was getting on with his stupid art. WHO CARES.
The infodump about Polly's dead husband, Christos which started early on was a hint of what was to come - more tedious and irrelevant details. Certain sentences took me out of the story as they were badly written or straight up dumb, such as:
She rubbed body cream on her body, foot cream on her feet, hand cream on her hands and elbow cream on her elbows.
"Wow, now I know where I'm supposed to be applying body cream, foot cream, hand cream and elbow cream!" said no one ever.
She looked at her supper. It was a thin, liquidized vegetable soup made with no discernible oil, butter or stock, served with a small piece of wholemeal bread. An apple sat unadorned on the tray as a nod towards dessert. To drink, she had a glass of tapwater.
Of course the tapwater is meant for drinking… and her supper could've been easily summed up as: The unappetizing vegetable soup was served with wholemeal bread, apple and water.
Unbelievable characters, relationships and changes
Polly bothered me right from the beginning because she had no presence or personality. She was a formerly popular singer who's attractive and constantly noticed by men. I found this unconvincing as she was described as unhealthily thin and dishevelled with a skanky / weird dress sense. Despite being an artiste, she displayed zero creativity and merely spent time cooped up in her room writing song lyrics.
Polly and Rose were supposed to be best friends (or used to be) but I couldn't picture them ever being that close due to the awful writing. They came across as strangers who could barely get along yet kept tiptoeing around each other. It didn't help that Gareth initially couldn't stand Polly then had a 180 degree change of heart towards her. That transformation came out of nowhere.
It was exasperating that Rose failed to see the obvious . On top of that, she allowed Polly to continue to stay even though . Seriously?
Lame incident and revelation
The last few chapters reeked of laziness and desperation to shock the reader. The "showdown" was unintentionally comical as . This was followed by .
The big secret about Rose was such a letdown. Basically years ago, she had . That's it?!
The ending left me fuming as it felt incomplete and cheesy. Rose .
Overall, 'Cuckoo' made me cuckoo (drove me crazy) with its extremely slow pacing, lengthy descriptions and unlikeable characters. The storyline went nowhere.
March 16, 2011
I found the description of this book intriguing. And when I read that the author actually wrote it during NaNoWriMo, I couldn't wait to get stuck into it...
Rose has recently settled into the new house she's enjoyed renovating in the countryside with her husband and two daughters. She's enjoying getting into some sort of family routine and is finally in a comfortable place with her artist husband, Gareth. However, when her best friend Polly becomes a widow, Rose invites her and her two sons to stay with them until they get themselves settled.
Although Rose's husband isn't thrilled with the idea, because he doesn't particularly like Polly, she still comes to stay. And things start going downhill from there. Rose and Polly have a very odd friendship. They've known each other since they were kids and seem to share a very toxic presence in each other's life. The lives of these two women are intertwined in a series of shocking events. Their connection is filled with wicked manipulation, and sick games. One that actually puts Rose's baby in the hospital.
Suddenly, everything in Rose's life is out of control and she can't get on top of things, but Polly is there to take over and settle the household...
This book is so well written that I was instantly sucked in. The story got under my skin so much that I couldn't wait to read more. But I have to admit, Rose frustrated me. A lot. She was in total denial about her friend's actions and motivations, and let Polly pretty much run riot and ruin her life so much she ends up losing just about everything. Though, Rose isn't as innocent as she first appears. She's very fickle, easily led, and has done plenty of Pollyesque-type things herself.
Cuckoo is a very clever book, with a very spooky story of two friends with so many secrets between them that one of them feels obliged to let the other pop into her life periodically to ruin it. The tension is so thick, I turned every page anticipating what awaited me... all the way to the very shocking conclusion.
I have to admit that the end of the book made me groan, though. Yet, it made perfect sense. This was a great debut!
Rose has recently settled into the new house she's enjoyed renovating in the countryside with her husband and two daughters. She's enjoying getting into some sort of family routine and is finally in a comfortable place with her artist husband, Gareth. However, when her best friend Polly becomes a widow, Rose invites her and her two sons to stay with them until they get themselves settled.
Although Rose's husband isn't thrilled with the idea, because he doesn't particularly like Polly, she still comes to stay. And things start going downhill from there. Rose and Polly have a very odd friendship. They've known each other since they were kids and seem to share a very toxic presence in each other's life. The lives of these two women are intertwined in a series of shocking events. Their connection is filled with wicked manipulation, and sick games. One that actually puts Rose's baby in the hospital.
Suddenly, everything in Rose's life is out of control and she can't get on top of things, but Polly is there to take over and settle the household...
This book is so well written that I was instantly sucked in. The story got under my skin so much that I couldn't wait to read more. But I have to admit, Rose frustrated me. A lot. She was in total denial about her friend's actions and motivations, and let Polly pretty much run riot and ruin her life so much she ends up losing just about everything. Though, Rose isn't as innocent as she first appears. She's very fickle, easily led, and has done plenty of Pollyesque-type things herself.
Cuckoo is a very clever book, with a very spooky story of two friends with so many secrets between them that one of them feels obliged to let the other pop into her life periodically to ruin it. The tension is so thick, I turned every page anticipating what awaited me... all the way to the very shocking conclusion.
I have to admit that the end of the book made me groan, though. Yet, it made perfect sense. This was a great debut!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 16, 2015
This was like watching a train wreak. It didn't get any better, though I hoped like anything that it would. I should have stopped reading but I hoped the climax would have been worth it. It wasn't.
What an awful storyline. People cheating, people drinking in abundance (including while pregnant and breast feeding - awful example of a mother despite proclaiming that she never fed her children anything unorganic yadda yadda).
And if anyone EVER threatened my children like what happened in this book, they would have been out of my house, out of my life, and through the criminal justice system.
Idiot story. (I'm really sorry if this is harsh, but I've just finished it and I need to rant! There are so many other better books like this, please please don't read this one)
What an awful storyline. People cheating, people drinking in abundance (including while pregnant and breast feeding - awful example of a mother despite proclaiming that she never fed her children anything unorganic yadda yadda).
And if anyone EVER threatened my children like what happened in this book, they would have been out of my house, out of my life, and through the criminal justice system.
Idiot story. (I'm really sorry if this is harsh, but I've just finished it and I need to rant! There are so many other better books like this, please please don't read this one)
August 16, 2011
Wow. This book is truly amazing. I can't believe that it was Julia Crouch's first novel. It is very very deep and disturbing. It is written so well I devoured it quickly. It may seem like it is geared towards a female audience but I don't think it is, I think males could enjoy this book too. It's extremely compelling.
The characters are wonderfully written. Some I absolutely hated and wanted them to get what they deserved. Others I empathised with. I was shocked by the ending which I got to quite quickly and I was just gripped from the first moment.
A deeply disturbing book but well worth a read.
The characters are wonderfully written. Some I absolutely hated and wanted them to get what they deserved. Others I empathised with. I was shocked by the ending which I got to quite quickly and I was just gripped from the first moment.
A deeply disturbing book but well worth a read.
October 20, 2011
Haven't enjoyed a book so much in years. The writing is magical, and the characters utterly original and believable. The sinister Polly character is just right as the cuckoo in the nest - not over the top bad, but very dark and dangerous. Completely thrilling, I promise anyone, male, female, young, old, this book won't disappoint!
July 23, 2012
I was a bit disappointed by this story. It had great potential but it built up and up to nothing. The ending was very frustrating and the characters not very likeable. The constant passive aggressive conversations between the two women were annoying, more than anything else. Such a shame because the story itself could have been so much more.
August 4, 2012
The concept had promise but the execution was poor. Unrealistic, twee and the ending was a let down. In top of that I had no empathy with the protagonist.
October 6, 2021
Very big spoilers!
At first I could not wait to finish this book! The writing is good and sucks you in straight away. If you're like me and like suspence, drama, and the whole person moving in on my life type of thing, then give this book a go.
I thought the book may take some sort of Single White Female road due to some hints and inklings here and there. Such as the whole idea of an affair, the pills situation; was Polly trying to ruin Rose's life that much that death or serious illness of a child would be one of her options to do that? type of thing. I got really into the book hoping that my idea of what was going to happen would.....
Sadly it did not. I realllllllllllly hate the ending to this book, I was hyped up sooooo much for a punch to finally hit me, but then it didn’t. Although it does have a twist I wanted something more. I also think Rose almost just shrugged her shoulders and went 'Eh'. And sadly a whole load of questions are just left in the air that aren't answered. Some may like this type of thing but to me its annoying as there are too many questions left unanswered.
While the ending really grinds my gears I did enjoy the book and story, it was different and not too typical to what I was actually expecting.
At first I could not wait to finish this book! The writing is good and sucks you in straight away. If you're like me and like suspence, drama, and the whole person moving in on my life type of thing, then give this book a go.
I thought the book may take some sort of Single White Female road due to some hints and inklings here and there. Such as the whole idea of an affair, the pills situation; was Polly trying to ruin Rose's life that much that death or serious illness of a child would be one of her options to do that? type of thing. I got really into the book hoping that my idea of what was going to happen would.....
Sadly it did not. I realllllllllllly hate the ending to this book, I was hyped up sooooo much for a punch to finally hit me, but then it didn’t. Although it does have a twist I wanted something more. I also think Rose almost just shrugged her shoulders and went 'Eh'. And sadly a whole load of questions are just left in the air that aren't answered. Some may like this type of thing but to me its annoying as there are too many questions left unanswered.
While the ending really grinds my gears I did enjoy the book and story, it was different and not too typical to what I was actually expecting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 10, 2012
A deeply unsettling and sinister read. Crouch avoids falling into the complete Single White Female/Home Invasion cliche although at times you think she is heading straight for it. I had very little sympathy for any of the characters, including the children, and at times found myself wishing something bad would happen to them all. It seemed to me that Crouch was deliberately doing this, I felt increasingly ambiguous about Rose and that we were not being let into all her story but getting what she wanted us to know - if the book had been written in the first person I would have considered her an unreliable narrator.
Crouch builds the atmosphere and the tension slowly with the odd shocking incident but avoiding piling on the grand guignol.
At the end I was left wondering who exactly the cuckoo was. I see other reviewers appear to have treated this as a more straightforward crime novel, I'm not so sure that this is what Crouch intended and in many ways I hope it's not.
A gripping, sinister and unsettling read just don't expect to like any of them.
Crouch builds the atmosphere and the tension slowly with the odd shocking incident but avoiding piling on the grand guignol.
At the end I was left wondering who exactly the cuckoo was. I see other reviewers appear to have treated this as a more straightforward crime novel, I'm not so sure that this is what Crouch intended and in many ways I hope it's not.
A gripping, sinister and unsettling read just don't expect to like any of them.
December 30, 2013
Certainly a page-turner, but I found I was frustrated by the story line most of the time. Frustrated at the main character for not seeing what was under her nose. This is quite unlike me really, I'm normally happy to go with the flow in books like these.
But anyway, that aside, it was a good book with a necessary twist at the end - one that wasn't very pleasing perhaps, but suited the story.
But anyway, that aside, it was a good book with a necessary twist at the end - one that wasn't very pleasing perhaps, but suited the story.
November 30, 2011
I did enjoy it my main criticism being that it left too many unanswered questions at the end which i don't like, i think if you're going to write a book then please finish it.
August 29, 2018
I haven’t been this annoyed at a book for a long time!! I hated the characters including the main character Rose. I don’t know if she was supposed to be likeable or not but I wanted to throttle her. I can’t say to much about the most annoying points in the story as this review would then be one mega spoiler. I found the story dragged and I really struggled to finish ... just one question... I don’t have children myself but is it alright to get pissed most nights then breastfeed a child the next morning as this was a massive regular occurrence!? Big fat thumbs down 👎🏿
November 30, 2019
There are three people in this marriage...
Polly and Rose have been best friends since they were children...their lives took widely different paths but when tragedy strikes and Polly thrusts herself back into Rose's happy family life it slowly becomes apparent that the relationship is more toxic than one could imagine.
This book had a subtle undertone of menace from the start but nearer the end, with some of the plot twists, it became gradually harder to suspend disbelief.
Finally , I don't want to be accused of being obsessed with minutiae but, yet again, how can they afford this house on an artist's income?!
A thriller for those who don't want their peril in large doses...
Polly and Rose have been best friends since they were children...their lives took widely different paths but when tragedy strikes and Polly thrusts herself back into Rose's happy family life it slowly becomes apparent that the relationship is more toxic than one could imagine.
This book had a subtle undertone of menace from the start but nearer the end, with some of the plot twists, it became gradually harder to suspend disbelief.
Finally , I don't want to be accused of being obsessed with minutiae but, yet again, how can they afford this house on an artist's income?!
A thriller for those who don't want their peril in large doses...
September 6, 2020
This is a tricky one to review - I was gripped by the plot but the characters were all SO unbelievable. I'm not going to spoil anything but the fact that Rose didn't immediately kick out Polly after the first incident is astonishing. In fact, their whole twisted friendship and what it's based on is astonishing. And then Rose's 6 year old daughter (I have a daughter almost the same age) is able to single handedly nurse a baby bird back to health, make chocolate ice cream and pour her tired Mummy a glass of wine? In the words of Kevin McAllister, "I don't think so."
December 4, 2020
I’m giving this 3 stars as the story was exciting, I read it really quickly. However, I felt the writing wasn’t brilliant, and the ending was a little far-fetched. Perhaps 2.5 stars.
November 26, 2021
Wow I loved this
September 16, 2012
Cuckoo is a surprising, frustrating, engrossing psychological thriller. I added this to my holiday reading list, having seen it recommended by Sophie Hannah – one of my favourite authors of the genre – so I had high hopes. And, while I perhaps wasn’t quite as bowled over by this debut as I was by Little Face, I found myself thinking about the unresolved questions and trying to explain the complicated plot to my other half several days after finishing it, which for me is a sign of a good book.
Rose and her husband Gareth have moved away from London and created a picture-perfect life for themselves in the countryside – big renovated farmhouse, impeccably well-behaved daughters, plenty of money (despite him being a not-overly-successful artist and her being a stay-at-home mum) to enjoy the finer things in life. So, when Rose discovers that her oldest friend, Polly, has recently lost her husband, Gareth is wary of upsetting their idyllic existence by inviting Polly and her two sons to stay.
But Rose insists, opening up her home to Polly, Nico and Yannis. Everything seems to go surprisingly well: Gareth and Polly manage to be civil towards one another; the boys – though a little more ‘feral’ than Rose’s daughter Anna – are challenging and charming in equal measure; Polly is obviously still grieving and on medication, but seems to be recovering in her new surroundings with Rose’s help. Even when an accident results in Rose spending a few days away in hospital, the repercussions don’t appear to be as bad as she might have feared. Until she returns home, that is, and begins noticing changes. Just how far has Polly infiltrated Rose’s perfect home and family? Is she really to blame for the fact that Rose’s life is unravelling at the edges? Or is Gareth right to be worried about Rose herself?
Everything is told from Rose’s third person perspective, and there is no omniscient narrator to fill in the gaps or answer the questions. We as readers become confused and disoriented alongside Rose, one minute convinced that Polly is deliberately wreaking havoc on her life and the next recalling the depth of this friendship and telling ourselves that it’s just paranoia. The whole novel is unsettling; even the epilogue opens up more uncomfortable questions than it answers. But I like this: I like not knowing exactly what happened and why, and I like the fact that these are interesting characters who can’t easily be labelled ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
Having said that, there were some unexplained turns of events which just didn’t ring true. Gareth’s character transformation mid-way through wasn’t entirely convincing. Nor was the fact that Rose – who dived into the role of surrogate mother to Nico and Yannis – apparently abandons any kind of duty of care towards them at the end of the novel. And – for all the satisfying ambiguity – the final denouement and subsequent epilogue are a little too neat in some respects.
There are even some elements of Rose herself which stretch the bounds of believability. The transformation from drug-taking wild-child into wholesome domestic goddess wouldn’t itself be a problem; it’s that she is so very smug about her domestic goddess-ness. There’s a lot of brand name dropping (Rose doesn’t cook in a casserole dish, she cooks in her Le Creuset, for example) and she’s almost allergic to the thought of supermarket shopping, rowdy children or clutter in the kitchen. Although we learn that she’s not quite the angel she professes to be, all of this makes it pretty hard to imagine her living the rock-and-roll lifestyle with Polly a few years earlier.
The other thing I really didn’t like was the baby’s name: Flossie. Really? We’re supposed to buy that a respectable, prim-and-proper mother, whose first child was named Anna, would give her new baby a name more suited to a rabbit?
These are relatively small complaints, though. I raced through Cuckoo in a couple of days, trying (unsuccessfully) to anticipate what was coming and work out the truth. The final few chapters in particular throw up some completely unexpected surprises, the character quirks keep it interesting and unpredictable, and the writing is so descriptive that it’s easy to conjure up vivid mental images of the farmhouse and village. I’ll definitely be buying Julia Crouch’s next offering, Every Vow You Break.
Rose and her husband Gareth have moved away from London and created a picture-perfect life for themselves in the countryside – big renovated farmhouse, impeccably well-behaved daughters, plenty of money (despite him being a not-overly-successful artist and her being a stay-at-home mum) to enjoy the finer things in life. So, when Rose discovers that her oldest friend, Polly, has recently lost her husband, Gareth is wary of upsetting their idyllic existence by inviting Polly and her two sons to stay.
But Rose insists, opening up her home to Polly, Nico and Yannis. Everything seems to go surprisingly well: Gareth and Polly manage to be civil towards one another; the boys – though a little more ‘feral’ than Rose’s daughter Anna – are challenging and charming in equal measure; Polly is obviously still grieving and on medication, but seems to be recovering in her new surroundings with Rose’s help. Even when an accident results in Rose spending a few days away in hospital, the repercussions don’t appear to be as bad as she might have feared. Until she returns home, that is, and begins noticing changes. Just how far has Polly infiltrated Rose’s perfect home and family? Is she really to blame for the fact that Rose’s life is unravelling at the edges? Or is Gareth right to be worried about Rose herself?
Everything is told from Rose’s third person perspective, and there is no omniscient narrator to fill in the gaps or answer the questions. We as readers become confused and disoriented alongside Rose, one minute convinced that Polly is deliberately wreaking havoc on her life and the next recalling the depth of this friendship and telling ourselves that it’s just paranoia. The whole novel is unsettling; even the epilogue opens up more uncomfortable questions than it answers. But I like this: I like not knowing exactly what happened and why, and I like the fact that these are interesting characters who can’t easily be labelled ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
Having said that, there were some unexplained turns of events which just didn’t ring true. Gareth’s character transformation mid-way through wasn’t entirely convincing. Nor was the fact that Rose – who dived into the role of surrogate mother to Nico and Yannis – apparently abandons any kind of duty of care towards them at the end of the novel. And – for all the satisfying ambiguity – the final denouement and subsequent epilogue are a little too neat in some respects.
There are even some elements of Rose herself which stretch the bounds of believability. The transformation from drug-taking wild-child into wholesome domestic goddess wouldn’t itself be a problem; it’s that she is so very smug about her domestic goddess-ness. There’s a lot of brand name dropping (Rose doesn’t cook in a casserole dish, she cooks in her Le Creuset, for example) and she’s almost allergic to the thought of supermarket shopping, rowdy children or clutter in the kitchen. Although we learn that she’s not quite the angel she professes to be, all of this makes it pretty hard to imagine her living the rock-and-roll lifestyle with Polly a few years earlier.
The other thing I really didn’t like was the baby’s name: Flossie. Really? We’re supposed to buy that a respectable, prim-and-proper mother, whose first child was named Anna, would give her new baby a name more suited to a rabbit?
These are relatively small complaints, though. I raced through Cuckoo in a couple of days, trying (unsuccessfully) to anticipate what was coming and work out the truth. The final few chapters in particular throw up some completely unexpected surprises, the character quirks keep it interesting and unpredictable, and the writing is so descriptive that it’s easy to conjure up vivid mental images of the farmhouse and village. I’ll definitely be buying Julia Crouch’s next offering, Every Vow You Break.
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