The Panopticon

by Jenni Fagan

Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais’s school uniform is covered in blood.

Raised in foster care from birth and moved through twenty-three placements before she even turned seven, Anais has been let down by just about every adult she has ever met. Now a counter-culture outlaw, she knows that she can only rely on herself. And yet despite the parade of horrors visited upon her early life, she greets the world with the witty, fierce insight of a survivor.

Anais finds a sense of belonging among the residents of the Panopticon – they form intense bonds, and she soon becomes part of an ad hoc family. Together, they struggle against the adults that keep them confined. When she looks up at the watchtower that looms over the residents though, Anais knows her fate: she is an anonymous part of an experiment, and she always was. Now it seems that the experiment is closing in.

Named one of the best books of the year by the Times Literary Supplement and the Scotsman, The Panopticon is an astonishingly haunting, remarkable debut novel. In language dazzling, energetic and pure, it introduces us to a heartbreaking young heroine and an incredibly assured and outstanding new voice in fiction.

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Mystery, Contemporary, Scotland, Thriller, Science Fiction

282 pages, Hardcover

First published December 13, 2011

About the author

Jenni Fagan has published four fiction novels, one non-fiction memoir, seven books of poetry and had scripts produced for stage and screen. She has three degrees, concluding as Dr. Of Philosophy, specialising in structuralism.

Jenni is an award winning, critically acclaimed poet and novelist. She is published in eight languages. A Granta Best of Young British Novelist (once-in-a-decade-accolade), Scottish Novelist of the Year (2016), Pushchart nominated, on lists for BBC International Short Story Prize, Impac Dublin, The Sunday Times Short Story Award, Encore, among others. The New York Times called her The Patron Saint of Literary Street Urchins.

Fagan is also an artist who exhibits canvas and sculptures, her bone artworks are on permanent display at Summerhall, where she kintsugi’d the building with poems in gold.

Jenni has written articles for the Independent, NY Times, Marie Claire. She has held Writer in Residence positions at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Louise Stevenson Fellowship and Gavin Wallace.

She has worked extensively with women in prison, and those from deprived backgrounds.

She is currently adapting The Blade Artist by Irvine Welsh for tv, also The Panopticon, Luckenbooth and Hex.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!

does the word "fuck" make you uncomfortable? if so, you will not like this book.

this is not a YA novel. i am embarrassed at how long it took me to clock that. pages and pages of densely-crowded and repetitious "fucks" and "cunts" and wanking, prostitution, rapes, drugs, graphic violence, suicide, and my only thought was "wow, european YA is so progressive..."

but no. not every book with a teenage protagonist is a YA book. lesson learned.lesson should have been learned after Pure and The God of Animals, but i am a slow learner.

i had about a million misconceptions going into this book. in my defense, the wonderful laima sent it to me, as it is not published in my country, because she thought i would like it: girl covered in blood, victim in a coma, no memory of how she got here. oh, yes, that just screams "me" all over it.i was amped.

so but judging by its cover and brief synopsis, i assumed it was dysto-YA with some fantasy elements. you know, flying cat and all. panopticon. teenaged protagonist.

but a thousand times no.

this is a story set in a horrible reality, not some imagined hell, but one that exists for many young people; a girl born in a mental asylum to an unknown woman who was picked up off the street, and who absconded immediately after giving birth, brought up in the foster-care system, prone to violence, and almost constantly high on anything and everything.

she has most recently been transferred to the panopticon after an incident which has left a policewoman in a coma.

i'm not really sure why fagan chose the panopticon for the setting, apart from the fact that it is a really cool benthamian/foucaultian concept. but it didn't seem as though it was really being taken advantage of. it was, essentially, an unmonitored co-ed panopticon, where the residents were free to leave the facility to go on dates, or cause a little ruckus, or go shopping, as though they were not supposed to be monitored at all times. so that was a little question mark for me, but despite my (mild) disappointment that we didn't get a "true" panopticon, the story was gripping and one of those "hope under seemingly unlivable circumstances" novels that really gets under your skin and makes you want to reach out to the characters with all you've got.

and i loved the characters. all of them. books like this "teens in trouble" with a large cast of characters, you usually get a rainbow of situations; you get an anorectic and a sociopath and a cutter and a pyromaniac etc etc, and that is also pretty true here, but it doesn't feel strained, as though the author is trying to catalog every form of psychological defect just for some representational checklist. although we didn't get as much time with them as i would have liked, the moments we did get really shone with compassion and a light touch. these characters never came across as stereotypes;they were very authentic-feeling, particularly anais. part of that was because books written in dialect (this one scottish) force you into the character's skin a little bit, and part of it was the claustrophobic nature of anais' thought-patterns, and even though most of her actions were dictated by whatever drug she was on at the time.

the "very big thing" that happens at the end of this book (to anais, not the other horrible thing) was completely unexpected. i in no way saw it coming. and i hated it. hated it! not as a reader disappointed with an author's choice, but just outraged that this is something that happens and makes you want to go out and be a masked avenger and crack some skulls because you feel so helpless.

my only complaint is that this book doesn't really answer all of the questions it sets up. it is more like the author has taken a dome and plopped it on top of a situation, and anything that got cut off by these barriers, well, you aren't going to get any resolution to that. tfb.

and that's fine - as a "slice-of-life" novel that focuses on a character in difficult situation, it is great, and it is enough.

it would be a great companion-read to Lullabies for Little Criminals, where a young girl is living a life under extreme circumstances that the reader identifies as such, but the character knows no other way of living and sees it as normal, and the horror, through her innocent eyes, is almost charming. in this book, the character is a little older, a little more savvy, and the sweetness and light is harder to find. and yet there are moments of pure beauty and love and the wedding ceremony on the canoe trip - so fucking gorgeous.

not YA, but definitely YAY.

yeah, sorry about that...

come to my blog!

[Navessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tae, cannae, wee, nae, didnae, isnae, gonnae, dinnae, wasnae, umnay, havenae.



Conkers, boak, stouter, choring, witters, womble, wellying, scants.



In case you were wondering, this book is written by a Scottish author. It’s completely un-Americanized. Google is your friend.

Holy fuck. I don’t even know where to fucking start. What the fuck is this? What the fuck was the point? Is there a fucking point? Or is this just supposed to depress the fuck out of me? I can’t fucking decide. Was it fucking awesome? Or do I want to burn its memory from my fucking synapses?

Let the above paragraph serve as a test. Does the amount of f-bombs I used offend you? If so, you probably shouldn’t read this book.

Drugs. Cigarettes. Wanking. Drugs. Rape. Death. Drugs. Pedophilia. Wanking. Sex. Wanking. Drugs. Senseless violence. Drugs. A broken system. Wanking. Cigarettes. Lesbians. Drugs. Wanking. Alcohol. Molestation. Wanking.

Let the above paragraph serve as another test. Are you offended by any of these things? How about their prevalence? Are they triggers for you? If so, you probably shouldn’t read this book.

It took me over a month to get through this because I couldn’t handle it in more than ten page increments. I’m not gonna lie, I nearly DNFed it several times. Not because it isn’t good, not because it’s poorly written, and not because it doesn’t have a message. It’s just not an easy book to read. The MC didn’t grow up too quickly; she never had a childhood at all. She was born in an asylum and shit went downhill for her from there. So…yeah.

I don’t even know how to describe this other than to say that it's about a broken child growing up surrounded by other broken people, in a broken system. It’s not pretty, it’s not uplifting, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

I struggled to determine how to rate this, but because of the emotions it pulled from me, it’s getting ALL the stars. Do I recommend it? Absolutely. It’s not a book I enjoyed reading, but I think it needs to be read.

This review can also be found at The Book Eaters.

[Shelby *trains flying monkeys* · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you plan on picking up this book, go ahead and prepare yourself.



When I first started the book it took me over 30% to figure out what the heck was going on. Once I did I kept thinking no way..this can't be right.
Anais is a character I can't decide if I love or hate. She has been placed in the Panopticon after spending her life in care. Not a good life has it been either.

More of this:


Then I get attached to the other kids in there with her.



She does some really bad stuff which is why I can't love the girl. I do love the girl.
Damn it..I'm gonna go do this now.



Oh I forgot..these kids cuss more than I do, so be warned.

I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest reviw.

[Violet wells · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel has attitude. The literary equivalent of dyed hair, piercings and tattoos. I found it a bit irritating to begin with - too much posturing and street cred dressage. It gets plaudits from Irving Welsh and Ali Smith, two gurus of street cred: a Scottish love in. I'd be far more interested to know what Virginia Woolf or Katherine Mansfield would have made of it. One suspects they'd be rather less gushing. The theme of the damaged dispossessed young female compelled to scale social walls one after another has been a popular theme in the past decade and there are much better books - Milkman and A Girl is a Half Formed Thing spring immediately to mind. This got more engaging when the posturing relaxed and the storytelling began. That said I felt this book has already been written and there wasn't enough distinction in Fagan's voice for me to set it apart from the crowd.

[Kelly (and the Book Boar) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

“Ming-fucking-mong.”

Where do I even begin?

I guess I’m just going to get right to brass tacks here. The Panopticon is not an easy book – either to read or to review. It’s a book that I imagine will have an abundance of both 1 Star and 5 Star ratings and one that many people “won’t get.” I generally hate the use of that term, but since I’m not sure I completely “got” this one, I’m feeling it’s probably okay for me to use in this case.

I’ll admit, I almost threw in the towel with the free association style of first person narration. Not to mention how troubled I was by the story itself – the story of Anais, a 15-year old girl who was born into the system and has been designated a “Lifer.” It really didn’t help matters to see that Goodreads had The Panopticon classified as a Young Adult novel. With the amount of fucks and cunts and drugs and cutting and rape and death, this was not your typical YA fare.

So, what exactly happened that made me keep plugging along? I stopped wondering what the “point” of the words was going to end up being at the end of the story (hell, I stopped wondering what the words were PERIOD and broke out the Scottish-to-English dialect translator in my brain) and just started reading the words themselves . . .

“Imagine being the daughter of an Outcast Queen, imagine being a daughter! Imagine if flying cats were real and you were special, not just a total fucking no-mark.”

“Imagine Paris. Imagine being born a beautiful, lucky wee girl with a beautiful mum, who I’d met, who I lived with; one who made pancakes, and drank gin, and listened tae jazz. One that loved me so much I grew strong.”

Anais had a real, believable, honest-to-god voice and she had so much to say. So many important things that need to be cried out from the rooftops by children who are victims of the system like her . . .

“Disappearing. It happens when you blink. It happens as you write down the registration number for a car pulling way. It happens when you ask for the payment and the guy reaches into his coat, and you just know in your bones he’s not going to pull out money.”

“I’m getting out. I dinnae care how. If I don’t, then I will only ever have been nothing, and no one, and what is the point of surviving this – for that?”

Although the story is easily one of the bleakest I’ve ever read (we’re talking stick your head in the oven kind of gloom), the writing was some of the most beautiful . . .

“Truth is something that laps its way in with the tides, and it returns night after night – until it washes you away. The moon brings it. The tides deliver it. When they leave, the tides steal from the shore. They steal grains and shells and stones. They steal cliffs and rocks and stiles and trees and fields and houses and villages and wee countrified lanes. Then they drag it all out to the bottom of the seabed. The tides won’t stop until they’ve taken everything.”

But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Things don’t pick up. There is no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow . . .

“There is nothing at the end of the rainbow. Not a fucking thing. Fact.”

I spent a good chunk of this weekend (reading 10 pages at a time, because that was about all my fragile psyche could handle) – thinking I’d end up giving The Panopticon a low rating. Today? It’s getting 5 Stars. Why? Because it made me feel things (and it takes A LOT to make me feel things). It also made me accept its status as a book for young adults. Although brutal and horrifying, it tells a truth that needs to be told.

“Vive le révolution. Vive le dreamers. Vive le dream.”

(My apologies for the lack of .gifs in this review. Sometimes the books speak for themselves.)


This book was provided by Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

[Ash Wednesday · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 STARS

I’m just a girl with a shark’s heart.

Ming-fucking-mong.

I don’t necessarily know what that means (can anyone really trust urbandictionary nowadays?) or if I actually understood what Anais was talking about half the time but if there’s one thing I’m certain, my cuss vocabulary expanded a few pages more thanks to this book. And ming-fucking-mong is a new favorite.

Sometimes, you can just tell from the cover/title combo. Hard as we may try to not judge books by their covers, we do. And this book looks pretty intimidating. Any of The Panopticon’s edition appears to promise a lobotomy in the form of distressing accounts, evocative, visceral prose and hours of guessing and second guessing whether you’re understanding things right and what it says about you. 

And since I’m staring so intensely at my screen right now it would’ve called the authorities if it could, I think this delivered on those promises, maybe more. It varies for every reader of course, but Fagan managed to satisfy some latent fragments in my personality. Unfortunately it also left gaping holes of discontent from my end. Because this was not an easy adventure, structurally and thematically, to get into and the emotional payoff tepid, murky and this side of confusing. So overall...



At the beginning of the novel, The Panopticon welcomes its new resident Anais Hendricks, a fifteen year old orphan who has been in and out of the Scottish welfare system since birth. She’s a veteran of these units for the troubled youths and her latest offence, assaulting a policewoman to the point of coma, may make this her very last before she gets shipped to prison (I suppose) where she’ll be incarcerated until she turns 18. What’s interesting is, Anais doesn’t remember the events that led her to her current situation. You really don't know if she actually did it, what you do know is that her perspective is often drug-addled and schizophrenic, her vocabulary uncouth and filthy and she has a violent predisposition. But you draw conclusions and theories about her anyway.

As Anais grows closer to the residents of The Panopticon, her story also grows from sharp and witty remonstrations against a world punishing her for being abandoned to a harrowing portrait of a girl, neglected and devoid of history and identity, relentlessly pursued by demons that she may or may not have created in her desperation to matter and exist. In a manner so raw and visceral in its desperation it was quite heartbreaking. Even if a lot of the things she did scared me a lot A LOT.



But what's interesting about Anais is that in all her psychotic effort to validate her existence, she never gives herself a reason to be a victim. In her drug-soaked, genetically erratic mind she was never born. She was created in a test tube and as she grows more troubled and judged as dysfunctional, she sees faceless men constantly watch her, pushing her sanity as part of an experiment. It ceased to be interesting for me if this and the flying cat and the dancing sugar crystals are real or not, what becomes more impressive is how she chooses to stand for herself and for the rest of the "subjects", how she refuses to be the oppressed even in her psychosis. 

This is not a coming of age story with all the romantic trappings of love conquering insurmountable odds or long lost families swooping in to save the day. Nor are there alcoholic parents to vilify, no best friend with a long-standing crush. This was dirty fingernails, body odor, vomit and track marks.  I was expecting The Handmaid's Tale (the book not the movie) atmosphere-wise, instead the brutally frank and caustic humor was very Trainspotting (the movie, I've not read the book) with a dash of Louis CK and the bizarre and smelly kind of wit and charm Russell Brand throws around. 

Vagina sounds like a venereal disease. Or like the name for some snobby rich German countess' daughter; her entry into society would be announced in some glossy magazine, and underneath it would read... 'Vagina Schneider at the debutante ball, wearing an electric-blue Vera Wang - a true glory to behold.'
Vagina. It's a shit word, ask anyone.

Or maybe an Amy Winehouse. A vegan, squirrel-hugging one. 

She was tripping on acid half the time but her stream of consciousness and experiences cuts deeper than if she was sober. It’s so easy to fall in love with her, she practically says everything you never had the balls and tits to say out loud. Because without the overlong education and the pervading Catholic guilt, I can imagine myself hating the words “please” for making me feel cheap and “thank you” for admitting to everyone else that you need anything from them. Which secondarily makes me wonder if I’m just a set of parents away from being Anais.

And that brings a lot of guilt to be honest, being THAT emotional over something I have never and can never experience. It feels a lot like pretentious cheating. I don't even want to try and understand my sympathy for Brian the dog rapist or the inexplicable effect Pat's version of affection and wisdom had on me. This book made me second guess the way I think and feel over and over. And since the more disturbing aspects to this story will be left to your imagination, I’ve now learned how truly scary my own brain can be. Please don’t leave me alone with it.



So if I were to judge this solely in making me think of all these things, this would have been an outright 5. But the vernacular really was very different and the accented dialogue will be the least of your worries. It was sometimes hard to tell if a rusty pole is A) a rusty pole or B) an old guy with an STD looking for a prozzie. There were a lot of loose threads left untied, character that were built up intricately only to be abandoned in the end. I figured characters like Angus were meant to create some impact in the grand scheme of things but only ended up coming across as tokens. What left me confused the most was the actual function of units like The Panopticon. I have no idea how the youth welfare system works in Scotland but here it was made out to be a most impotent and even dangerous concept. A middle house between foster homes and jail that allows its occupants to openly engage in whatever trade (be it drug or flesh), habits or addiction they used to have: did I miss something? Like a dystopic government operating to systematically trim out the miscreants and society’s wastes perhaps?

There are books we read to fall in love, books we read to be entertained and books we choose to educate us. The Panopticon are none and all of those.You can fall in love, there were moments that were entertaining enough(when you’re not horrified), and in more ways that I can begin to describe, will tell you a lot about yourself than you care for.

Bring your blankie. And maybe a flashlight.

Review Copy courtesy of BloggingForBooks thru Edelweiss.

Also on BookLikes.

[James Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a big thing about panopticons. In fact the PhD I am trying to battle through at the moment has more than a nod to them. So I picked up this novel- not ordinarily my sort of thing- out of interest regarding the title and elements of the story. I’m pleased I did. It is, as they say, an accomplished debut, quite something of a page-turner but also unexpectedly literary and with a first-person narrative that, bar a few squelchy, over-written moments, feels authentic. Full of vituperations and hard long stares at the darkest, seediest underbelly you could imagine- perhaps beyond even that- it is appropriate that Irvine Welsh is a champion of the book in the blurb on the back because the story is certainly a daughter of ‘Transporting.’ I understood the Scottish slang as an Englishman who has spent enough time north of the border but maybe it will stretch others.

The narrator, Anais, an out-of-control 15 year old girl, has spent her life in care being passed from wavering hands back to the State and out again, ad infinitum. It is not surprising that this has added to her issues regarding lack of identity; she has never known her biological family, does not even know what they look like. The ‘birthday game’ she regularly plays with herself gives her the opportunity to manufacture a thousand and one different origins for herself, her favourite being the notion that she had a childhood in Paris with a mother who listened to jazz.

It is easy to see why Anais is a fantasist. Her experiences include rape, drug and alcohol use from an early age, finding the (murdered) body of a loved one and a lifetime spent in a system that fails the majority of those in its care (we are told that 70% of people who grew up in care will end up in prison or an asylum or dead not long after coming of age). Like the other ‘clients’ in her new home, the menacing Panopticon for problem kids, escapism seems something undertaken not out of choice but out of necessity.

The book follows Anais’ wrenching journey and as such is recommended- but be prepared for extreme subject matter, including child abuse, self-mutilation and bestiality along the way. This is not a gentle read although the author’s gift is in making the story seem more than sensationalism. You want Anais’ story resolved. You are invested in her journey.

The one problem I had with the novel, bar a small amount of uneven writing already mentioned (not least towards the very end), is the fact that the unit for problem children is called ‘the Panopticon.’ The author can just about get away with the book’s title as Anais’ life in care (and probably her rampant use of recreational drugs) has left her convinced she is being watched at all times by people she can not see. But for a novel that seems to be aiming to portray the shocking reality of life for the unluckiest children of this apparently wealthy, civilised country, the notion that a children’s unit would ever be called ‘the panopticon’ is, at best, fantasy and, at worst, naïve and unthought-through. Jeremy Bentham, the English philosopher who came up with the idea of the panopticon, spent his life trying to get one built, with very limited success. A few centuries later Michel Foucault put paid to the notion of a true panopticon ever being constructed, savaging the idea in his ‘Discipline and Punish’ treatise as ‘a cruel, ingenious cage.’ So ‘the Panopticon’ simply does not work as the name of a Social Services-run home for children. It just would not happen.

This isn’t to say, of course, that there isn’t a sense of the panopticon (or even ‘the experiment’ to which Anais keeps referring) to life for such children. But then there is the sense of us all being in a panopticon in this modern age of incessant CCTV, of states snooping on its citizens through the internet, of Edward Snowden and his ilk giving us a glimpse of the chamber in the panopticon where reside the people that watch us. If the novel had been called ‘The Panopticon’ but the unit called ‘Meadowside’ or some other bucolic fiction it would have heightened the gap between the perception of ‘doing good’ for these abandoned kids and the reality of the care they are given, not just by social workers and unit staff but by a society that has always preferred- ironically- not to ‘see’ them.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Panopticon” is one of the best-written, saddest, most-moving and triumphant coming-of-age novels I’ve ever read—easily one of the best books of 2013—and I have absolutely no damned idea how to review it.

I love books like that, books that are so original that they defy easy analysis. So many novels today have almost identical plots: a stranger comes to a new town; there’s a meet-cute between two people who initially hate each other then grow to love each other, and work to save an imperiled city/world/bunch of puppies, all followed by a nice, sunny denouement where everyone “good” is—for the moment—safe and happy.

Same circus, different clowns.

Jenni Fagan’s debut novel, “The Panopticon,” defies classification. It doesn’t fit neatly into any genre. “The Panopticon” marches steadily through one girl’s hell, showing us her tough present situation, while following a trail of breadcrumbs and blood droplets through her nightmare past.

“The Panopticon” does not play nicely with the other books on the shelf.

Anais Hendrickson is fifteen-years-old. She was born in a mental institution to a mother who disappeared almost immediately. She’s been in and out of dozens of foster families and institutions, noting that the sum of her belongings always fits in three garbage bags. She smokes, drinks, does a wide variety of drugs, and has had sex for money, for love, and by force. She’s grown-up hard, committing nearly innumerable crimes, from vandalism to attempted murder.

All along, the one thing she’s been able to cling to is “the experiments,” her dead certainty that she’s being watched constantly by a bunch of men with shiny shoes and no noses on their faces.

Irrational? Yes, but she clings to this, because no matter where she goes, people disappear or die on her. Her biological mother was gone within hours of her birth. She found one beloved foster mother murdered in a bathtub. The alternative to “the experiments” is crushing guilt that she caused their deaths.

To say Anais is scarred defies overestimation. “Anais Hendrickson” isn’t even her real name. It’s the fourth name she’s had, one somebody picked out for her.

Anais stands accused of beating a female police officer into a coma. There isn’t enough evidence to arrest her yet. The authorities are convinced she committed the crime. Anais is just as certain she didn’t, though she was so wasted that she can’t remember where she was that night.

We meet Anais in the back of a police car, when she’s being driven to The Panopticon, a semi-secure facility for troubled teens. We see her make friends and enemies, and she ultimately finds that, in a strange way, she’s landed in a sort of family. She likes her social worker, Angus, who goes to bat for her. She’s friends with many of her fellow “guests.” She’s even grown to feel at home there in her small room.

But her past catches up to her. The specter of the comatose police officer hangs over her head, of course, but there’s more. Once again, people she loves start disappearing and dying on her. Anais isn’t complicit in their deaths, but the all-pervading sense of loss, of emptiness, has tracked her down. She tries to escape into the arms of a former lover. This nearly ends tragically. Finally, she’s left with no other course but the most brazen and desperate.

“The Panopticon” is told through Anais’s eyes. We’re privy to her thoughts—jumbled at times—and her terrible memories. We see the survival mechanisms she’s put in place just to keep her going some days.

Her mind is not a comfortable place to be.

Author Jenni Fagan is an award-winning poet, and her powerful use of language renders Anais’s life in stark, scary bursts. We follow Anais through rare warm patches and feelings of belonging, then we lurch back to disjointed bursts from her hellish past.

I’ve read hundreds of novels over the past few years. Some have been heartwarming, others full of adventure, some terrifying. However none of them pulled me in quite like “The Panopticon.” I felt like I was watching a horrifying documentary while somebody held down the fast forward button.

“The Panopticon” is one hell of a ride.

Most Highly Recommended

(nb: I received an advanced review copy from the publisher via Edelweiss)

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars Ever wonder how street urchins get by? Ever wonder about those children who’ve been sent to foster care? This is a story of Anais Hendricks, a 15 year old girl who has grown up in the foster care system of Scotland. It’s written from her point of view, in her vernacular, which makes the novel an interesting read, although challenging at times (don’t be intimidated, it’s worth the effort). Anais is a punk, but a spunky and likable punk. It’s a credit to Fagan’s writing ability that the reader roots for Anais despite her despicable behavior, for we understand her. The novel reveals the utter hopelessness for those in “the system”. This could have been a depressing read, although it’s heart wrenching at times. Fagan doesn’t resort to the maudlin to tell her story. She succeeds in revealing the flaws of the foster care system with brutal and horrifying honesty. It was a great read for me because I am removed from that life and I love books that open new worlds to me. Fagan opens our eyes to children at risk and their journeys.

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Önce kitabın adının ne anlama geldiğini belirtelim. “Panoptikon”, İngiliz filozof ve sosyolog J. Bentham'ın 1785 yılında tasarlamış olduğu hapishane inşa modelidir. Tasarımın konsepti yarım yuvarlak C şeklinde çok katlı ve tüm odaları bir merkezden gözetlemeye izin vermesine dayalıdır. Jenni Figan’ın bu romanındaki sosyal hizmetler evi Panoptikon olarak isimlendirilmiştir.

Roman kahramanı Anais, 15 yaşlarında biyolojik annesi bilinmeyen, bakıcı annesi öldürülmüş, uyuşturucu, fuhuş ve şiddet ile içiçe büyümüş, onlarca ev ve yuva değiştirmiş, en sonunda bir kadın polisi öldürücü biçimde yaralamaktan şüpheli olarak Panoptikon’a getirilmiş yetim bir kız çocuğudur. Kendisini sosyal bir deneyin parçası olarak görür. Bu nedenle hep gözlendiğini düşünür. Islahevine gönderilme tehdidi altındadır.

J. Fagan’ın kısa ve etkileyici cümlelerini aşırı argo kullanması bence gölgeliyor. Anais’in ruh halini bu derece ergen yeraltı edebiyatı argosunu kullanmadan rahatlıkla verebilirdi ki çoğu yerde bunu yapmış. Romanın kurgusu da finali de çok iyi. Roman sistemi sorguluyor ve toplumun gözden çıkardığı bu insanların sistemin darbeleriyle çıkış yollarının kapatıldığını inandırıcı olarak anlatıyor.

Yazardan okuduğum ilk kitap, diğer kitaplarını da arayacağım. Öneririm.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anais Hendricks is fifteen years old. That's fifteen years of living in care: foster homes, mostly, and "units" with other teens. In fact, she's been through over fifty "placements" already: twenty-four before she was seven, when she was adopted by a professional prostitute called Teresa; then another twenty-seven times from the age of eleven, when her new mother was killed by one of her clients in their apartment. She doesn't know who her real mother is - no one does - and she routinely plays the "birthday game", where she imagines a different start for herself, a family maybe, or a posh life in Paris. She'd love to go to Paris. But a strong part of her knows that the experiment is watching. It's always watching, waiting for the moment to take her back and reveal the test tube she came from and subject her to further experimentation.

Arriving at the Panopticon seems to fit right in with her theory about the experiment. It's a semi-circular building where the interior is open to the all-seeing watchtower in the middle; dating back to a pervious era and a life as an asylum, it's well fitted for wayward teens like Anais. She's been brought here by the police with blood all over her school uniform - but she hasn't been charged. There's no evidence that she put PC Craig in a coma, nothing but their prior volatile, antagonistic relationship and Anais's hefty track record: she's been brought in for countless acts of vandalism, violence, trafficking, and more. But while she doesn't remember anything from that day, she's sure she had nothing to do with the police constable's current state.

At the Panopticon, she meets and befriends the other girls: Tash, fifteen and working the streets at night; her girlfriend Isla, who has two-year-old twins living in foster care and cuts her belly out of guilt for passing AIDS onto them - a disease she had no idea she had, after catching it herself from using her father's drug kit one time; and Shortie, who picks a fight with Anais after which the two become close. There are boys here too: John, cute and a thief; twelve-year-old Dylan and Brian, whom they all hate after catching him doing something despicable. It's the only family Anais has, and it's not bad, as family's go. Even if the watchtower is always watching, and her social worker is never around to support her, and her ex-boyfriend keeps pestering her from jail.

But the tight net of the system is closing in on Anais. With her lengthy rap sheet and this unproven belief that she assaulted a cop and put the woman in a coma, her time of relative freedom is coming to an end. They want to put her away in the underage facility located on an island called John Kay, until she's eighteen and then, they predict, she'll end up in the regular adult jail. But Anais has a will, and has lived through enough bad shit and survived that she's not about to let this be her end. If there's one thing she has left to call her own, she reasons, it's her soul, and that the experiment can never have.

The Panopticon is a tough book to read, alright. It starts slow, not because nothing happens but because Anais' narrative voice takes a while to get the hang of (for non-Scottish readers, at least), and as it's written (correctly, with great skill) in present tense, you're launched right into her head and it's a bit like floundering in deep water, trying to get your head up and get your breath and your bearings. Anais is smart at school, when she goes, but she has a distinctly colloquial way of thinking/speaking, and in Scottish vernacular, so that her voice is strongly authentic. She's also a big drug taker, as well as an adolescent, and the way she thinks is reflective of both. It's highly realistic, and given the subject matter, this makes it a tough book to read.

Yet so, so worthwhile. On Goodreads I tagged this as a "made me cry" book. I cried not just because of what happens to some of the characters (well, all really), but because this isn't really fiction. It's scarily real. This shit happens. There are lots and lots of kids just like Anais and Tash and Isla and Shortie and all the rest, kids who had a rough start in life and have been stuck in the system ever since, kids who got dealt a shitty hand and have been punished for it ever since, kids who have been judged by the system, labelled and shelved. The panel hearing that Anais attends is very telling of the system's unsympathetic attitude:

"It is my belief that you cannot stop yourself, Miss Hendricks. Everything in your record tells me that you will keep offending. [...] And, should you be tried for one single offense more, then we have a court order to have you placed in a secure unit and detained until you are eighteen years old, without review. [...] I will personally advocate that she graduates to the maximum-security wing in the Panopticon at the earliest possible opportunity. We have pages"--the chairwoman brandishes a thick sheaf of papers--"pages and pages of charges, and this isn't even half of them. [...] It is my opinion, Miss Hendricks, that you are going to re-offend. Once you have done so, you will go into a secure unit. And when you get released from there, you will offend again and you will go on to spend your adult life in prison, which is exactly where you belong, because you, Miss Hendricks, present a considerable danger both to yourself and to all of society." [pp.151-2]

The trouble with our society (societies, in all their variance) is that they only allow for one way of being, one way of living and existing, as a way of maintaining order and the status quo. Yet a startlingly large portion of any society's population simply cannot mould itself to that one way of living, and they tend to pay a large price for resisting. Anais' friends, the adults that she knows from her time of living with Mother Teresa, are just such people - and so too is Anais. They take a lot of drugs, and paint portraits of penises, and have sex change operations, and live surrounded by stolen goods, and give vodka to children, and talk about gender and the true state of the world. It's the exact opposite of any developed, western country's idea of middle class surbabia a la 1955. It's seen as self-destructive, and dangerous, and subversive, and freakish. Anais' world isn't a pretty one, or a comfy one, or even a safe one. It's sad, but not surprising, that Anais drinks so much and takes so many drugs. And from that, perhaps, comes the hallucinations, the suspicion, the paranoia.

It's just me now. Chef's in the kitchen. Eric's in the office. Everyone else is at school. The watchtower windows reflect the sun, and the big bug-eyes stare, and it's totally obvious that watchtower doesnae even need staff in it; it just watches - all on its own. [p.57]

With Anais' history, it's also no surprise that she struggles with a sense of her own identity. There's a lost little girl trapped inside, and in an unguarded moment she once asks for her mummy - the one and only time she's let that wish slip free.

Identity problem. Fuck that. Fifty-odd moves, three different names, born in a nuthouse to a nobody that was never seen again. Identity problem? I dinnae have an identity problem - I dinnae have an identity, just reflex reactions and a disappearing veil between this world and the next. [p.86]

With as hard-shelled and wise as Anais sometimes seems, it's easy to forget that she's just fifteen, and naive, and trusts the wrong people - like her ex, Jay. She remembers how it felt, after Mother Teresa died when she was eleven, how he held her and stroked her hair. (All anyone ever wants is to be held and loved, right?) He knows how to pull her strings, but I couldn't believe how stupid she could be. You'd think that you'd be more wise to sweet-talking selfish fuckheads after a life like hers, wouldn't you?

There are moments of sweetness in Anais' life that make her cling on, and yearn for something better - like the impromptu picnic on a little island in the lake, where she and Shortie and Tash and Isla talked and smoke and drank and ate junk food, and Shortie performed a wedding ceremony for Tash and Isla and Anais threw petals and gave them rings woven from grass. It is, perhaps, the happy memories that make the bad times so hard, the times of loss. Never is it more apparent just how alone and isolated these teenagers, these children, are. No one really cares. The police see them as nothing but trouble. They've seen things and experienced things that they can only share with each other, because only others like themselves understand, and never show pity.

This is a richly told story, perfectly written in Anais' voice, and readers may be spared from some graphic details but you're not spared from the unpleasant truths of her life. Fagan has given real teens like Anais a voice, and an uncompromising, honest look into their lives. I felt two things distinctly, while reading this: a strong protective urge, that motherly instinct to save and protect and support; and the understanding that that kids like Anais are not the enemy, or a fucked-up element of society beyond all hope: rather, that they are fucked-up elements of our society who have made a society all of their own, different, and bleak, and dangerous, and unforgiving, but still human, and full of human feeling. This was a brave book to write, considering how gutted I felt reading it, and a worthy one. The Panopticon introduces a strong, skilful and talented writer who presents an unflinching portrait of a young girl trying to find her place in a society that doesn't want her, and more importantly, to find herself.

My thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book via TLC Book Tours.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The experiment are watching.
You can feel them, ay. In the quiet. In the room. Wherever you are-they’re there. That’s a given. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes a wee bit further away; when I want to hurt myself but I dinnae, I can always feel them then. They want me to hurt myself. They’re sick like that. What they really want is me dead.’

Anais, 15 years old, is suspected of assaulting a police officer and while the police complete their investigation she’s taken to The Panopticon for close monitoring. For being so young, Anais has led a shockingly violent life. She never met her birth mother and has been in the foster care system since she was born. Her foster mother was brutally murdered and Anais was the one to find her body. Drugs and alcohol have become par for the course with her and are the reason she can’t remember if she actually did assault that police officer. All she knows is, the tower in The Panopticon watches over everyone, always. Whether that’s simply a paranoid delusion or not remains to be seen.

‘The watchtower windows reflect the sun, and the big bug-eyes stare, and it’s totally obvious that watchtower doesnae even need staff in it; it just watches – all on its own.’

The Panopticon is a wild ride of pure insanity. A crazy combination of A Clockwork Orange, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Scottish style. The Scottish terms will seek to overwhelm you but Google is useful; use it. This story was shocking and heartbreaking, even more so when you find out it’s loosely based on the authors own personal experiences with the foster care system in Scotland. Anais may be a juvenile delinquent but she’s still got morals and that’s what makes her case so heartbreaking. She’s smart, full of wit and has hopes and dreams of living in Paris above a bakery where she’d wake up to the smell of fresh croissants. But since she doesn’t live above a bakery in Paris, she passes the time by playing the ‘Birthday Game’ where she uses her imagination to make up a different life than the one she’s currently leading.

Anais is a prime example of juvenile delinquency but she’s not the only misfit being kept at The Panopticon. There are the girls she befriends: Isla, the HIV-positive mother of twins that cuts herself to try to rid herself of the virus and Tash, her lover who works as a prostitute in order to save up for their own flat. There are lesser sad-cases as well such as the boy who is bullied by everyone including the staff after he is caught raping a dog and another who burned down a special-needs school. Bottom line, this is not a pretty story, but despite its ugliness, it tells the honest story of young people that are beaten down by the system that is intended to keep them safe.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Anais is an amazing character, she is now 15 and has been shuffled from one foster home to another, she arrives at the Panopticon because of her suspected part in the severe injury done to a policewoman. At the prison she will meet other youth, just like herself. There is plenty of swearing, drug use and sex, so I can see that this book will not be for everyone. Yet Anais, whose narrative voice takes some getting used to, and her friends have a story that need to be told.

So many of our youth are throwaway kids, and it is a sad state of affairs, in this country as well as others. At times the prevalent drug use serves to slow the narrative down, they are so detailed. This is a maddening book, in that some of the people involved in hers and the others cases are so unsympathetic or maybe just burned out. Maybe seeing too just much makes them less compassionate.

Interesting concept for a book, and I loved the grittiness and toughness of Anais, yet she can still makes friends and despite all she has gone through, can still be compassionate. Would have rated this higher, but I had a problem with the ending. I thought too many strands of the story were left dangling, unexplained. That was frustrating, but I am still very glad to have met Anais.

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

A darkly entertaining first-person narrative about Anais Hendricks: a lively, intelligent, witty fifteen-year-old girl who has spent her life in and out of care homes, has been arrested hundreds of times, has been doing every drug possible and having sex since she was a child, and may have put a police officer in a coma. At the beginning of the book, she's being transferred to the Panopticon, a home for young offenders housed in an old, gothic building. This is a good read - energetic and funny - but it deviates from what the blurb and cover seem to suggest: there is much darkness to the story but the tone is light, and despite an implied sense of mystery, it's really more of a plotless portrait of the protagonist's life. It felt to me a lot like one of those YA books for older teens that always cause loads of controversy because they're full of swearing, drugs and sex (such as Junk by Melvin Burgess, which I absolutely loved when I was an actual teenager and really, really need to re-read). It is shocking in places, mainly because of what Anais has already experienced at such a young age: however, there were some aspects of her character I found a bit unbelievable, almost too good to be true (her anti-bullying attitude, the extent of her reading/cultural knowledge, her obsession with vintage style). I enjoyed The Panopticon, but I didn't find it as remarkable as many readers have, and I don't find myself with an awful lot to say about it now it's done.

[~✡~Dαni(ela) ♥ ♂♂ love & semi-colons~✡~ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like I need a shower. This book was grim and dirty; reading it was a visceral experience, a rather unpleasant one.

I was all set to like this book. I have a secret fondness for dialects and cussing (really, I do; cussing has its place!). But this book is essentially plotless. It's a big pile of meandering thoughts told by a drugged-up, paranoid teenager.

15-year-old Anais, in and out of group and foster homes, abused as a kid, tripping from just about every drug out there, is, by her own admission, completely fucked up. At the beginning of the novel, Anais is sent to the Panopticon, a type of reform home for young offenders. The novel is set in Scotland, and Anais narrates the story in a thick Scottish brogue that proved somewhat confusing even to me (and I'm a linguist, people! Speech is my thing).

Alas, the story goes nowhere. It's part stream of consciousness, part weird pseudo-mystery, with no real climax. There's a lot of graphic descriptions of drug trips and sexual encounters. Anais has lived a terrible life, and we're privy to her thoughts and memories, which soon become just words. How much can we be shocked before we become immune?

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the hardest things about teaching is running into those students who just won’t get out of their own way. It isn’t a question of ability or intelligence; those things are, relatively speaking, easy to get a handle on. No, it’s the students who possess all the necessary tools and then opt, for whatever reason, not to engage at all. To let the work go unfinished, to half-ass the paper, to fake their way through the reading rather than attempt to make sense of it.

This was true when I taught high school, and, amazingly, it’s still true now that I’m working with preservice English teachers. These are adult students one or two years out from teaching in their own classrooms, but there are always a couple each semester who apparently decide, “I know there are certain habits that all successful teachers begin to adopt during their time as students, but I’m going to do things my own way.” They can do the work; they just won’t.

The reasons are manifold. Sometimes it’s boredom or the irrelevance of the material. In those cases it’s on me – I have to figure out what’s not working and fix it. There are also those cases of good old-fashioned laziness, and those are sort of on me, too. I remember what I was like at 16 and 21, and I have a hard time faulting students for adopting the same behaviors I had when I was their age – and which I still battle, if I’m going to be completely honest.

But there are other instances when the roots of student behavior are deeper and more troubling. These can often be traced back to trauma – abuse or neglect, for instance, or things as unfortunately commonplace as divorce or death – and when we’re talking about teenagers, we have to remember that they’re ill-equipped to deal with these things. As adults we have to be sensitive to this. We are all products of our past, and the way we act in the present is often dictated by how we’ve responded to things beyond our control.

So it is with Anais Hendricks, the fiercely intelligent narrator of The Panopticon, who, at 15-years-old, has racked up charges for over 100 juvenile offenses and is now being monitored at a group home for troubled youth. Most of these offenses are minor (petty theft and drug issues, mostly); some are major (vandalizing half a dozen police cars). But now Anais is under suspicion of beating a female police officer into a coma, and she’s been remanded to the Panopticon until her case works its way through the courts.

At the start Anais comes off like just another variation of the addicts who people Irvine Welsh’s novels: she’s surly and sarcastic, she’s usually under the influence of something, and her language is peppered with profanity and Scottish slang. I resisted this at first because I felt like I’d seen it before. But as author Jenni Fagan unspools Anais’ story, we come to see there’s much more going on here than we first realize. Like some of those students who resisted my best intentions to educate them, Anais at 15 is the product of a past most of us would likely never survive.

She’s been orphaned since birth and has bounced through 51 foster homes by the time we meet her. She’s been abused, she’s been a drug courier for various friends and family members, and her most fondly remembered foster mother is a murdered prostitute. We don’t know exactly why she has such a destructive streak – unless we’re willing to generally chalk it up to “poor childhood,” which might be fair – but the Panopticon also fits into Anais’ self-constructed origin story: she wasn’t born so much as created in a lab, and she’s under constant surveillance by something she calls only “the experiment.”

I was decidedly lukewarm on The Panopticon throughout its early chapters. Like I mentioned above, at first there’s a little too much Welsh for comfort, and Anais initially seemed like just another in a long line of nihilistic teenage protagonists who didn’t have much to bring to the table other than drug problems and a piss-poor attitude. To the author’s credit, however, it becomes clear pretty quickly that she’s not just rubbing our noses in the darkness of the world. Anais has a wicked sense of humor, and its her exchanges with the other characters in the Panopticon that’s partially due to my turnaround. It’s all bleak – Tash is a teenage prostitute; Isla is an HIV-positive cutter who gave the disease to her twins – but there’s a pseudo-philosophical gallows humor that cuts through material that could be tediously morose in other hands. Take this reflection on our origins:

Maybe God’s just a scientist. This is all an experiment gone wrong, every single one of us, just wonky as fuck because of some chemical cock-up that was meant to produce something less faulty.

The other thing working in the book’s favor is how sensitively Fagan paints Anais’ inner life. Despite her (self) destructive tendencies, she lives by a strict moral code – no bullying, no hurting animals, respecting children and the elderly – and she struggles mightily with her regular realization that most of the adults she encounters live intellectually and emotionally bankrupt lives. For me, the key passage comes in a hearing to determine how she should be punished for charges she received before falling under suspicion of beating the police officer. The court officer – condescending and imperious – asks Anais if she has anything to say before being sentenced. She doesn’t respond, but this is her internal monologue:

Aye. Aye, I do. It’s this: here is what you don’t know – I’d lie down and die for someone I loved; I’d fuck up anyone who abused a kid, or messed with an old person. Sometimes I deal, or I trash things, or I get in fights, but I am honest as fuck and you’ll never understand that. I’ve read books you’ll never look at, danced to music you couldnae appreciate, and I’ve more class, guts and soul in my wee finger than you will ever, ever have in your entire, miserable fucking life.

Taken in the context of the way I started this review, it should be clear why I find Anais such a relatable, heartbreaking character. Adults too often jump to conclusions about teenagers. This is true of teachers, too; I worked with them and wasn’t immune to such judgments myself. We evaluate them based on the standards we set for them, assuming all along those standards are worth meeting. But how often do we really stop to find out why they act as they do, or to try and learn more about their rich inner lives? We think they’re lazy, they’re mean, they don’t care.

Sometimes they are and they don’t. But I’ve been involved in education long enough to realize this is dangerous thinking. It’s dismissive, and it too often ignores the very real hurt at the core of their behavior. Even though The Panopticon is obviously fiction, Anais is such a vividly drawn character that I see her in many of the students I’ve taught over the years, and it makes me wish I’d tried harder to reach those I too casually wrote off.

In the end, The Panopticon can’t quite deliver on all its promises. Plot threads go unresolved and conflicts are dropped in aid of a (non)resolution that is certainly hopeful but strikes me as a little too clichéd. But if I’m at all dissatisfied with the way Fagan ends things, it’s only because I was so enthralled with the rest of it. It’s a first-rate story, true, but there are important lessons here for those willing to heed them.

More reviews at goldstarforrobotboy.net

[Philtrum · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finished reading this a couple of days ago but have been waiting before writing this review to see if my first impressions were going to change. They have not.

The other reviews I’ve read (which is why I read the book in the first place) seem to be universally glowing. The solitary one-star review on Amazon seems to be an error as the reviewer raves about the book.

It has been this feeling that I’m clearly out on a limb which has made me wait before committing myself. Have I really missed something? Am I just on the wrong wavelength?

Pa`nop´ti`con ( noun). A circular prison with cells so constructed that the prisoners can be observed at all times. [Greek panoptos 'seen by all']

The tale begins as Anais Hendricks (15) is being taken to a care home (the titular Panopticon). She’s been accused of assaulting a policewoman (who is in a coma throughout the book). The story is told only from Anais’s point of view, and she is a troubled lass.

Born in an asylum to a mother she never knew, she’s been passed from pillar to post, from one “care” environment to another. She was fostered by a prostitute who was killed. She’s violent and short-tempered. She hoovers up drugs (of all kinds) like sweets. If someone offers her a pill (or three), she swallows them. She’s sexually active. There are constant lesbian overtones. Her language is foul. She seems to have few redeeming qualities. She fantasises that the details of her birth were different, and that she will live, instead of her miserable, futile life in Scotland, a bohemian one in Paris.

We meet several of the other children in the home, and they’re all as damaged as Anais. The plot, such as it is, is fairly grim, and Anais ends up being gang-raped in a council tower block flat, with the crime, she assumes, being filmed for online distribution.

Other reviewers seem to think the book is wonderfully well written and that the story is about hope and friendship. I don’t think I’d agree on either count.

My overwhelming impression, and this has not changed over the last couple of days, is that this is nothing more than some kind of porn: of which type I’m not so sure – Welfare state porn? Safeguarding porn?

Anais – 15 years old, remember – seems to glory in her vices. The author offers no commentary, makes no judgement. There are no effective adult characters in the book who even attempt to help Anais grow up – apart from one support worker, Angus, who tells her more than once: “You’re all right, really, you are” (or words to that effect).

The blurb indicates the author has worked (or still works) in prisons, and one imagines she must have encountered enough kids like Anais. But the novel just seems to be saying: “Look how crap it is for some of these kids, look at what they do, see how they smoke, drink, use drugs, have sex. See how they know more about the seedy underbelly of society than you readers will know in the whole of your lives. Isn’t it grim? But oddly fascinating? Let me show you just how more depraved things can get!”

Too unremittingly sordid and sad for me. Sigh.

2/10

[Laima · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

When it comes to deciding which book to read next I don’t follow a list nor do I try to work through a stack of books. I tend to read whatever type of novel catches my interest at the time.
After browsing through a few reviews of The Panopticon on GoodReads I decided this story was intriguing, strange and quirky enough to suit my taste in books… so I ordered a copy.

I’m very glad I did!!

This book is a debut novel for Scottish author Jenni Fagan. It is very different than any other book I’ve read. Not only does the story keep your interest but the language is harsh, real and intense. There is use of Scottish dialect and terminology throughout the story – sometimes not easily understood.
Fifteen year old Anais Hendricks is a chronic young offender. She does not remember what happened but has blood all over her school uniform – and a policewoman lies in a coma. She is brought to the Panopticon, “a circular prison with cells so constructed that the prisoners can be observed at all times.”
As the book jacket states “Smart, funny and fierce, Anais is a counter-culture outlaw, a bohemian philosopher in sailor shorts and a pillbox hat. She is also a child who has been let down, or worse, by just about every adult she ever met.”

Anais was born in a mental institution. Her bio-mum jumped out the window after the birth and was never seen again. In her own words this is how Anais describes her life:

“I got taken in when I was born, moved through twenty-four placements until I was seven, got adopted, left there when I was eleven, moved another twenty-seven times in the last four years.” That’s that out the road. I’ve said it so many times it’s like reciting a wee bunch of words that dinnae mean anything. I could be reciting the ingredients for cornflakes.

This story is about Anais, her relationship with the other offenders she meets at the Panopticon, her struggle with trying to remember what happened – she has difficulty with this as she is usually stoned or high. There are funny parts in this novel too. I found the boating trip taken by the inmates hilarious. No spoilers here though.

Overall, I felt like rooting for Anais to do something right or at least win at something even though her life was such a mess. She is a heartbreaking young heroine and it is her character and story that create a wonderfully quirky and unique novel.
I give this book a 4 star rating only because sometimes I had difficulty with the dialect.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read and enjoyed Fagan's most recent book Luckenbooth last month, I couldn't resist picking up this one, her debut novel, when I saw it in the library. This book is very different but no less impressive. Its 15 year old narrator Anais is a classic problem child who has spent the whole of her short life in a succession of short term foster and childrens home placements, including one with a prostitute who was murdered, and she has acquired a long history of drug abuse, petty crime and violence.

She arrives at the Panopticon, a semi-secure home for troubled teenagers in the Scottish countryside, under suspicion for the assault of a police officer, a case which threatens her with incarceration for the rest of her childhood and possibly beyond. Seen by authority as wild and dangerous, Anais lives by her own moral rules, driven by injustice and a hatred of mindless violence which is somewhat at odds with here own history. She forms an uneasy but doomed friendship with three other residents of the Panopticon. I found the "happy" ending in which Anais escapes incarceration and starts a new life under a false identity a little unconvincing, but anything else would have made for a very bleak book.

[Stuti Rai · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've tried to come up with a way to review this book and the best I've been able to figure out is listing what I don't think this book is, rather than what it is-

~This book isn't appealing, feasible or entertaining.
~This book isn't about a girl who beats the system or even the system.
~This book isn't a thriller or a mystery.
~This book doesn't have a closure.
~This book doesn't have very charming characters.

Reasons you might want to avoid this book

~Anais, the MC, is very expressive and indiscreet with her expletives. And I don't mean a casual 'fuck'.
~It features many dark and fucked-up stories.
~The reality isn't pretty.
~Rape, prostitution, wanking, and excessive swearing constitute a whole lot of this book.

This book is the ultimate troll. What with the blurb and cover and all, I expected thriller/dystopic/sci-fi novel. Something within that range. But The Panopticon deals with simple, unblemished going-on's of an orphan girl's life, and other people she comes in contact with.

Anais is fucked-up beyond reason, but not actuality. Born in an asylum to a vanished mother, drifting from home to new home, addicted to 'all the bad things', she has one more problem to cope up with: the Experiment.

She feels them watching her, reading her, waiting on her. They want her to break and they sure do their damnedest to make that happen. Anais has known about them since she was a kid; she knows she can't let them find that out. So along with all her trouble, she's also been living in a panopticon all this time.

As Karen point out in her review, the idea of the setting of the Panopticon-style home had no point really. The stuff with the experiment and the allusion to the greek prison made sense, but the setting was never fully conceptualized.

There's a whole dismal rainbow of characters, and each one grabbed a fold of my heart. These are just teenagers with problems not bigger than the world's, but individually it's so scary. The girls and boys in this book feel so human and teenager-type, they each have their coping methods and it's not all fun and games. These kids have been run over by life and adults, but you won't see them paying it any heed. There's no respite, no silver lining for anybody, you gotta swallow it straight and keep lugging, if you want to move on.

The story isn't really all that there. It begins with Anais being sent to the panopticon for putting a police woman in coma, and what basically follows(and I'm telling you in unappealing terms, quite unlike this book) is her psyche getting drained. I mean, really. Besides the heartrending characters, whenever we are alone with Anais, there is paranoia, fear and desolation. Every moment hurts.

But Anais is a tough character if there ever was one.

I'm a bit unconvinced by reality, full stop.

There are things I didn't like, particularly something major that happens to wards the end. At first, I was in a rage at the author for using such an ugly plot device to make the character round up her shit and get her act together. HOWEVER, I realized this was life being consistent in all its inconsistent, fucked-up grandeur.

To say I liked this book would be incomplete, and trying to exactly pinpoint my feelings and fit in a glasscase for you is impossible.

But look, I have written my review!

Also, I have wish: I wanna say this to someone someday, with genuine and unyielding conviction.

I've read books you'll never look at, danced to music you couldnae appreciate, and I've more class, guts and soul in my wee finger than you will ever, ever have in your entire, miserable fucking life.

A review copy was provided by the publishers.

[Gary Schroeder · Rating 2 out of 5]

Our protagonist 15-year old orphan Anais Hendricks is in a home for wayward Scottish children which just happens to be housed in an old complex called the Panopticon ( a facility designed in such a way that all occupants can be viewed at all times from a central tower). Anais is, we are told at many turns throughout the book, something special. She's NOT just an abused, drug addled, promiscuous, violence-prone anti-heroine...no, she's "got that Special Somethin'!" She's a violent offender with a heart! Sure, she's in a perpetual state of being stoned throughout the novel, but she's got pluck! I'm sure that author Jenni Fagin wanted me to see Anais that way but it didn't work for this reader.

The Panopticon follows Anais through a few weeks of her life in the facility where, presumably, she's simply killing time until she's likely to be transferred to an adult prison for permanent housing when she turns eighteen. Her record of violence would suggest that conclusion to almost any external observer. While in the Panopticon, she meets a series of abused, unwanted teens much like herself. life's rejects who never had a chance to make anything of themselves because they never had a proper start. It's a pity and we feel bad for them...as we're supposed to.

Unfortunately, I found the book to be rather a slog. Anais is written with a strong voice and she's well drawn, but I never cared about her all that much. The plot is heavily dialogue-driven but often quite slow, consisting largely of Anais' acid-induced hallucinations, hyper-profane internal monologue (this book has far and away the highest profanity quotient of any book I've ever encountered) and conversations with her peers housed in the Panopticon. Unfortunately, the conversations that the orphans in the Panopticon have are often no more interesting than the conversations that any teens have. Yes, there are breaks in between discussions of where the next batch of drugs can be scored that are meant to show the inner scarred-but-loving-hearts of the characters, but not nearly enough to make up for the drag of most of the dialogue.

While Anais is given a strong voice, her character is a bit implausible. She's been tossed from one foster home to the next, routinely getting high since she was a pre-teen but somehow possesses the soul of a wizened philosopher. These things don't seem to mesh; it's too incongruent with her neglectful, hedonistic childhood. In the end, The Panopticon simply didn't live up to the hype of its New York Time book review. ..or maybe I'm just not that entertained by hopeless depravity.

[Nick Garbutt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Authenticity is a rare quality in writers. These days most are from the middle classes and have English degrees. Many also have done creative writing courses. Others work their way through publishing houses editing the work of others and getting to know the movers and shakers in industry.
This is all very well. But it does leave them rather lacking in experience of the world they wish to write about. It is hard to have illuminating insights about something you know nothing about.
Every now and then someone breaks through into this privileged world, someone with a talent to reflect and give insight into that world of muck and blood.
Jenni Fagan is one such. She was brought up in a bewildering selection of care settings and this book is full of insight and genuine understanding into the lives of kids in care, the obscenity of the system that provides “care” and the rawness and humanity of the kids themselves.
For some utterly bewildering reason this book is often labelled as being for “young adults”. Its not it is about them and the ruination of their lives by an uncaring, bureaucratic system.
A brilliant novel.

[Sinem A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

kahramanın16 yaşında kendini eksiden varetme mücedelesi inanılmaz. yazarın da kısa kısa cümlelerle atmosferi yaşatma becerisi gerçekten dikkate değer ,yazarın başka kitaplarını da okumak isterdim tabi çevrisi olsa..

[Ellis ♥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recensione apparsa su Leggere distopico.

Scozia, poco distante da Edimburgo si staglia il Panopticon: una sorta di carcere minorile dall’assetto a pianta semicircolare, con una torre di guardia posta al centro dalla quale è possibile osservare h24 il gruppo di ragazzi e ragazze “ospiti” della stessa. Un istituto correzionale che sembra uscito direttamente da 1984 di orwelliana memoria, data la miriade di telecamere sparse ovunque e un occhio vigile che li segue costantemente, pur lasciando loro delle piccole libertà.
Ci scontriamo subito con la caoticità della vita di Anais Hendricks, sarà lei la nostra risoluta voce narrante: un’adolescente alla deriva, di appena quindici anni, con una mente brillante e un trascorso segnato da degrado e trasgressione che le ha lasciato tante, troppe cicatrici.

[…] sono solo una ragazza col cuore di squalo.

Si tratta, pertanto, di un romanzo di formazione e tanti sono gli elementi che lo ricollegano a questo genere; si parla della nuova generazione, inquieta e disadattata, delle esperienze e i cambiamenti radicali che tracceranno una sostanziale evoluzione nella nostra Anais. Uno young adult senza falsi moralismi e spaventosamente realistico caratterizzato da una scrittura che è una sferzata sulla pelle per quanto è ardita e che sfrutta a suo vantaggio lo slang giovanile.
Jenni Fagan ha una penna mordace e graffiante e ora mi è chiaro il perché venga paragonata al celebre Irvine Welsh. Egli ha una scrittura decisamente “respingente”; dolceamara e, allo stesso tempo, dissacratoria.
Di distopico – nel senso stretto del termine - c’è pochissimo, manca l’ambientazione apocalittica o irrimediabilmente segnata da un clima politico asfissiante. Tuttavia è proprio ciò che si trova a vivere la nostra protagonista da considerarsi “distopieggiante” ossia non poter più vivere la quotidianità come la conosceva, ma è obbligata ad adattarsi ad nuovo ambiente non proprio desiderabile.
Facendo una rapida ricerca su Internet, scopriamo che il Panopticon era già stato pensato addirittura nel 1791 dal giurista Jeremy Bentham, ma – per fortuna – rimase solo sulla carta pur essendo stato d’ispirazione per lo stesso Orwell e pensatori del nostro tempo quali Zygmunt Bauman e Paul-Michel Foucault.
Ci aggiriamo consapevoli negli anfratti di una pungente e amorale commedia nera, con toni quasi bordeline, un'analisi rapida ma acuta sulla perdita dell'innocenza e della sensibilità con un occhio critico rivolto alle ingiustizie sociali e al benessere dei minori.

Forse Dio è solo uno scienziato. Questo è tutto un esperimento finito male, e ognuno di noi, fino all’ultimo, è incasinato senza speranza solo per colpa di un qualche bordello chimico scoppiato nel tentativo di creare qualcosa di meno difettoso.

La narrazione è dinamica, merito della tecnica del flashback, si alternano brevi scorci del passato della protagonista per poi ritrovarci di nuovo nel presente, spesso anche nello stesso paragrafo.
Un libro non per tutti; il linguaggio è schietto e provocatorio, le parolacce non mancano, si parla di sesso e dell’abuso di sostanze stupefacenti… L’autrice sceglie di focalizzarsi su un tema doloroso ossia dinamiche familiari tossiche che costringono l’intervento degli assistenti sociali. Situazioni che porteranno i minori ad un’esistenza instabile, sballottati tra case-famiglia e istituti vari, ma anche ad avere contatti con la vita di strada e annessi pericoli.
L’interrogativo che sorge spontaneo durante la lettura è il seguente: sono vite irrimediabilmente distrutte, il cui percorso è già stato marchiato da una società che non sa concedere prospettiva alcuna che non sia veicolata da violenza, o c’è ancora una flebile speranza di redenzione?
Il romanzo assume, quindi, la funzione di feroce satira sociale su un mondo che crediamo di conoscere, ma di cui non sappiamo quasi niente, dove il marcio è ben dissimulato dall’indifferenza e nasconde squallore e una profonda solitudine.

Viviamo, moriamo, nel mezzo facciamo un sacco di stronzate, il mondo è zeppo marcio di omicidi, di odio, di stupidità; e per tutto il tempo quest’universo infinito ci circonda tutti, e tutti fanno finta che non ci sia.

Gli stimoli sono tanti, ma causano ben poche sensazioni. Forse è dovuto a questa esposizione così
“politically incorrect” volutamente scabrosa o probabilmente per il distacco emotivo con cui racconta, fatto sta che non sono riuscita a provare alcuna empatia. Sebbene lo consideri un buon libro, interessante per tematiche e stile, non posso affermare di averlo amato. Tuttavia mi sento di consigliarlo a chiunque sia incuriosito da libri sulla gioventù allo sbando narrati da chi, di quella gioventù, ne è parte attiva.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
This book is a very difficult read (but really good if you can handle it)...and a very difficult book to review without sounding condescending towards the main character...the shit this girl has been through I can't even get my head around and yet she pushes through strong and determined.
This book is not 'boohoo' for Anais; this book is 'open your eyes' and look at this 15 year old girl and recognise that something is not right with the world.
The violence, the drugs, the system and the blaming/judgement of a child (who acts like an adult BUT ISN'T) is truly shocking. Being inside the mind of this fragile/dangerous/'normal' individual breaks my heart.
This is a fictional account that brings the realities of the care system, abuse and trauma to life through the eyes of a fundamentally kind and loving girl pushed to her absolute limits.

[Cassandra Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has lived in a foster home, a children's home and an adolescent unit, I found this story and most of the characters and situations it described incredibly realistic. Yet, despite the book's generally depressing themes, I laughed my way through much of it, thanks to the protagonist's witty observations and comments and the general hilarity of some of her escapades.

Being ill-treated by adults (particularly those who were supposed to care for you), and going through the care system, causes many - most? - children to feel the world is against them, and to retaliate by fighting any form of authority, resisting any kindness and abusing any trust subsequently shown by adults. I think the author showed this well in the attitudes of the protagonist and her fellow 'clients'.

The sense of family felt by residents was also very true to form. Regardless of personal problems, ultimately, care-kids tend to stick together; the 'us against them' mentality kicking in.

An important part of this story, for me at least, was that, despite the ordeals she experienced, Anais escaped serious harm and long-term institution/prostitution, simply because she was more intelligent and better psychologically equipped to deal with her situation than the majority. For most - like Isla and Tash - the story is very different.

Additionally, while children often seem very resilient to trauma, the effects are often unseen or simply not recognised as such until later, so any future life Anais makes for herself will probably be tainted by her past. With this in mind, the ending was a little too open for my liking - hence the four star award.

[Emily Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

More like 4.5 but I don't care this book was gritty and fucking rad and depressing and hilarious. I didn't even know what shelves to put it on bc it was something different entirely. Also, I've been thinking in a Scottish accent for days now, so thanks, Jenni Fagan, bc it's honestly less annoying than how my thinker usually sounds.

Anais was a beautiful character, I cried for her and her shitty life and crazy brain and for her all the things stolen from her.

who would I recommend this to? oh hell, it's not for everyone surely, but I recommend it to you all.

I'm going to update this review later with my favourite quotes because I've marked nearly 30 passages, and they just beg to be shared.

[Hux · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of a young 15-year-old girl called Anais. The book opens with her being taken by the police to a care home called The Panopticon after engaging in a potentially violent act that has resulted in a policewoman being put into a coma. She meets the other residents and staff and what follows is a rather straight-forward YA novel about an angry teen girl who is coming to terms with her circumstances whilst waiting to see if the policewoman recovers and if there's any evidence to convict her. A brief google of Fagan would suggest that this is very strongly autobiographical. 

I mean, it was fine. I can't say I enjoyed it that much and there were large periods where it felt like something very specifically aimed at teenagers. It just didn't have any meaningful substance to it, any progression, and was very dialogue heavy and prone to drag and repeat itself. The major problem for me was that Anais is just angry all the way through, an angst-ridden girl who is always on the defensive, always with her guard up, always swearing and unwilling to trust anyone. It makes sense given the context of her life but it isn't necessarily fun to read. There's no growth to her character, no sense that she's developing as a human, it's just relentless moodiness and sulking. This is fine for a while but eventually you get bored of it. The book might have been better off had it been narrated by Anais from a later date, as an adult, when she had a more mature outlook. Or if the book covered a larger period of her life. But instead, it's just teensy angst and cocky belligerence to the end. 

Then we come to a little bugbear of mine. Why are Scottish writers under the impression that they're the only people on earth who possess an accent? No, seriously. Why? There are countless places in England alone where people have a very strong (certainly much stronger than Scottish), almost indecipherable accent, but they rarely fetishise these in literature the way the Scottish do. It's not that bad here, the occasional 'disnae, umnay, arnay, radge,' etc but I just tire of this bizarre, almost nationalistic notion that dialect is somehow unique to them. Give it a f*cking rest! This is clearly designed for the benefit of the English and American reading audience (after all, why would Scottish people even need to read their own accent? Do people actually hear their own accents? No, which is precisely why you know it's performative, deliberately heightened or exaggerated for purely self-indulgent reasons). Anyway, it's a small gripe I've always had but it irritates me.

Otherwise, the book is fine. It's mostly an easy to read little story. Give it to your angry teen daughter or something. But I wasn't exactly enamoured and I doubt I'll think about the book much beyond this review. 

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

The narrator of this story is 15 yrs old Anais, in the care system. Now too old for adoption, she has spent her life going too and fro from pillar to post, from foster parent to foster parent, from social worker to social worker, from care home to care home, from name to name. The author, Jenni Fagan, has created a class character of Scottish grime literature, often compared to Irvine Welsh Trainspotting's Renton, and gives her a brilliantly authentic voice, full of curses, but it is also a vehicle for her dreams, dreams of Paris, a new life where she is in control not the system, not the abusers. In the meantime that's where she is and she takes the reader on a tour of that life, her relationships with others in the children's unit, the documentaries she watches on the unit's TV, her love for Frieda Kahlo, in a rollicking first person narrative voice. We experience the highs and the lows, the loves and the hates, the friendships and the anything-but-friendly-ships. ****SPOILER ALERT **** the voice is gently Scots, full of curses, expletives abound throughout, as does violence as the book mounts to its horrific events which precede what we hope is the resurrection and redefinition of Anais as Frances.

Note: "The panopticon is a disciplinary concept brought to life in the form of a central observation tower placed within a circle of prison cells" developed by philospher Jermey Bentham https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explaine...

Not sure why I have not read anything by this author before, she is Scottish after all, so I should have. This was her debut novel in 2012, the author having spent much of her own childhood in the care system and one hopes that not too much of this is autobiographical. Thoroughly riveting. I listened to the Audio version narrated by Gayle Madine.

I've now got her most recent Luckenbooth to read.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is another book that the premise sounds RIGHT up my alley - foster care, social work, coming of age, etc. All of those are things that I tend to gravitate to for so many reasons.

Although I was never bored while reading this one, I also never really found myself to be truly engaged in the novel. I was certainly disturbed by the content (it's definitely dark) and felt an overwhelming sense of sadness at the injustice so prevalent in this novel. But, I didn't find myself compelled by it. I just never connected with it for some reason.

The characters were definitely well written and striking. I found the characterization to be the most outstanding aspect of the novel and that is likely what kept me reading. I didn't love the plot - and found a number of holes in it that I had a hard time overlooking. There were aspects of the plot that were alluded to but never really given any substance which I think was a bit of a letdown.

Jenni Fagan is obviously a good writer. There were several scenes that came so alive to me that they made me a bit sick to my stomach due to the intensity of the events being described. She certainly has a way with language and in describing events. Although I was initially taken aback by the dialect of the novel, I got used to that over time.

All in all, this novel didn't wow me as I'd hoped but it has outstanding characterization and says something pretty important about social injustice and child welfare. But, be warned ... this is a very dark novel. One that has quite a bit of dark and twisty content which might not work if you're weary of such things.

** NOTE: This book was provided to me by the publisher for review.