Gebroken

by Kate Hamer

Tijdens een lange, hete zomer wordt de vriendschap tussen drie vriendinnen zwaar op de proef gesteld...

Phoebe staat op de Pulteney-brug. Haar panty is stuk, een van haar schoenen is weg. Ze ziet het nog voor zich, het verwrongen metaal, het bloed overal op de muur. Ze loopt weg, haar hoofd gebogen om niet herkend te worden. "Gedachten zijn slechts gedachten,' zeiden ze. Maar ze hadden geen gelijk.

Als mooie, jonge vrouw is Phoebe gewend overal mee weg te komen. Vooral mannen windt ze om haar vinger. Met haar twee vriendinnen, Orla en Grace, heeft ze een hechte vriendschap. Orla is idolaat van Phoebe, en heeft alles voor haar over. Grace is met haar zestien jaar de jongste maar ook de verstandigste. Alle drie hebben ze een complexe relatie met hun moeder – en met elkaar.

Gebroken vertelt het angstaanjagende verhaal van een lange, hete zomer waarin de grenzen van hun vriendschap zwaar op de proef worden gesteld.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Audiobook, Young Adult, Psychological Thriller

432 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2019

About the author

Kate Hamer's third novel CRUSHED is published in May 2019 (Faber & Faber). She is the author of THE DOLL FUNERAL (Faber & Faber 2017) which was a Bookseller book of the month and an editor's pick for Radio 4's Open Book. Her first novel THE GIRL IN THE RED COAT has been translated into 18 different languages. It was shortlisted for The Costa First Novel Prize, the British Book Industry Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year, The John Creasy (New Blood) Dagger and the Wales Book of the Year. It was a Sunday Times bestseller. She grew up in the west country and rural Pembrokeshire and now lives with her husband in Cardiff.

Reviews

[Bookread2day · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review on www.bookread2day.wordpress.com

After reading The Girl In The Red Coat, I've been waiting to read another book by Kate Hamer again. Crushed was one of those stories about young girls that made my eyes wide open with a little fear. Specially one young girl, Phoebe, who is obsessed with reading Macbeth and yikes she thinks she's a witch. Oh it gets a even creepier, Phoebe believes she is the one who caused a man to be squashed against a car against the wall with blood flowing out. Look out there's scenes with the wishing bowl, that Phoebe clearly remembers her wish. I recommend any book by Kate Hamer.
I've been watching a TV series Light as a feather about a young group of girls that has creepy moments and I think that Crushed could be turned into a mini film, where Phoebe is definitely a little creepy and strange.

[Ruthy lavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ahhhh! 😫
This is such an awkward review.
I am a huge fan of Kate Hamer and have been eagerly anticipating this new book. As soon as it was available on kindle, I bought it.
I’m not going to lie, I’m not even sure what I just read, let alone whether I’d be able to tell you about it or not.
This is a weird, thready, and difficult story, with poor formation.... it took me until chapter 37 to even differentiate between the main 3 characters.
I found myself confused and pausing a lot to take stock, just to keep up with the story - but sadly it was a relief when I finished it.
I have to say that it got better towards the end and I’m glad I persevered, but its been very disappointing on the whole.
2 stars.

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gloomy, tragic, and consuming!

Crushed is an ominous, gritty, character-driven tale that takes you into the lives of three teenage friends, Phoebe, Orla, and Grace, as they each struggle to find some semblance of control, power, and love in a life littered with dysfunction, self-destruction, insecurities, and lack of affection.

The prose is tight and intense. The characters are vulnerable, damaged, and impulsive. And the plot is a slow-burning, immersive tale full of life, loss, deception, desperation, friendship, familial drama, manipulation, jealousy, obsession, emerging sexuality, abuse, violence, and murder.

Overall, Crushed is a dark, eerie, astute, coming-of-age tale by Hamer that does a remarkable job of delving into the complex dynamics between friends and family and highlights just how parasitic and toxic some of those relationships can truly be.

Thank you to Publishers Group Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Janel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third book I’ve read by Hamer, and there’s one thing that she consistently does – tell a dark tale so beautifully. Hamer really does write very well, she creates an immersive atmosphere with her words. Crushed was a particularly interesting read because it was a lot harsher, rougher, than her previous novels. Let me explain that a bit more, when I think of Hamer’s books, I think dark fairy tales, a yearning in me as a reader to save the characters she creates, so while the plots are dark, the read is soothing – I really hope that makes sense. But, in Crushed, I wasn’t soothed, I was consumed…..

Crushed is more than just Phoebes story, told from three perspectives, it looks at the lives of three teenage friends, Phoebe, Orla and Grace. This novel shows the relationships these girls have with their mothers and how great an impact it has on them; it also showcases what I can only call their toxic friendship. Though Phoebe is the one mentioned in the blurb, I found her the most horrid of the girls, which is completely understandable once you’ve met her mother; Grace was my favourite and her home life was the most interesting. Of all the characters, it was her anxieties I felt the most, she definitely came across as the most authentic. She was the one I wanted to save, to show her how things could be. But, I guess what’s important here isn’t which girl you favour but the exploration of how they were victims of circumstance, crushed under their home lives. Their immaturity shown through their jealousy and manipulation. When things are as bleak as these girls perceive them to be, taking drugs doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, but there’s one thing to remember:

“what’s done cannot be undone”

I have to be honest, there’s this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I missed something with one – this novel is dark, toxic, sinister, tragic, it works because the characters are so bold, and you want to know what awaits them, is this their coming-of-age? I’m also trying to be as vague as I can about the events in this novel, because I think the synopsis holds so much back for a reason, you’re meant to discover certain things only when you read the book, only when Phoebe, Orla or Grace decide it’s time. I’m under no illusion that this novel will be for everyone, and I don’t particularly think you should read too much into the synopsis; rather, go into this one with an open mind, be prepared to meet some strong characters, always expect the unexpected, and embrace Hamer’s beautiful, yet dark, writing – it’s simply captivating.

*My thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book*

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kate Hamer's new novel is a gripping thriller based around the fragile nature of friendship, especially friendship between females and feels like it skirts the line between an adult/young adult thriller pretty well. You are drawn into the drama right from the beginning due to the hypnotic writing style, and Hamer throws you in at the deep end right into the middle of the action. This is a deceptively dark, complex story with many twists in the tale. It follows teenagers Phoebe, Orla and Grace, three friends who we travel with as they experience the confusion and emotional mayhem of coming of age. It also explores how each girl's mother drastically impacted the women they grew up to be.

This is a rather chilling read at times and at others, it's quite sad and emotive. Each chapter is dedicated to one of the three girls so we learn more about them throughout and their characters deepen with each turning of the page. They are a broken group of friends who lead intriguing, deeply troubled lives, and although this is more of a slow burn than a pacy read it works well and creates an original and compulsively readable tale in which the tension builds and builds resulting in an ominous and rather disturbing conclusion. It's honestly just great to read a thriller with a refreshing concept at its centre. Many thanks to Faber & Faber for an ARC.

[Helen White · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have so many problems with this. The three teenage girls are exactly that - annoying, self absorbed teenage girls. I couldn't like any of them or even care enough about what might happen to them. So in all honestly I skimmed the second half. 3 wannabe witches who are taking LSD and having difficult relationships with their mothers. It just wasn't for me.

[Kerrie-ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why is so much death affecting the 3 main characters- Orla, Phoebe and Grace? Are they really witches who can influence the events that occur around them?

The action started in the vert first scene/chapter of this novel with someone dying in a car accident. However, the action was very spaced out throughout the whole of the novel. A few death scenes did occur throughout the novel but they were spaced apart and few and far between. The death scenes were basically the only action scenes throughout the whole of this novel. In some places the overall story did drag and was very slow paced.

In terms of characters I did not feel that there was much of a character profile/backstory for Orla. I would liked to have found out more about her character. I found Phoebe's character quite annoying in a lot of places as her character wasn't very happy at most points in the novel. I also found one of the relationships in the plot line very weird and did not enjoy reading about it, especially how that story line ended.

A lot of the novel was too descriptive and they did not improve my enjoyment of reading the novel. There was too much description of their surroundings and things in my opinion that didn't really need to be described. That's why I found the overall plot slow and lacking.

Overall, I gave this novel 2.5/5 stars. I found it very slow paced with not enough action and too much description. However, other people will like this novel because of the magic involved throughout the story line and the action/death scenes featured in the story.

[Zoe Radley · Rating 1 out of 5]

God this is awful.... I mean it just what the hell. I really am desperate in wanting to like it. I do like how easy it is to read and how it sucks you in. But that’s it. The rest is just a mess, a sick chaotic mess. I have no sympathy for anyone apart from the mums even the one I assume I am not supposed to like. I hate the girls with a passion they are all awful and just weird. Also what I hate more about this trashy book is the fact I can’t place where it’s set... it’s not the Bath I know. The author forces you to know it’s set there because she shoves it at you every time but it has no feeling or atmosphere it just feels dead. Sorry but I have read better obsessives than this pile of trash I would not recommend this to anyone.

[Reindert Van Zwaal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not very enchanting like the first two novels by Hamer. Sadly, I coudn't relate to any of the three main characters. So I missed this connection and maybe also because of that I missed the message that the author tried to tell...

[Charmaine Greenan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful and haunting investigation into the relationships that women have, with an essence of Shakespearean witchcraft. A coming of age story in which the interactions of the three main characters with each other and all around them are carefully examined. I wouldn't necessarily say that it was an enjoyable read, my heart was in my throat for a lot of it, but I feel enriched for having read it and I continue to muse on the themes after finishing, which is always a sign of a great book.

[Hannah McKinnon · Rating 5 out of 5]

My goodness, this book was as atmospheric as they come, the characters so well developed, they felt real. CRUSHED is as intense as it is deep, as disturbing as it is surprising. Kate Hamer’s enchanted writing is sure to put you under its own spell, which will linger long after you’ve turned the final page.

[Kim Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled with this. I had no connection with the characters. Very disappointed after the reviews

[Jennith Chen · Rating 1 out of 5]

What’s done cannot be undone.

[Kees van Duyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

In 2011 won Kate Hamer de Rhys Davis Prize voor korte verhalen en het verhaal 'One Summer' werd op BBC Radio 4 uitgezonden. Hoewel ze tijdens haar lange carrière bij de televisie altijd is blijven schrijven, was het winnen van deze prijs een keerpunt in haar leven. Het gaf haar vertrouwen en ze durfde het aan om aan een boek te beginnen. Dat was haar in 2015 verschenen debuut Het meisje in de rode jas, een thriller die meteen in verschillende landen werd uitgebracht. Ruim vijf jaar later kwam haar derde en door Mariëtte van Gelder vertaalde thriller Gebroken uit.

De zeventienjarige in Bath wonende Phoebe staat op de Pulteney-brug, draagt een kapotte panty en maar één schoen. Dan botst achter haar een auto tegen een muur waarbij een voetganger omkomt. Ze is ervan overtuigd dat zij daarvan de oorzaak is. Met haar vriendinnen Orla en Grace heeft zowel een goede als minder goede band. Wat ze echter gemeen hebben, is een ingewikkelde relatie met hun moeder. Voor twee van hen komt deze onder druk te staan, maar dat niet alleen, want ook hun onderlinge verstandhouding krijgt het zwaar te verduren.

Toneelschrijver William Shakespeare schreef een aanzienlijk aantal toneelstukken en Macbeth is er een van. Omdat dit werk een rol in Gebroken heeft, heeft Hamer een aardigheidje bedacht en het boek in bedrijven ingedeeld in plaats van delen. Het zijn er drie en de hoofdstukken in die bedrijven worden verteld vanuit de perspectieven van Phoebe, Grace en Orla. De meeste aandacht gaat uit naar Phoebe, maar ook voor de andere twee is een belangrijke rol weggelegd. Het gevolg is dat de lezer de drie vriendinnen vrij goed leert kennen en zich in enige mate in hen kan inleven. De meeste sympathie gaat echter uit naar Grace, de meest verstandige van de drie, maar ook degene die het meest sociaal lijkt te zijn.

Een kort eerste hoofdstuk, dat in feite beschouwd kan worden als de proloog, en ook de twee beginhoofdstukken van het eerste bedrijf hebben iets dreigends waardoor de lezer benieuwd wordt naar het vervolg. Deze nieuwsgierigheid blijkt misplaatst, want na deze toch hoopvolle start gaat het verhaal verder met het reilen en zeilen van de drie vriendinnen. Hun onderlinge verhouding, maar ook die met hun moeder, worden uitgebreid beschreven. Dit gaat zo door tot ongeveer vijfenzestig pagina’s voor het einde, pas dan krijgt het boek een heel lichte spanningsboog en lijkt het iets meer op een thriller. Daar tussenin heeft het er alle schijn van dat de auteur niet weet welk etiket ze Gebroken nog meer zou kunnen geven. Het heeft namelijk ook kenmerken van een Young Adult, van een fantasyverhaal en van een wat minder geslaagde roman.

Zoals hiervoor al is aangegeven, heeft Gebroken zo goed als geen spanning. Het vertellen vanuit afwisselende perspectieven en de cliffhangers waar sommige hoofdstukken mee eindigen moeten ervoor zorgen dat de lezer nieuwsgierig wordt en dat het spanningsveld steeds groter wordt. Dat is Hamer absoluut niet gelukt, zelfs niet in de ontknoping. Dat het verhaal (qua tijd maakt het wel enkele sprongen) in een traag tempo voortkabbelt en dat de echte actie ontbreekt, doet er ook geen goed aan.

Wat wel goed uit de verf komt, en dat is mede te danken aan de aangename en soms mooie schrijfstijl, is dat de auteur laat zien dat ze het in zich heeft om een verhaal te vertellen. Maar om de doorgewinterde thrillerlezer aan zich te kunnen binden, zal ze in het vervolg wel anders te werk moeten gaan. Een eerste stap daartoe is het overboord gooien van die dodelijke mix van genres, want daar wordt geen enkele lezer vrolijk van.

[Dawn Emsen-Hough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mesmerising story ... a tad dark ... interesting book. Definitely worth reading.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘What is a witch?’
I go looking for them. […] I believe they might give me the clues too on how to feel better and stronger than I do. I find them inside the internet. […] I feel my blood rising when I [find them]. I realise I will never forget what I am learning, that the facts of it will carve new pathways in my brain and these creatures now appearing on the screen will all be huddling inside my head forever.’

I picked up ‘Crushed’ without knowing anything about the novel and was in no way prepared for it to bear the kind of frequency that made things in me hum intensely. I have been lost in the book. I felt myself immediately dropping into the dark, hypnotically black spaces of it. Hamer pierces the psyches of three young women approaching the end of their school careers; each of whom is psychologically crippled, compromised, crushed in some way.

In my view, Hamer appears to chart the girls’ character development against dual relationship axes: their relationship with their mother; and their relationship with their physical / sexual body. Upon finishing the book, my mind keeps turning over motifs and ideas. For instance: there is a lot of time spent excavating how the girls fulfil the role of daughter for their respective mothers, but in what way do the girls occupy the archetype of mother? In the novel, can each girl’s power be said to lie in giving life or in taking away life, or both? Does any girl care for the dying? How do the girls react in the various death scenes (on the page or off-page)? Okay, I realise I’m writing down more questions than answers here, but it’s been truly that exciting a read for me.

So then, in ‘Crushed’, we read through three girls’ perspectives, but we can say Phoebe is the leading voice in the novel: it is Phoebe’s voice that opens the story; it is she who makes it clear that the author mounts this narrative within the frame of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’:

‘There’s the three weird sisters from ‘Macbeth’, of course, how scared Macbeth is of them, how drawn to them he is. They’ll do anything to carry out revenge. […] They whisper things to Macbeth that are the end of him. They’re the thoughts you should never listen to, but I do. I know what that’s like. It’s not fair. Macbeth wants their power, even though he’s disgusted by them. […] He’s a thief. That’s what makes him so evil.’

I used to relish doing ‘Macbeth’ on the GCSE syllabus when I taught English Lit; I suppose because it’d resonated with me so powerfully as a sixteen-year-old girl myself in school. In ‘Crushed’, seeing Phoebe latch on to ‘Macbeth’ and, in particular, evil as it is presented in the play, spoke to my own adolescent fascination with all things witchy and weird.

‘Crushed’ is a palimpsest of ‘Macbeth’; reading Kate Hamer’s third novel with the play in mind confers gravity upon ‘Crushed’ and instils it with vigour by exposing twinned scenes and significant interplay. Fittingly, Hamer gives us an opening scene that parallels the stage-setting drama proper of ‘Macbeth’. She crashes readers into ‘Crushed’ at the scene of a traffic collision where Hamer recreates the Shakespearean audiences’ first account of Macbeth. As the tragic hero battles a traitor clansman Macdonald, ‘brave Macbeth’ is reported to have ‘unseamed him from the nave to the chaps’. Our introduction to Phoebe is finding her watch a man disembowelled by a car against a wall, in a crash that Phoebe herself claims credit for causing. Phoebe, then, is our Macbeth at the beginning of the novel.

Of course, in their metred rhyming verse, the characters who literally open Shakespeare’s play with its first 13 lines – a bastardised sonnet - are the three witches, their preliminary scene concluding with the chant ‘fair is foul, and foul is fair’. If Phoebe is our Macbeth, causing murder by thinking murder (calling back to Macbeth’s hallucinatory ‘is this a dagger I see before me?’), then it prompts me to ponder what is foul about Phoebe; what is fair? She herself pronounces:

‘[Witches] like everything to be backwards. Sometimes I too have a longing to invert, for everything to be made upside down and inside out.’

‘Crushed’, in fact, tracks its way through three fluid character correspondences with the Elizabethan play: firstly, as I’ve said, Hamer’s readers are briefly asked to consider Phoebe as Macbeth. Secondly, our focus for the main part of the novel is upon Phoebe, Grace, and Orla as incarnations of the three witches (then finally, we’ll get to Lady Macbeth).

As Hamer introduces us to the other girls – Grace and Orla, Orla and Grace – and we witness the interactions between the trio, the author signifies her three young players as witch-like: ‘inverted’ and othered, they’re often ensorcelled, under the influence of alcohol and/or recreational psychedelics. Phoebe – anorexic, emotionally abused by her mother – believes she can clairvoyantly effect external events; explicitly withdrawn from society, Grace is tortured by inner voices – stoned, shaving her head – suffering devastating self-imposed isolation as she hides herself and her dying mother from social workers.

Yet Orla best represents this othering; this displacement, as a lesbian, coming of age into marginalisation. Orla’s relationship with her swollen, swelling, then shrinking physical body, and her sex life, is perhaps the most surprising of that of the three girls, with the places Hamer takes it. There’s so much to say and dissect, and Orla’s plotline had me bleeding.

Following a crushing movement in the plot, all three characters undergo yet another metamorphosis, and this is also most distinct in Orla’s character. She is transformed swiftly from one of the three witches to Lady Macbeth with familiar Shakespearean blood imagery most spotlit in her storyline.

In terms of symbolism and textual preoccupations, ‘Crushed’ can be said to situate itself between two quotations from Shakespeare’s play uttered by Lady Macbeth. Hamer’s narrative moves between the two utterances that bookend Lady Macbeth’s evolution in the play between Act 1 scene 5 and Act 5 scene 1: from ‘Unsex me here’ to ‘Out, damned spot!’

In the final phase of the novel, each of the three young women – ostensibly Macbeth’s three witches – is in some way, at the very crux of their individual character arcs, transmogrified into Lady Macbeth as these two quotes apply to her.

And, of course, also repaying consideration are the lines that follow those short references: ‘fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; stop up the access and passage to remorse’ and ‘who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him’. These longer quotations resonate with the girls’ actions in ‘Crushed’, and form an impressive metaphorical diptych in summation of the plot.

Just as is Lady Macbeth’s fate, Phoebe, Orla, and Grace are tortured by guilt over the murder they’ve committed, traumatised and estranged from the outside world – thinking they’d conjured their hearts’ desires in a drug-induced ritual at the ‘wishing bowl’ – they see the breakdown of their worlds as a result of their manipulation of events. They grapple with the devastation resulting from a power struggle; embodying Lady Macbeth, they suffer dissociation and emotional collapse.

A final line of thought - and now perhaps I’m over-reading - but I like to think that neither are the girls’ names simply throwaway. Phoebe means ‘light’, ‘shining beauty’ in Greek; Orla (Órfhlaith in Irish) means ‘golden princess’; and of course, Grace from Latin, referring to divine virtue. Our triplet protagonists could possibly be interpreted as the Three Graces from classical arts, the trio of deities symbolising beauty and fertility, associated with nature, particularly water – springs and rivers. Applying this to ‘Crushed’, we get Phoebe, Orla, and Grace using the wishing bowl (a small water-filled basin in a riverside stone) to cast their spells, and the climactic crisis of the plot makes use of strong river imagery.

I could lose the run of myself with ponderances like this, but ‘Crushed’ gave me so much pleasure chasing thoughts down rabbit holes like this. Part of me wants to analyse the three girls in relation to the maiden/mother/crone archetypes, but I’ll leave that for others to investigate (my thoughts along this line started somewhere around Phoebe being the female form of the Greek Phoebus, Apollo – the sun god; his sister, who took the epithet phoebe, was Artemis the virgin maiden).

Anyway, wherever it takes you, ‘Crushed’ is chilling, challenging, compulsive:

‘Girls mean more to each other than anything.’

Astonishing!

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second book by Kate Hamer and it really captured me both because of the beautiful writing and mainly about the captivating characters of Phoebe, Orsa and Grace. These three adolescent girls are each given their own chapters and so we gradually find out more and more about their troubled and yet fascinating lives and this makes for mesmerising read that builds up quite a sinister finale. It’s not a fast paced book it’s a slow burner that you find yourself becoming immersed in, a very different read and I I really enjoyed and would recommend if you love a book that draws you in with it's compelling storyline.
My thanks to NetGalley and Faber and Faber for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

[Susan Atkin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read to page 108 and aint a clue who is who and what they are doing. Gave up

[althea bird · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was an absolute slog to get through. none of the characters were likeable, the writing was convoluted and disjointed. the plot was predictable and unsatisfying. barely 2/5 stars

[Yvonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first time I have read a book by this author and I have to say I really enjoyed this one. I also think it is going to be quite a difficult one to review. It is a slow-based book that crosses genres, there is a mystery to it as well as a sense of dread giving it an almost psychological thriller style to it. It is also about families, teens and coming of age along with the feeling they are going through.

So, how to review this one... it is the story of three girls, each unique and each with their own set of problems. Growing up and going to school, it is about Pheobie but the other two, Grace and Orla share the story from their own perspectives.

Being teens the girls are at that crossroads in life between being children and adults. Trying to make sense of the world and people around them. They are still naive about certain things, but they are also trying to work out what life is and what they are going to do.

There are times when this story does show their adolescent side and also a more grown-up and devious side. It shows their fears and anxieties as well as gives a look into each other's individual lives. Some of the scenes oozed fear as well as despair. I suppose this is quite a dark and gloomy story given what the girls go through, but I think this adds more realism. That being said though, the author definitely has a way with her words and writing style. The mystery about each girl becomes very addictive and makes this a difficult book to put down.

I have gone through various reviews from other readers with this book and it does seem to be one that divides readers. For me, though I really enjoyed it. It is dark, mysterious and at times riddled with fear. It has a good psychological aspect to it as the teens are in the limbo of becoming adults.

A very good and captivating read and I will be looking to read more by this author. It is a book I would happily recommend.

[Joanne Tinkler (Mamajomakes) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firstly I want to thank Faber and Faber and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for own opinion.

Not long ago I read The Doll Funeral by Kate Hamer which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a captivating, engaging story which was well written so when I saw this on NetGalley I jumped at the chance to read it. Now that I’ve finished, I don’t quite know what to make of it.

The story is set in Bath and focuses on three seventeen year old friends, Phoebe, Orla and Grace. Grace lives and cares for her mum who has MS, Phoebe struggles with her relationship with her narcissistic mother and Orla’s mum has discovered that she prefers girls to boys. Each girl has their own demons to fight whilst maintaining a friendship that is, at best, dysfunctional and chaotic. Throw in a murder and everything they know and have known is in tatters.

I genuinely didn’t have any feelings, good or bad, for Phoebe apart from that she could do with a good slap but I was absolutely transfixed by her and I couldn’t pull myself away. I did like Orla and Grace even if they were playing second fiddle to Phoebe throughout but that was necessary for the end of the book.

I’ve thought a lot about how to describe Crushed but the best I can come up with is ‘car crash’ reading. You know that it’s not pleasant but you’re absolutely mesmerised by it so you can’t stop reading.

[Delaney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this book felt like going to a modern art museum. I could tell it was artistic and someone had put a lot of thought into it and there is probably an audience out there that will understand and appreciate it, but not me. I need facts and logic and clearly defined scenarios with a plot that has twists and turns but is clearly defined. This book meandered through the first 200 or so pages. At one point I had to double check online what genre it was meant to be in because I pulled it from a crime thriller aisle at my local bookstore and so far it was reading like a fantasy novel told from the perspective of a very disturbed young girl. The main characters were supposed to be 16-17, but they read more like 13 year olds.

The perspective shifting between the 3 girls really did not work for me. It was clear Phoebe was the main character and it seemed the author didn’t enjoy writing about the other girls as much and rushed through their sections to get back to Phoebe. Almost no character development was done outside of the 3 main girls leaving everyone seeming a bit flat and unrealistic, but maybe that was the intent? Perhaps the authors goal was to show that Phoebe was an unreliable narrator and the lack of depth in everyone else was due to her inability to perceive those in others. I would have enjoyed the book a lot more if this was the case, but it got muddled by the shifting narration between the 3 girls. I would have preferred the entire story be told from Phoebes pov that way it would have been very clear the descriptions of the other characters was being colored by her understanding of their flaws and motivations.

Overall it was a quick read, but I can’t particular say I enjoyed it.

[Beverley · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://beverleyhasread.wordpress.com

Crushed by Kate Hamer is a slow burn of a book centred around the friendship of three teenage girls, Phoebe, Orla and Grace who live in Bath. It is a dark read with a pervading sense of menace but is a deeply satisfying one.

Written via a multi-person narrative (hurrah, my favourite) from the perspective of each of these young women, we are voyeurs in the intricate and sometimes tricky life of a female. Set in 2003, it is gloriously unencumbered by the technology that we take for granted nowadays and is a time before social media and smart phones which gives the book an almost otherworldly and innocent feel in someways. The friendship therefore is one built without the societal pressures that young people nowadays are subject to and so, the relationship between Phoebe, Orla and Grace feels organic and real.

This is a book about women and the relationships that they have with other women. Whether that be friendship, unrequited love or that of a mother and daughter, these facets are explored delicately and executed beautifully to create a compelling and immersive book. Phoebe is the centre point of the novel, it opens with her standing on a bridge, with torn tights and a lost shoe. She is agitated and jittery and a few minutes later a car crashes into a wall killing a pedestrian. She had been thinking about murder and murder happened, but did she cause it? She thinks she did, and that’s all that matters, because this is the crux of the book – Phoebe and the belief in her powers.

That’s not to say that Crushed is a supernatural book, it isn’t, it’s a clever novel that takes the concept of obsessive and hysterical behaviour of teen females and runs with it. Phoebe is a complicated character who lives in a beautiful house with her mother and QC father. The complications are born from her mother’s narcisstic and emotionally abusive behaviour which is an insidious presence in their home. As Phoebe’s story develops the reasons why she believes in some other power are clear; it is something which she can control in a world where she has no control. This combined with her friendship with Grace and Orla are the most significant things she possesses and as the two become inextricably linked the stakes are raised ever higher.

I really enjoyed the multi-person narrative and the different voices are strong and distinctive. Whilst Phoebe’s relationship with her mother is fractious, Orla and Grace find themselves in much different territory. Grace’s story is the most heartbreaking being a young carer for her mother who has MS. She is consumed by this task and life is a daily struggle but her one constant is that her mother loves her and she is safe. Orla is similarly loved but of course, the relationship between a mother and daughter is never easy and three viewpoints allow the reader to gain a deep understanding of these families.

I really enjoyed this book which was an immersive and observent read about the power of female relationships. It builds slowly, layer upon layer unfurling melancholy and menace until suddenly you realise that you’ve found yourself in deep water. Kate Hamer has built an intriguing world and has written teen girls and particularly their relationships and friendships brilliantly. This is a highly recommended read from me.

[Mommy Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

* 3.5 stars rounded up *

I received Crushed from PGC Books Canada to read and review and although it isn't really the type of book I usually prefer to read, I still enjoyed the story at times. It took a few chapters to be able to engage in the story and have an idea of what was going on. Once my attention was grabbed, I was intrigued by what was happening but it didn't quite last all the way through the entire book.

About halfway through, I found myself skimming passages that seemed to be dragging and overly described. I thought it would have done the novel justice if the author didn't include as much details. That resulted in my eventual loss of interest.

Although it wasn't quite my style of story, I'm sure other readers will enjoy it. It's a dark and disturbing novel that has a lot of potential for fans of this genre.

[Laura H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so mesmerising and dark with tortured characters and an insight into their messed up teenage minds. Which I find strangely hypnotising. Weird and witchy, I love how it is set in the beautiful town of Bath.

[Ella Bellotti · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weird

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crushed gave me that instant sort of chills feeling, the ones you natural get when you can feel something eerie fast approaching and gosh I was not wrong or disappointed. The three main characters that are fully entwined in one another's like are given individual personalities and chapters in which we learn about them and their home life. I liked that the three adolescent female were given centre stage, in much the same way as the witches of Macbeth. I've provided a mini breakdown of the characters!
Phoebe: We learn about Phoebe from the blurb, she's bared witness to a horrific murder that she thinks that she has made happen with her mind. Phoebe lives at home with an overbearing mother and laid back father, due to which she has become quite the rebellious teenager who has fallen for an unsuitable individual.
Orsa: A sheltered teenager, again with an overbearing and remarkably needy mother. Out of all three of the girls, I think Orsa is the most emotionally mature and kind natured, although she is very anxious.
Grace: Needy mother, loves her mother but gets so frustrated and angry. Mother tends to control a large portion of her life, from going out to types of female hygiene products she uses. I felt as though she was stuck in this whole Stockholm Syndrome type living situation.
Yes, you've noticed that all girls have unbearable home lives, if you've ever been a teenage girl you just can't help with slightly connecting with them. As teenagers, who thinks their parents understood them! Due to this they all have found attention outside of their homes but as events start to develop and snowball into larger more deadly events they must keep a united front before their wrong doings are uncovered. I really did appreciate the way that the characters were developed!
The storyline is split into act 1 - 3; beginning, middle and end, with each act your heart pounds a little quicker and you can feel yourself reading open mouthed as events start to unravel. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to readers who want a compulsive page turner type read. The storyline was clearly planned to the final details and superbly wrapped up! I will be shouting about this read for a long time! It's also given me a kick up the bum to purchase Macbeth because if this read is anything to go by, it is just as creepy!

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book as part of a book recommendation chain and just from the physicality of this book, I could tell that it's not something I would usually choose for myself. The writing is beautiful and very very dark. All 3 "friends" (because, really, can we call their manipulative, twisted and sordid relationship friendship?) are troubled one way or another and in some cases, more than just the one way.

I'm confused about what this book wanted to say. Did it want to showcase the imapact of a tenuous home life on teenagers? The mayhem that can ensue when three young girls who have such home lives band together? The difficulty of telling who is a witch? (Seriously... are they witches?? I still have no idea)

Despite having a handful of deaths/near misses, this book didn't have a lot of action. In parts, more towards the beginning, I was a little bored and struggled to see where the plot was headed.

Grace was the only character I remotely cared about and even then, the way she speaks to herself and the way views herself made me frustrated because she was just so unneccisarily hard on herself.

[LindyLouMac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kate Hamer has a very particular style of writing and I must be honest and say it has grown on me. As when I read her debut novel in 2017, 'The Girl in the Red Coat' for my Book Club and I found the writing to be of a high standard but rather dark for my taste. Later that year I attended a Literary Dinner where Kate Hamer was one of the speakers. She gave an interesting talk and I began to understand more her writing. When she writes she obviously enjoys immersing herself in haunting, dark psychological tales, not my favourite genre but I enjoy her novels due to the atmosphere she creates allowing one to become captivated.

If you are a fan of this genre, this creepy story will enthrall you. Three teenage girls, Grace, Orla and Phoebe, the latter is obsessed with Macbeth, to the conclusion of labelling herself a witch. Their intense relationship certainly pushes their friendship to the limit.

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[Gabrielle Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am sorry! I did not enjoy this! This was a case of being in waterstones and looking at all the front covers and choosing a book! Never judge a book by it's cover!

I didn't follow the story very well, the 3 girls seemed to merge until much later in the book. I had to keep checking who I was reading about. It came together at the end and was quite exciting, but a very slow start.