The Great Godden - Meg Rosoff ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Thanks to @Netgalley & @bloomsburypublishing for the chance to read this new YA publishing on the 9th July.

So beautifully written with they style of a narrator who is never named to us. I always adore Rosoff's writing and this book reiterated that for me. She is one of my favourite YA authors.

First loves, betray and secrets.

One familys summer and one boy who will change everything. An annual family summer trip is interrupted by the arrival of the Godden's. The two sons of a very theatrical American actress. Kit and Hugo.

A wonderful short summer read that will have you dreaming of summers by a lake 💕

This book was not what I was expecting, I liked it but it wasn’t what I thought it was.

To start with I felt like an observer, like I was watching the whole summer. I loved the concept of not knowing the gender or the name of the character whose perspective I was reading from. It allowed me to form my own image which changed and developed through the story.

It was beautifully written and brought back fond memories of summers by the beach and horse riding.

It reminds me of a cross between the summer I turned pretty by Jenny Hann
and Normal People by Sally Rooney both amazing but simple you different.

Really recommend this if your looking for a shorter summer read with a bit of a twist.

I would give 4 stars really worth a read!

Bloomsbury and NetGalley provided an e-copy of this book for me. 2.5 stars.

I expected a romance, a light, fun, airy summer read. Instead I got complicated (but incomplete) characters, sparse (though often lyrical) descriptions, and a shocking ending that felt forced and unreal. The characters seemed disconnected from the events around them as the minutiae of the summer at the beach house took center stage. (Tennis tournament takes a prominent place in the narrative just when everything is falling apart?)

The book felt incomplete. I kept flipping back to try to figure out how old the kids were, and while I realized the narrator was never named, I didn't realize no gender was mentioned. Interesting but disconcerting.

A compelling read of one family’s summer, and the boy that changed everything. Excellent writing as always by Meg Rosoff.

There cannot be many better writers curremt;y targeting the YA market than Meg Rossof. The author of the brillaint How I Live Now and Just in Case returns with another lovely book.

This one takes place one summer when a family holiday is interupted by the arrival of the sons of an american actress: one outgoing one insular, and their effect on the equilibrium of the family unit. It is a story of love, lust, longing, discovery. A true coming of age book.

Rosoff has said of the book : “The Great Godden arose from the memory of one childhood summer that seemed to last for years and that — only in retrospect — announced that childhood was over."

We've all had those summers. When so much seems to happen in just a short space of actual time. I liked that the book shows that the mistakes we make at this age are important live lessons. I also liked the extra element of mystery added by Rossof by not naming her narrator.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC to read and review.

Meg Rosoff is nothing short of brilliant. Previously, as A primary school librarian, I'd only ever read her McTavish children's stories which I loved. Her adult writing was recommended to me by a colleague. I was so pleased to receive this book from Netgalley.

The story is beautifully told with solid believable characters.

The writing makes you stop and think.

I'd read anything of hers you'd care to put in front of me

The Great Godden is a slow burner, like the summer it is set during. It was good and beautifully written but it fell a little flat for me - in places.

I think the narrator having no name, age or gender is an interesting device and whilst on one hand I liked it, on the other it made it much harder to fully connect with the main character.

This book feels like fact rather than fiction! We never get to know the narrator's name. It was a lovely change to have a straightforward timeline and only one person's viewpoint.

This is a coming of age story. Of first loves, secrets and betrayal.
I thought this was a beautifully written story and the long summer days described were evocatively detailed. I couldn't quite connect with the characters though - I wanted more. More information about them and their relationships with each other as I felt we were given just a snapshot into their lives.
An enjoyable quick read.

A family is staying at their holiday home on the coast. Siblings and cousins, parents and friends, they're full of expectation and excitement for the summer together. There is a wedding to plan, and the added excitement of more guests - two brothers, the charismatic Kit and insolent Hugo.

While this is a slim book, sparsely and simply written, it is deceptively so, being wonderfully and beautifully evocative of summer, holidays, family and adolescence. It feels luxuriant and indulgent to read and, on finishing, I wanted immediately to turn back to the beginning.

It reminded me of Dodie Smith's 'I Capture the Castle' (one of my favourite books) and 'We Were Liars' by E Lockhart, with a flavour of both the Suffolk coast and Martha's Vineyard?!

This book has the feeling of a classic about it. A perfect, satisfying summer read rich with the complexities of teenage life, families and first love.

Reminding me of F Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby‘, and more recently Chip Cheek’s ‘Cape May’, ‘The Great Godden’ is a story of the transience of summer and what one summer can do.

A family travel to their usual summer haunt, ready for all the usual summer activity - lazy days swimming, eating with friends, time at the horse yard, and tracking the local wildlife. Yet this year is different - planning the wedding of two dear friends, along with the arrival of two young men into their group and tu us this summer becomes different.

Kit Godden,, the older of the two new arrivals, has a magnetic hold over everyone and no one can tell where they will all be left by the end of the season.

A short novella, this is a book which won’t let you put it down. I loved it.

Enjoyed this hugely. Meg Rosoff has such a way of making characters bounce of the page as real people you can believe in. It was like being a fly on the wall. Reminded me of To the Lighthouse and I Capture the Castle. I'd like to know the identity of the main character though and I don't know why he/she needs to be ambiguous. Hate the cover - what about the lovely blue house on the front instead?

‘The Great Godden’ centres around a family who summer in their picturesque holiday home near the sea spending their days enjoying the sun and freedom from their daily lives. The narrator of the book is very ambiguous: We are never told their name, age nor even gender but we gain insight into their family’s peaceful world and how it changes dramatically with the arrival of the Godden brothers. The two brothers could not be more different; Kit is moody and film-star alluring whereas Hugo is quiet and pensive but both have a huge impact on the family.
I loved the lyrical and dreamy style of this book as it made it an easy narrative to get lost in and although I was intrigued at the anonymity of the narrator it didn’t distract from the main plotline. The obscurity of the narrator puts you in the centre of the action and allows you to see the small details that would be missed in a busy, family environment. I enjoyed the different paces of events because it mirrored how some days of summer are long and flow into one another but sudden events can jolt into devastating consequences.
This is my first book by Meg Rosoff but it is a story I will not forget in a long time: a perfect escapist read in my opinion.

The pacing in this book is a bit strange; it's mostly build up with everything then happening over the course of a couple of pages. A few of the characters felt irrelevant as well, such as with the only mentions of Tamsin being about how she loves horses. Character development was patchy. However, I did enjoy guessing what was going to happen next and where the story was going; the build up gives a sense that something is going to end badly. It was an enjoyable, quick read.

What starts as a story about a cheerful family summer at a beautiful beach house with romance on the horizon (so far, so ordinary), develops into a more complex tale about attraction, beauty and charisma and the ability to love. Our narrator is the eldest child with a beautiful sister Mattie who, predictably, becomes involved with the beautiful boy visitor Kit Godden. Kit is a golden child with a surly, silent brother Hugo who says little and does less. Though Mattie is the chosen one, the eldest sister can’t help but be attracted to Kit, because he’s pretty irresistible. But is he a good person? And what exactly is Kit up to, as he charms his way into everyone’s affection? The writing is insightful and the stuff about sex and relationships (including sibling relationships), is interesting and thought provoking. It is a proper coming of age story and I think young teens will love it.

One of the things that I most love about Meg Rosoff is that she never writes the same book twice. I haven't been a fan of everything she has written but her latest is just glorious and the perfect book for reading in the sunshine! It's a wonderfully atmospheric and bittersweet coming of age story with top-notch characterisation and vivid sense of place. Thoroughly beguiling and strongly recommended.

Strong, captivating novel based on a short but intense summer holiday by the sea. The arrival of Kit Godden disrupts the cosy, warm atmosphere in many ways. Beautifully captured characters and emotions.

Thank you to netgally for this advance review copy. (For reference I read this during Covid lockdown)

This book is a capsule of a summer of being a teenager and longing for a boy and all the feelings that entails. I gave it three stars because I felt like the book was shallow in that it only told the surface of the situation.

The Great Godden by Meg Rosoff tells the narrative of one family and their summer at the beach. It is a coming of age story, which I normally love. But sadly, it just didn’t convince me or hook me in.

I enjoyed the feeling of a long, languid summer that Rosoff creates. She narrates the feelings of love and infatuation in youth well, as well as the feeling of a never-ending summer that feels familiar with childhood.
However, I felt very mixed about this book the whole way through and couldn’t place how it was meant to be received. It felt very American to me- I just couldn’t imagine this as a story about a family at a small, British seaside town.

Also, the narrator is too ambiguous for my liking. We are told extraordinarily little about them, not even their name or their gender. I couldn’t decide whether this was on purpose and meant to be a progressive form of storytelling, as a comment about love having no boundaries, or if it had little reasoning. But it meant that it was hard to connect with the narrator and this became problematic throughout the narrative. The feelings developed by the narrator felt insincere and unbelievable, and I wasn’t hooked into the story in the way I would have liked.
The narrative also felt very stagnant. Not much happened and the few main plot events were told rather than described and I was left with a feeling of wanting more. The characters also felt very one-dimensional and again I felt there needed to be more information.
Overall I felt disappointed by this book. The beautiful, poetic writing was not enough to hold my attention and it needed to be longer as to explore the characters and the events further.

I believe that if it was longer, Rosoff may have been able to add the detail to the narrative that I so wanted.