This book is unrelentingly grim and disturbing - so if you aren't in the mood for darkness, step away now. The Melting by Belgian author Lize Spit has won awards and been a success in several European countries since it was first published in 2016. This is its first English translation. It is described as being "part disturbing thriller, part coming of age" novel and I think that sums it up well.

In 1988 only 3 children are born the small Belgian farming village of Bovenmeer: Eva,Pim and Laurens who become inseperable in primary school and are nicknamed "The 3 Parasites" by their older classmates, they call themselves "The 3 Musketeers. However, when puberty and secondary school hit their paths diverge and Eva becomes involved (through seeking friendship with another girl) in an abusive sexual game the boys have challenged girls with.. Things spiral out of control. We meet Eva at the start of the book as a 22 year old travelling back to the village with a block of ice in her boot wanting to settle some scores.

The book feels very claustrophobic. Eva has been dealt an awful hand in life with a seriously dysfunctional family.. There are very graphic scenes of sexual violence. Everyone is damaged and bizarre things happen.

I can't say I enjoyed this book but it did give me pause for thought.

The Melting is a dark tale of friendship, growing up, betrayal and revenge. In 2002, three children were born in the Belgian countryside: Eva and two boys, farmer’s son Pim and butcher’s son Laurens. All three grew up together, so the neighbours called them "the three musketeers." "We started using this name all the time: when we rushed to the gate, when we got good or bad grades on the certificate, every time we opened a bottle of Kidibule sparkling grape juice - until we believed that there would never be anything more important than our friendship”. They were inseparable, but in adolescence, due to the raging hormones, their paths began to diverge. That's when the boys came up with the idea of ​​a cruel game of asking girls the same riddle Eva had invented. Two hundred euros are waiting for the correct answer. In case of error - take off some clothes. A holiday is coming that will change everything. While trying to befriend Elisa, a haughty girl from a big city, Eva tells her the solution to the puzzle, and she uses this knowledge to mock all three of them. Very painfully. This summer will be decisive, all three of them knew that with every fibre of their being. July and August marked the end of primary school and the beginning of high school, and everything they knew, including themselves, was about to change. Thirteen years after the events get out of hand, Eva returns to the family home with an ice block in the trunk. It slowly becomes clear that this time she makes the rules, and it turns out that the visit will become an occasion to take revenge for what happened in the past. The narrative takes place between the contemporary story of returning home and memories from the past.

Spit with insight and sensitivity describes her heroine's childhood spent in the company of a neurotic sister, a dominant father and a submissive mother. A difficult family situation strengthens Eva's bond with her peers - Laurens and Pim; a much-needed escape from her turbulent home life. But teenagers left on their own lead to tragic events. The author recreates this story from small elements to create a surprising picture of the whole - what really happened in an unremarkable Belgian village that hides many secrets? The Melting is an extraordinary and haunting novel, set somewhere between the thriller, black comedy and the novel of learning. Lize Spit's ruthless portrayal of adolescent cruelty and the shock and discomfort it causes, leaves the reader with a sense of fear and doom that is overwhelmingly resolved, and you are drawn into the story right from the first sentence and it manages to keep your attention until the end. A thoroughly disturbing part thriller, part coming of age tale. The novel will impress you, but it will also drive you crazy, and alongside healthy curiosity, it also explores aspects of exploitation, humiliation, cruelty and a pungent smell of impending disaster. Past and present intertwine in a rich and suspenseful plot, which centres on the vicissitudes of Eva with her complicated family - two alcoholic parents and a suffering little sister. This is a pulsating, loving but brutal work that left me not only amazed, but speechless; it certainly surprised me to learn that this is Lize Spit’s debut. Highly recommended.

The Melting is a harrowing book, it is told without mercy, no punches pulled and it leads in a logical, almost disective manner to its only conclusion. Compelled to turn the pages, the reader heads with fateful inevitability towards the car crash he can’t take his eyes off.

Eva living in Brussels and working as an art teacher, sets off at exactly 9am (with a huge block of ice in her car) following an invitation she received from a childhood friend, Pim. She is travelling back to her home town Bovenmeer, which she had left nine years ago. Over the day, we accompany Eva on her home journey, which takes us back to her childhood, through memories that bit by bit reveal her mental state and eventually lead to her chosen way of escaping the shadows of her past.

Eva grew up with two siblings in a family where love was sparse and the children were forced to develop their own coping mechanisms. Whilst Tessy, her younger sister, develops OCD accompanied by eating and sleeping disorders, Eva tries to find solace in her friendship with Pim and Laurens and they brand themselves as the Three Musketeers -one for all and all for one. It is these two she turns to when looking for warmth, security, recognition and love, commodities often found wanting at home. However, more often than not she is left feeling used and manipulated by her friends, at the same time she seems trapped in the web of their relationship. Although desperately wanting to be part of this friendship group, in her heart Eva always knew that her friendship with Pim and Laurens did nothing for her emotional state or her self-esteem. Eventually she gets scarred for life and reaches a point of no return. Yet, after nine years she does return as a ‘grown woman, with long hair, more angular, less fleshy, yet only suitable for men with moderate standards, for guys who wanted to aim higher but were held back by their own limitations’. Her homecoming is marked by both, revenge and atonement, aimed at those who inflicted the scars that won’t heal.

All this is played out in the small town of Bovenmeer, Lize Spit’s cutting narration evokes its small-town mentality with its incestuous gossip and narrow-mindedness. The suffocating atmosphere of the place adds to the general feeling of oppression and airlessness and made me – like the protagonist- yearn for it all to end.

When it did end, I felt relieved and bereft at the same time.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Eva is driving back to her childhood village with a large block of ice in her car boot.
We learn about Eva’s childhood with her two close friends: Pim, a farmer’s son and Laurens, the butcher’s son, their weird, often cruel and violent “games”, their spats, their anxieties.
A seemingly contented outdoorsy childhood, but with a dark looming presence - the death of Pim’s brother Jan.
Eva’s permanent feeling of gaucheness is superbly captured: “All of a sudden, I saw the world I grew up in from a different perspective. I didn’t fit in like I did before. I was a Duplo man in a Lego house.”

The book reminded me of a curious mix of Lindgren’s “Bullerby Children” and Rijneveld’s “The Discomfort of Evening”. The “three musketeers” sharing everything: the pranks, the dares, the sexual awakening. And yet there always is this tension, this fear, this apprehension.
All three children are caught in a weird, perverse behavioural web with no escape.
A disturbing, dark, upsetting read - you want to stop, but you cannot.

The Melting by Belgian author Lize Spit has already won several awards and been a success in several European countries since it was first published in 2016 and has now been translated into English.

In 1988 only 3 children are born the small Belgian farming village of Bovenmeer, Eva,Pim and Laurens,As the only children of their age they're kept together through school and attached to older classes,leading them to be nicknamed "The 3 Parasites" by their classmates. Deciding that they prefer "The 3 Musketeers" the children bond and grow up together despite their vastly different backgrounds. Eva is treated as "one of the boys" until puberty hits and she's dragged into the exploitative sexual games of the boys in the ill-fated summer of 2002. Tragedy strikes and things spiral out of control leaving Eva isolated and broken.

The book begins with Eva,by now in her late 20's being invited to a party by Pim,now running the family Dairy Farm,she's leading an empty life in Brussels , has become estranged from her family and hasn't been back to the village for several years. She heads for Bovenmeer with a large block of ice in her car boot...........

This book reminded me very much of a David Lynch movie with damaged people and bizarre and often deeply disturbing goings-on in a claustrophobic atmosphere. Eva's family are almost surreally dysfunctional and the whole thing is very dark and often quite unpleasant.
Having said that it's a great book,just not one that will bring much sunshine into your life and there are graphic scenes of sexual violence and what some might see as "too much information" on other subjects that will upset the unwary.
The various timelines jump around and the story unravels in chunks that knit together as it goes along so the book can be a bit confusing at times but it's very cleverly done and changes the reader's perspective on certain events as it unravels.
While the book is quite an amazing piece of work it's unremittingly grim,and even quite nasty. It's most definitely not for everyone but it's one you won't forget.

Disclaimer I read the French translation so cannot comment on the English translation. Set between present and past, the book tells of a fateful summers where kids left to their own devices invent a game. The story is revealed slowly as an adult trying but not really wanting to remember her past. It comes in snippet. It tells about the last summer of true childhood when you put one foot into adulthood and leave insouciance behind. Not an easy read but incredibly powerful