There's no denying that Sarah Moss is an incredible writer who can write the most glorious and vivid scene. Except it's a bit lost on me. I struggle to visualise and build a picture in my head (it's a real thing - called aphantasia), and I'm slowly learning that these beautiful scenic books just don't float my boat. 5* for lyrical beauty, 2* because I skip most of that because it just doesn't click for me. I'm genuinely gutted about that, but I need more plot and less description. Because she really doesn't deserve anything less than 5* for that stunning writing, I'll rate it as such, but if you don't see the film in your head as you read, this will be wasted on you, as it was me. I would 100% recommend this to my audience, but it would be with a strong caveat!

This is the first book that I have read that is set in lockdown.
This book is written so well but I felt the plot feel a bit flat. There were times in the story that I was bored.
It was a brave book to write and unfortunately it didn’t really work for me.

I waited until now to read this as it's set during the height of the covid pandemic and at the time of publishing, this was a little too close to what we were all experiencing to be deemed fiction. I enjoyed reading the inner thoughts of these characters and for such a short story, Sarah achieved so much. Hugely enjoyable, would definitely recommend and will look out for future books from Sarah.

Thank you for the ARC of this title. Sarah Moss is a genius and this pandemic novel is so relatable and atmospheric. A wonderful read. Incredible what she can conjur in such a short novel.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I really enjoyed this book; the style was terse and engaging. I was impressed by the fact that the tension was maintained throughout the book so encouraging the reader to continue reading to find out what happened next.

This book is set during the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, and was well-written in the sense that it portrayed the emotions and internal conflicts many people were feeling during those challenging times.

As a person who is fortunate enough that I was able to work from home and keep my family safe during the worst of the pandemic, I myself did not have the same feeling as the characters in this novel. We, thankfully, did not have to shield, nor did we have to self-isolate due to contracting Covid or for being a close contact. The writing, though, was so perfectly detailed that it enabled me to feel the helplessness of people with chronic illnesses who had to keep themselves sheltered at home, and the trapped feelings of people with no space to walk around outside.

This was an interesting take on a time that will stick in all of our memories for a long time to come.

Having read Summerwater very recently, I wanted to jump back into Moss's writing again to see if it was for me, and I loved this book. I found all of the characters so relatable and though it is set during peak Covid times, there's a lot of key messages and takeaways from this book. I saw @agirlandabook_ review this and mention that the key purpose was to focus on kindness and I found that came across very well. On the most part, people are kind and helpful and caring, and when a scary situation happens like this, people working together to help and support can make all the difference.

Having read Jodi Picoult’s Wish You Were Here, which addressed the pandemic, I was interested to read Sarah Moss’s take on these strange time, having been recommended her books several times from bloggers I know and trust. I’m so glad that I went back into my NetGalley TBR to read this novel because it’s amazing. It’s a slim book but don’t be out off by that as it packs a weighty punch and really encapsulates that weird boredom and low mood of lockdown, punctuated with brief and distant moments with other humans - such as the togetherness of the Thursday night clap for the NHS where neighbours who’d never met acted like long lost cousins!

It’s dusk on a November evening in 2020 and a woman slips out of her garden gate and turns up the hill. Kate is halfway through a two-week quarantine period, but she just can’t take it any more – the closeness of the air in her small house, the confinement. And anyway, the moor will be deserted at this hour so no one will ever know. Luckily, Kate’s neighbour Alice has seen her leaving and her son Matt realizes she’s hasn’t returned. Kate’s quick, solitary walk – just for a breath of open air – ends with her falling and badly injuring herself. What began as a furtive walk has turned into a mountain rescue operation . . .

I found the book incredibly moving. It’s told through different characters and reads as their separate streams of consciousness that overlap to tell a story. I thought the author showed incredible insight into the psychological aspects of isolation and the sense of fear that living through a pandemic produces. There was a sense of taking stock and evaluating life. The long pause of the first lockdown allowing people to examine their lives and wonder if they wanted to carry on living this way? As we emerged this showed itself in huge life changes like divorce, moving house and leaving workplaces that no longer inspired. For people who decompress by being out in the open, it must have felt like being caged. Despite the gentle narration, the tension builds as Kate’s rescue begins. It’s suspenseful, but also has a dark sense of humour, Yet it’s also full of empathy, compassion and kindness. It makes us think about those dark edges of life, the human equivalent of the edges of a map where there may be dragons. The pandemic brought home to many people how fragile that link is between life and death. So what do we want these precarious lives to look like and how do we survive? This was emotional, philosophical and insightful. .

Set during the lockdown, The Fell is a novella which centres around four characters and their experiences on one night. Kate and Matt, a mother and son who are meant to be self-isolating because they’ve been in contact with someone who has tested positive (although they’re not ill themselves). An elderly neighbour Alice, who is considered highly vulnerable as she has cancer and Rob, a mountain rescuer.
Kate is used to walking in the Fells every day and her imposed quarantine is proving too claustrophobic so, without telling anyone (including her son) she heads out for an evening walk - reasoning with herself that she’ll not meet anyone and therefore can’t infect anyone, should she even have Covid.
Luckily, her neighbour Alice sees her go and even though Alice knows that Kate’s leaving her house is illegal (and subject to a hefty fine if caught), she doesn’t interfere with her choice.
But Kate has a fall. And now her choice affects many other people than herself.
Even though the lockdowns were in the very recent past and still very fresh and real, being reminded about the lengths we were all exhorted to go to by the government (oh, hindsight!!) seems quite bizarre on the page. If this wasn’t based on actual advice, some of it would actually read as quite darkly comedic. The washing of food deliveries and other packaging materials; gloves when touching objects touched by others; removing clothes that had been worn outside, etc.
I remember feeling like it was being in a Dystopian novel in the early days and that the television news and government broadcasts were like something out of those disaster movies before huge swathes of the planet’s population were wiped out.
It all felt very unreal. And we all dealt with it in our own way.
Which is why The Fell is really engaging - it’s about events that we have all experienced and we get to judge how we dealt with it in comparison to Kate, Matt, Alice and Rob.
I’m a huge fan of Sarah Moss. But at the end of this novella, I was reminded that she always leaves you wanting to know more. Her endings are always quite abrupt. Not in the way that some book endings feel like they’ve been wrapped up too quickly and you feel a bit cheated, but in that you never get to really find out ‘if they all lived happily ever after’!

If The Fell had been written by anyone else, I am not sure I would have picked up. It is too soon for fiction about the pandemic that is still happening has been my response whenever I’ve seen or heard mention of the topic. Sarah Moss is one of my favourite authors, so I made an exception.

It is November 2020, and Kate is in the middle of a two-week quarantine period. She is missing her routine, her long walks and the feeling of fresh air in her lungs. The moor will be deserted, so where is the harm in going for a walk when Kate knows that she won’t run into people?

Told from four different perspectives, we have Kate, her teenage son Matt, their neighbour Alice who is shielding, and Rob, who is a search and rescue volunteer.

Kate’s walk doesn’t go as planned, and Matt realises that she is missing. He is desperate to find her but doesn’t want to get his mother in trouble for breaking quarantine either. Maybe Alice knows where Kate went?

At under 150 pages, Moss has given us an intense and claustrophobic novel that never feels rushed. Each of the characters is fully realised, and true to Moss’s previous work, the sense of place is so strong that it almost feels like you are right beside Kate.

The Fell is a thought-provoking portrayal of the impact of the lockdowns and an exploration of why people made the decisions that they did. I loved it.

I love Sarah Moss's haunting voice, she has an incredible ability to make the most simple of stories dark and haunting, and this read was no different. Focusing on the isolation that lockdown brought on to may of the population this was a different pandemic book to most out there.

I am one of those people who want the pandemic mentioned in books based in 2020 (and the years that followed). When I made my last year's list, when I had to mention the period in books, everything with nothing about the pandemic went into the 2019 pile. This skewed my stats for the year, but I was not budging. The magnitude of the pandemic was too big to avoid in the picture of family stories and such. This is not the first book I have read which focused completely on the pandemic and the immediate repercussions, but it does focus on a very different part from the other.
It is not a large volume, but it felt like it weighed much more (content-wise). We are in a rural area where the lockdown rules are being enforced (as much as possible). One mother locked in with her teenage son reaches the end of her tether and decides to go for an innocent walk on a path that is familiar to her, knowing it would have fewer people on it. What she doesn't do is tell her son or take her phone with her. As this seemingly simple situation gets direr, we look into two more families and their dynamics and the conversations that the lockdown and the pandemic as a whole triggered. The brunt of continuing to be 'patient' when required is often tested in such a short narrative.
My issue with the book was that the conclusion was not enough for me. I watched and waited and appreciated all the glimpses of lives I was being provided(the author said a lot with few words), and I felt like I deserved more towards the end. I wanted to have some sort of conclusion with people voicing all the hidden thoughts. I know this is not a given in books like this, but in this case, I strongly felt like I wanted it!
I highly recommend this to people who are willing and want to read books based on the lockdown and the events that might have (and probably did) happened during that time.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

I love Sarah Moss and her take on our topsy-turvy contemporary time was very engaging, claustrophobic and contemplative.

Sarah Moss has done it again and created another beauty of a book. Her writing is exquisite and despite how short the book is, she really immerses you into her writing and takes you to that place.

This book felt even more impactful as it focuses on the pandemic and explores thoughts and feelings that I’m sure we all had whilst stuck in that first lockdown, with no end in sight. She creates characters that encompass bits of us all and there’s something for us all to relate to.

Whilst short, this book packs a punch and makes you truly reflect on life itself.

🍂🍂🍂🍂
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There's a line #FellowshipOfTheRing where #Legolas tells his remaining companions he can't translate the elves lament for Gandalf because for him "the grief is still to near". There's a  strong element of that for me in #TheFell by #SarahMoss. The pandemic & the lockdown are emotional scars & trauma that one day, I will need to work through. This is exactly what makes The Fell so powerful.
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I highlighted so many passages that really grabbed me and they tell you so much about me. For example; "...it’s not that the government care if you feel ill or die cheaply at home, it’s that they care if you pass the illness to people who will die expensively in hospital."
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One thing I would beg of other readers, PLEASE don't read this book and then make comments like Moss is condoning people not wearing masks or breaking rules. This is a work of fiction. I don't like murderer or rapist characters but I never associate that character as an extension of the author. This is something I see happening frequently of late and it's really bloody depressing.
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Moss writes astonishing prose, I'm in awe of how succinct and brutal but also kind her words can be. I look forward to reading more in the future.

The Fell is another brilliant, claustrophobic and unsettling novel from Sarah Moss. Kate goes out for a walk on familiar hills in the middle of lockdown and things take a turn for the worse. Moss is telling the reader not to relax. Not everyone is going to be okay at the end of the story. This is not that kind of book. It's about a sad time full of kindnesses and tragedy and you won't forget it in a hurry.

I love Moss's writing and as usual it doesn't disappoint unfortunately it was a little close to home with it being so much about the pandemic maybe one i will pick up at a later date

REVIEW: The Fell by Sarah Moss

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ok confession time I may have read this back in September of last year and I am only just getting around to reviewing it, but despite the time since reading it I have thought about it often!

November evening in 2020 Kate slips out of her house in the middle of a two-week quarantine period, but she just can’t take it any more thinking the moor will be deserted at this time and nobody need ever know.

But Kate’s neighbour Alice sees her leaving and Matt, Kate’s son, soon realizes she’s missing. And Kate, who planned only a quick solitary walk– falls and badly injures herself. What began as a furtive walk has turned into a mountain rescue operation . . .

Whilst written during the Covid 19 pandemic this is not actually referenced within the book, it could be any pandemic the detail of why our characters are in the situation is not the focus it is their experience and feelings as a result of said situation.

This is my second Moss book and similarly to Summerwater her observations and relatability of characters is on a level I have yet to experience from any other author! It is simply fantastic, which given that in the Fell we have four characters, varied widely in age and circumstances yet I related and felt validated by each of their perspectives is no mean feat.

As a result I felt such closeness to them all and was carried along with their emotions, one particular part caused an audible gasp!

I love knowing the story behind the story and Moss explains its purpose was to focus on kindness, there is a lot of fear, uncertainty and anxiety felt by our characters (and no doubt is also true of us the reader in our own experience of living through a pandemic) but the ultimate kindness of people transcends this if we only open our eyes to it.

“Because there were times when there seemed to be a risk that containing contagion might come at the cost of kindness”

Thank you to @netgalley and @panmacmillan for the opportunity to read this brilliant little read which has firmly placed me in the Sarah Moss fan club and I am excited to read more of her work in the future.

Sarah Moss is brilliant at capturing the mood of the UK, and while Summerwater explored Brexit, The Fell looks at the pandemic. Set in the Peak District in November 2020, this tells the story of Kate, who’s isolating after coming into contact with Covid. She gets increasingly claustrophobic, wrestling with whether she should take a walk in the hills, and ends up putting herself in grave danger. I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to be transported back to the early pandemic, but don’t be put off - it’s a great quick read. Thank you to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the ARC.