Book Review: Paradise Girl by Phil Featherstone

Rating: 4 stars

Heartbreaking and unsettling. You feel like you are stuck in this apocalypse with her.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Goodreads summary: Kerryl Shaw survives a deadly virus to find herself the only person left alive. She records her thoughts in a diary. As the lonely days pass she imagines a reader, and gives him the name Adam. But is he imagined? Or is he real, another survivor?

Phil Featherstone did a fantastic job creating a messy, flawed, yet wholly empathetic narrator. Kerryl was a teenage girl trying to cope with her circumstances the best she could. I was really surprised and impressed when I found out that this book was written by a man, as I felt that the author really nailed the voice of a teenage girl - especially an isolated one. In Paradise Girl, we slowly watch a young girl in uncertain circumstances lose not only those around her, but also her grip on reality. The most unsettling aspect of this though, is its subtlety. Kerryl is an unreliable narrator, and as such, we are reading what she believes to be true - which in turn distorts our understanding of her mental state. You almost feel like Kerryl, unable to distinguish between fact and figments of her imagination. Her naivety and loneliness was deeply imbedded in every page. Although her youth meant she tended to focus on insignificant, superficial things at times, she was also very strong and determined - altogether making her nuanced and incredibly human. Now, I won't reveal too much about the story, but I will say that the ambiguity of the ending was both frustrating and brilliant. Even though missing pieces were finally put together, I felt like I was left with a dozen more questions.

Now, to be honest, this is not really my kind of story. The pacing was very slow and the details sometimes felt immense - yet those are natural byproducts of Kerryl's isolation and her coping with her circumstances. In this way, it really reminded me of The Handmaid's Tale and Offred's fixation on small, sensory details as a way to keep her mind sharp and survive. So although Paradise Girl felt tedious at times, it also felt integral for the story and natural for the character. As such, I am giving this story four stars because I think it is a great story, despite not being something I would gravitate towards. Anyone interested in psychological thrillers, suspense, and dystopian novels should give this book a try.

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