Mick Kitson

Several other reviewers thought the book started slow and they were glad that it picked up later on. I thought the reverse - I loved the way it already starts in the wilderness and the back story is teased out bit by bit, along with the strangeness of Sal's mind. Some reviewers also had too much of the detailed survival techniques but I thought this brought Sal's thoughts and feelings to life. But later in the book there were long passages of back story of another character and this just fell flat to me, then towards the end this was repeated by Sal telling it to other people and the repetition just bored me.

The book deals with some serious stuff like alcohol abuse, child neglect and child abuse but in a curiously ungritty way making it feel less of an adult book than I was expecting. Anyway well worth reading.… (lisätietoja)

"Sal" is an original, engaging, story that deals with child abuse with empathy and compassion without turning the children into victims defined by their abuser. It made me think, cry, smile and get angry, sometimes within the course of a single page.

Sal is a thirteen-year-old girl who, after months of planning, has fled with her ten-year-old sister, Peppa, from their home in Glasgow to the forests of the Scottish Highlands, where, with a Bear Grylls knife, a compass, waterproofs, a first aid kit and what she's learned from the SAS Survival Handbook and watching YouTube videos, she intends to survive.

The main strength and the main limitation of the novel are that it is told entirely from Sal's point of view. Sal has a unique voice, that Sharon Rooney brings to life with wonderful clarity in the audiobook version. When Sal is describing the mechanics of survival, from making a bender to shelter in or snaring, skinning and cooking a rabbit, she is matter-of-fact, competent and well-researched. When she thinks about her past, the reason for their flight and what she had to do to achieve it, she is initially much more oblique and finally heart-breakingly dispassionate. Only when she describes her sister, the always energetic, irrepressibly optimistic Peppa does real joy enter her tone.

I was quickly invested in Sal and her endeavours and then, as I slowly began to understand their cause and their cost, deeply worried for her.

The first half of the book was totally engrossing but I couldn't see how the Sal could resolve the situation she was in. Then a new character is introduced, a doctor in her seventies, who is living in a bender in the forest. She helps the girls both to survive and to resolve their situation.

The Doctor an interesting history: childhood in wartime Germany, trauma in the fall of Berlin to the Russians, being a doctor in the DDR and defecting to Scotland, building a life here and then the choices that led to her woodland life. One of the problems is that we learn all of this from Sal, filtered by her understanding of the story and her fact-focused way of collecting a story. I found the Doctor to be a little too much of a plot device.

Yet the plot remained original and surprising. The final resolution was perhaps a little too neat or perhaps Sal just doesn't want to talk about the messy parts or isn't willing to see them yet.

"Sal" is a very satisfying, thought-provoking but accessible novel. Sal herself is someone who will live in my memory for a long time. What more can I ask of a novel?
… (lisätietoja)

Filla de mare soltera alcoholitzada i germana gran de la Peppa, la Sal -amb tretze anys- s'enfronta tota sola a un nòvio de la mare abusador sobretot per protegir la seva germana, i fuig al bosc. La novel·la, amb nombrosos flash backs, és la narració de la seva supervivència.
Tot i que és una mica increïble, es tracta d'un llibre colpidor. És fàcil empatitzar amb la situació d'unes nenes innocents que no sempre prenen les decisions adequades, però que són ben comprensibles.
La descripció de la natura és fantàstica. La traducció, magnífica.
Una apunt: quasi tots els personatges són femenins!… (lisätietoja)