But easier is not the same as better as Triss will slowly find out. It would, after all, be the easiest answer to her problems. Her parents insist she is ill and no wonder: with all of this happening, she must be. And when she cries, instead of water, cobwebs fall from her eyes. Her dolls talk to her and she feels insatiable hunger all the time. Suffice it to say that the story follows Triss, an 11-year-old girl who wakes up one day from an accident to find out that she has changed in a fundamental way. Nevertheless, I feel that it is possible to fully review and analyse Cuckoo Song without being too detailed. It behooves me to tell you that this book nearly shattered me: it will be difficult to convey the amount of angst that stems from this story without spoiling what happens but by gods, I will try – for spoiling certain elements of the plot would be a terrible thing to do. I am opening this review with Cuckoo Song’s closing words because there is a wonderfulness about them, an intrinsic quality to those words that at once show the excellence of the book at a sentence level and also perfectly encapsulate the thematic core of the novel: its heart and soul, if you will. We’ve read – and loved – every single one of her books. Why did we read this book: We are huge fans of Frances Hardinge. How did we get this book: ARC from the publisher + bought

In a quest find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family – before it’s too late… Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself.

She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out. She is insatiably hungry her sister seems scared of her and her parents whisper behind closed doors. When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong.

Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge