Our Endless Numbered Days

4 stars

I read Our Endless Numbered Days for my real life book club. That was over a week ago and yet I still find myself struggling to form any coherent thoughts about the book. It made for a very interesting discussion, however, so if you’re looking for a good book club choice then I can recommend it.

The protagonist of the novel is Peggy Hillcoat. She is an eight-year-old girl whose survivalist father takes her to live in the woods after claiming that the whole world was destroyed and they are the only two left alive. However, since the book jumps between the past (Peggy’s childhood and consequent life in the woods) and the “present” (her recent return to civilisation), it turns out that the world did not actually end. This is definitely not a spoiler since this is revealed in the very beginning. The book has one major time jump in the middle of Peggy’s narrative in the forest, which I found a little odd, but I guess it was important to streamline her transition from an eight-year-old to a teenager. It did feel a little sudden, but maybe the shock value added to the general enjoyment of the novel.

Our Endless Numbered Days deftly deals with the relationship between parents and children, which I found to be a really fascinating aspect of the book. We learn that the father is essentially a kidnapper, and yet neither of the parental figures come off as purely good or evil. There is a lot of ambivalency and questionable parenting choices from both parents, not only the obviously mentally disturbed father.

Like I said above, I still don’t know what I actually think of this book. On the one hand, it was very creepy and disturbing, which is not something that I tend to look for in books. Then again, I was thinking of the book when I wasn’t reading it, and that is one of my favourite things. I still think of it actually. The author’s beautiful writing kind of lulled me into feeling comfortable until she revealed a new twist, and another after that, and another one. The ending was especially harrowing; it wasn’t left too open-ended, which you’ll enjoy if you’re like me and like concrete resolutions at the end of books.

Of course there are a few flaws: the writing was slightly dense at times and I did not fully understand the random time jump in the middle or all characterisation choices, but all in all, I would give the book a strong four stars. It can be a little heavy of descriptions, but they were beautifully done (if you have read or will read the book, watch out for the forest piano scene – gorgeous!), so it is not something I would actually consider a fault.

I definitely recommend this book for everyone. It is not easy to find a genre for this novel, though. It is YA, middle-grade, and literary fiction all at once. It is, of course, also a mystery, even though one of the main twists happens in the first few pages. Definitely worth a read and I will gladly pick up anything else she writes.

"In the middle, the river was a deep green, scattered with rocks poking their noses up for a breath. The water charged around them, creating eddies and whirlpools. Closer to the bank, the current dragged lengths of weed along with it so it seemed that long-haired women swam just under the surface, never coming up for air."