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The cement garden book review7/8/2023 ![]() ![]() There are certainly YA books that deal with secrets, dead parents, horrifically dysfunctional sibling relationships, and masturbation, but I doubt any of them have ever executed these themes with the literary sparseness and claustrophobic intensity of The Cement Garden. This book is another one to contrast with superficially similar Young Adult novels, about which I have often been told by YA fans that "contemporary YA" is, like, totally contemporary and deep and dark and grim, man, and talks about serious shit and it's real life, man, and totally not juvenilia that gives a superficial treatment of growing-up issues or disturbing themes. And after that promising beginning, I wish I could say that I enjoyed The Cement Garden, but to the contrary, by the time I finished this mercifully brief book, I wanted a bleach bath. "I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way." They are free to live however they choose, but they must preserve their terrible secret. After their parents die, four children are left alone in the family house. One of the world's most acclaimed novelists, New York Times best-selling author Ian McEwan has earned the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. ![]()
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