Isaac and the Egg: the unique, funny and heartbreaking Saturday Times bestseller

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Looking at the water below, Isaac lets out a scream of despair, at which “the weir stops bubbling, as if it’s paused to listen. His debut novel, ISAAC AND THE EGG, was an instant Saturday Times bestseller, selling 50,000 copies in its first year of publication. Those of us who have experienced the bone-numbing, pyjama-wearing, time-as-syrup chasm of a close loss will only nod in agreement at these scenes, whilst those who haven’t will find themselves shrinking in fear at their possibility. Victoria Fox narrates this variously funny and poignant short story collection about teenage girlhood and coming of age at a time of uncertainty and fear and fear. The idea of grief as an incommunicable language, for example, finds voice in Issac’s initial attempts to understand Egg which gradually evolves through the novel as Isaac begins to emotionally emerge.

And even those just-birthed baby velociraptors, or those just-hatched face-huggers, are a celebration of life itself. The Orphic Egg in Greek mythology goes one further than that moon filled with dragons, positing that the universe began with a cosmic egg that hatched Phanes, the first of the gods. It makes beans on toast by roasting them all together in the toaster until the fire alarm goes off; it smashes crockery until Isaac does the same and feels a torrent of anger and grief explode out of him with every plate. If I had read this, it would have been at least 4 stars, though I am not sure how I would have felt about the barrage of grief in the initial section.Even though it deals with grief it is also about hope, friends, family, and the little things in life that make us happy and matter most. Everybody needs to read Issac, Mary and Egg's story - it'll take a hold of your heart, crack it into a million pieces, then quietly piece it back together again, leaving you nothing short of mesmerised. Aspects haven't been fully developed, certain bits don't fit together, and what could have been beautiful metaphors, just turned out plain weird. This is undeniably a character-driven novel and Egg and Isaac are characters you'll fall in love with, I guarantee it.

But it's also full of JOY and pockets of wonderful humour, and it's written with generosity and warmth, and such perception. Op een dag staat hij op een brug, hij twijfelt of hij moet springen en hij schreeuwt… en dan schreeuwt er iets terug.This is not my usual genre of book but every now and then I like to try something different so when I saw the reviews for this, I decided to give it a go. Make no mistake, this level of calibration - this pitch-perfect tone of the confessional - is HARD to achieve, but when done well it is masterful in its subtlety. Sinds de dood van zijn grote liefde lijkt alles leeg en uitzichtloos en hij probeert zichzelf te verdoven om maar niets te hoeven voelen, hij heeft vrijwel iedereen van zich afgeduwd, verwaarloost zichzelf, is erg depressief en weet niet of hij nog wil leven. Isaac is twenty-nine years old, and hasn’t had need of a fluffy hot-water bottle for at least twenty of those years.