Pond

Reading this short book by Claire-Louise Bennett is like reading the diaries of a person edging into madness. The narrator is a young unemployed academic who lives a solitary existence in a crumbling cottage on the edge of a small town. She is certifiably egocentric. She spends a lot of time observing fruit rot on a ledge, wondering how a canister of green ink became empty so quickly when she hardly ever used it, and fretting about finding a part for her obsolete oven. Cows approach her but turn around. A young man in a hoodie walks towards her and she wonders if he is going to rape her. Nope, he just walks on without so much as a glance. I found this book to be as boring and pointless as this woman's life and I can't understand, for the life of me, why it received glowing reviews.