Review: CALL ME EVIE, J. P. Pomare

• this large print edition published by Hachette Australia 2018
  
• ISBN 9-781525-299040
• 467 pages
• source: my local library
• WINNER OF THE NGAIO MARSH AWARD BEST FIRST NOVEL 2019
  SHORTLISTED FOR THE ABIA MATT RICHELL AWARD 2020
  SHORTLISTED FOR THE NGAIO MARSH AWARD BEST NOVEL 2019
  LONGLISTED FOR THE NED KELLY AWARD BEST FIRST FICTION 2019
  LONGLISTED FOR THE ABIA GENERAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2020

Synopsis (publisher)

DON'T TRUST HIM. IT WASN'T ME. IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN ME.

Meet Evie, a young woman held captive by a man named Jim in the isolated New Zealand beach town of Maketu. Jim says he's hiding Evie to protect her, that she did something terrible back home in Melbourne.

In a house that creaks against the wind, Evie begins to piece together her fractured memories of the events that led her here.

Jim says he's keeping her safe. Evie's not sure she can trust Jim, but can she trust her own memories?

My Take

This novel is written in two time frames, before and after. There are also two narrators. Which is the reliable one? We see things mainly from Evie's eyes and tend to trust her, but is that right? Is Jim really the untrustworthy, unreliable one?

Evie is not her real name, Jim is her uncle. or is he?

Early on, we piece together that they have come from Melbourne as a result of a traumatic event, that they are "on the run", that people are looking for them, that it is possibly her fault.

This was an incredible debut novel, one that will keep you trying to piece together what has really happened.

At the end of the novel interesting questions are provided for discussion in book groups.

My rating: 4.8

I've also read
4.6, IN THE CLEARING