Fierce Little Thing

A Novel

By: Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling author Miranda Beverly-Whittemore’s Fierce Little Thing is a mesmerizing story of friendship and its reckonings.

“It’s time to come Home. All five of you. Or else.”

Saskia was a damaged, lonely teenager when she arrived at the lakeside commune called Home. She was entranced by the tang of sourdough starter; the midnight call of the loons; the triumph of foraging wild mushrooms from the forest floor. But most of all she was taken with Abraham, Home's charismatic leader, the North Star to Saskia and the four other teens who lived there, her best and only friends.

Two decades later, Saskia is shuttered in her Connecticut estate, estranged from the others. Her carefully walled life is torn open by threatening letters. Unless she and her former friends return to the land in rural Maine, the terrible thing they did as teenagers - their last-ditch attempt to save Home - will be revealed.

From vastly different lives, the five return to confront their blackmailer and reckon with the horror that split them apart. How far will they go to bury their secret forever?

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

“Fierce Little Thing is Miranda Beverly-Whittemore at her finest. A moody, gripping, and profoundly haunting story of a young girl desperate for connection and salvation. Beverly-Whittemore renders a wild, treacherous world and invites us to stand perilously close to the edge.” (Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times best-selling author of Daisy Jones and The Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)

"A compelling study of power, sociopathy, and the possibilities of survival." (Kirkus, starred review)

©2021 Miranda Beverly-Whittemore (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Intriguing story; Difficult listening

The narrator did a fine job, although the many different voices were a little hard to distinguish. The story is fascinating, although it could have used more editing to sharpen it. But I don’t recommend the audio because of the nature of the book structure. The author goes back and forth in time - like many novels - but without any clueing in of which time period for that particular chapter. Given that the main character has an on-going conversation with someone who is dead, it can be difficult to orient to past or present. Many chapters are quite short, so you can get listening whiplash. I switched to reading rather than listening at about chapter 109 so that I could make better sense of the storyline. Audible recording is good; it’s the book that needs clarity.

Amazing story

Loved this book! Great cult story and with a great narrator. Love the point of view of the lead character!

Confusing, rambling, long

By the time I was almost halfway through I remember thinking this has to be done soon and every time I checked, in reality, i was still far away from the end. Why didn’t I put it down? I don’t have a good answer for that. The story goes back-and-forth between two different times like so many other books in this genre . The transitions between chapters were incredibly confusing and because it was so long and rambling I found myself not fully paying attention and the combo of these two two things made the book tedious.

It started out really good and then after the first quarter I was losing interest.

Thinged

Interesting read. I loved Saskias voice. It was hard to put down. Unthing yourself.

confusing. begging for it to end

Really wish I had this time back. Would be a lot better if they cut the number of characters by 1/3 and cut the story length by 3/4.