Description
“We don’t pick and choose what to be afraid of. Our fears pick us.”
Tash Carmody has been traumatised since childhood, when she witnessed her gruesome imaginary friend Sparrow lure young Mallory Fisher away from a carnival. At the time nobody believed Tash, and she has since come to accept that Sparrow wasn’t real. Now fifteen and mute, Mallory’s never spoken about the week she went missing. As disturbing memories resurface, Tash starts to see Sparrow again. And she realises Mallory is the key to unlocking the truth about a dark secret connecting them.
Does Sparrow exist after all? Or is Tash more dangerous to others than she thinks?
Review
This is an incredible psychological thriller by an Australian debut YA author.
Tash has many phobias dating back to a day when she was eight years old and she witnessed the abduction of a little girl called Mallory Fisher from a carnival.
Tash knew the Fisher family, particularly Morgan who was her age, but the family quickly left town after a filthy and mistreated little Mallory was found a week later, wandering in the National Park.
But mute Mallory was not telling anyone what happened, and Tash’s abduction story was soon discounted as a young child’s make believe attention seeking.
This was the beginning of Tash’s problems and now, as a seventeen year old, with the Fisher family suddenly relocating back to town, her world and brain start spiralling out of control.
I can’t give away anymore of the story, but I will say that it is especially enthralling the further into the story you get. I just couldn't put it down, and I read the last half of the story well into the night.
Small Spaces is an excellent debut novel that really hits the mark, as it unravels the events that are the source of Tash’s problems. I did not see the ending coming at all and it is a real shock as you discover who the monsters really are!
A gripping thriller, that will be best appreciated by those 14 years and up.
Reviewed by Rob
