Item: Dear Thief
Rating: 3.00
Author: whitney

by Samantha Harvey

Shortlisted for the 2015 James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Longlisted for the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction
Longlisted for the 2015 Jerwood Prize

In the middle of a winter’s night, a woman wraps herself in a blanket, picks up a pen and starts writing to an estranged friend. In answer to a question you asked a long time ago, she writes, and so begins a letter that calls up a shared past both women have preferred to forget.

Without knowing if her friend, Butterfly, is even alive or dead, she writes night after night – a letter of friendship that turns into something more revealing and recriminating. By turns a belated outlet of rage, an act of self-defence, and an offering of forgiveness, the letter revisits a betrayal that happened a decade and a half before, and dissects what is left of a friendship caught between the forces of hatred and love.

For my review, I written each section in "tweets" meaning they are (for the most part) 140 characters.

Note: the breaks in-between represent separate tweets.

Fond of:

Liked that it was told anonymously

Enjoyed reading the growth of our storyteller and that life goes on even after someone leaves us.

Lyrical, beautiful writing

Original letter format -- a lost art.

Not fond of:

Dear Thief felt a little disjointed.

An interesting plot but did have to go back to refresh my memory.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I thought it was a decent read with beautiful writing

It did not always hold my attention

But was still a fascinating concept.

Dear Thief

by Samantha Harvey

Reviewed by Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews on Aug 25, 2014

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