Hi guys, Aisling here. This book was
something I had really been looking
forward to reading, I had seen photos of
it on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook
from other authors and booksellers as
well, I was really excited to finally see
it in shops and get my hands on it so
what I've got for you today is:
Such Small Hands by Andres Barba and I think
you can kind of agree with me
straightaway in that a title like that,
Such Small Hands already inspires so
much curiosity, you've got to know what
is that about it, it sounds so creepy and
so weird but really gives nothing away
as well, you just have to know. And then
the little doll on the front,
you're really, really enticed and you're
immediately so curious what it's about. I
know I shouldn't really talk about the
cover and the title because what's
inside is what matters, but we do all
sort of judge books by their covers, just
a little bit. Now this book is about a
little young orphan girl called Marina.
The book starts, literally on the first
page, with both of Marina's parents
perishing in a car crash and she is then
left to go to an orphanage for young
girls with only this doll she is given
by a psychologist for company. And from there on out it just sort of spirals
into this really interesting,
psychological but also very, very
incredibly simple and subtle
story. The doll is very, very important
Marina sort of can't differentiate
herself and the doll; she names the doll
Marina, and she's Marina, so they are both
Marina. The girls as well in the
orphanage are very important. The book is
told from two different points of view
you know bits where Marina is talking
and bits where the other girls are
talking but they'll all talk in unison,
it's sort of like a Greek chorus they'll
be saying 'We loved Marina/We hated
Marina.' It also is incredibly sinister we
sort of forget when we grow up how
terrifying childhood was sometimes and
all these sort of feelings and
thoughts that we were having, like how
one minute you could be best friends with
somebody and the next second you could
violently hate them, and that really
really is carried through very, very well
in this book. I can't believe how well
the writer was able to understand and
sort of recapture and recall these
feelings, little girls are incredibly
complex and exciting creatures, although
terrifying. As time goes on in the book
the girls in the orphanage, they develop
this strange obsession with Marina, they
both hate her and love her at the same
time. So what I mean by this is they are
looking at her and she's a very
beautiful child, you know, they want to
comb her hair, they want to touch her,
they want to play with her, they want to
be her best friend, but they also want
to punch her and kick her and spit on
her and kill her.
So it's really strange the dichotomy of
things that are going on here. Then
later on as the story progresses Marina,
who is a strangely powerful character
for a little girl, which I really really
liked, she comes up with this very,
very strange nighttime game that she
decides she and the other girls are
gonna play she tells them we are gonna
play this this is what's gonna happen
every night. I won't spoil it for you by
telling you what it is but it really is,
you know, quite haunting this is a book
that I have been thinking about it long
after I finished reading it. I read it
last week and even though I've
had it around my house and sort of been
staring at it and thinking 'Wow it's so
stunning' it's hard to even do it justice
when you describe it because I feel books about children can sometimes
be put into a category just for
children but this is definitely not the case.
It's so intriguing and the
style as well, I think if you've read a
lot of books like this you'll really,
really appreciate it. It's so subtle, it's
so brief, there's almost no adjectives in
the whole thing. It's very, very
straightforward but somehow incredibly
complex and philosophica,l psychological,
all the rest. 
I really can't recommend it enough
I actually want more people to read it so I can
talk to more people about it and find
out what people think. From what I
understand it's been doing quite well
it's been received incredibly well so
far since its release and I'm very, very
excited to know what other people think
about it and so if you could please let
me know in the comments below or
whatever. And you will be a little bit
disturbed I suppose, but there's nothing
wrong with that. But you won't be overly
disturbed and when I say disturbed I
mean it in a good way because, you know,
what is literature if it can't really affect
us. How I would describe it, maybe
comparing it to other authors, maybe a
more pared back Shirley Jackson, but it's
not really a ghost story, I want to say
it's a ghost story without ghosts
because I've never been so haunted by a
book that had no ghosts in it, if that
makes sense.
Hopefully you'll understand what I mean
by that. So guys I hope you enjoyed this
review I'll be back talking to you again
soon with another review. In the meantime, keep
reading, and I'll talk to you again soon
Bye!
you
