Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford
Published by Simon & Schuster Audio
Publication Date January 21, 2020
Goodreads
Ada, a girl who hasn’t gone quite to plan, and Father live a quiet life together, in a clearing in the woods outside of town. They spend their years tending to local Cures – the human folk who come to them, cautiously, with various ailments, and for whom they care little.
Ada embarks on a disquieting relationship with a local Cure named Samson, much to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister. When Ada is forced to choose between her old and new lives, what she does will change the town – and The Ground itself – forever.
Follow Me To Ground is an unnerving, beautifully controlled tour-de-force, a sinister tale that questions our preconceptions of predator and prey and the consequences of unchecked desire
First Impressions
Sue Rainsford’s debut novel is dark and twisted and reminiscent of a fairy tale before Disney got their hands on it. Think Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but without Prince Charming.
Story Impressions
Follow Me to Ground was creepy, like Joey Tribbiani putting The Shining in the freezer creepy. After I finished listening to the book I needed to decompress, clear my head, take a cold shower, and then I listened to it again. I am still pondering as to why I liked the book so much, the characters are all flawed and unlikeable, the plot is manic, but somehow it works.
I was weirdly intriguing with Ada and her father, beings curing fellow villagers. However, I felt they did more harm than good, putting a little strangeness back with the diseased lung or womb. Also, while the writing is elegant and descriptive, Follow Me to Ground is not for the faint of heart. The curing procedures are in vivid detail with the author giving no notice to cover one’s eyes.
I felt Samson, despite being human was the most inhuman character in the whole novel. He gave me the heebie-jeebies and my skin began to crawl when I thought about his perverted nature and his desire for Ada. Like the novel Room, where we are shown the story through the eyes of a naive child, we must read between the lines to get the full story.
Audio Impressions
As for the audio, I loved that it was a multi-cast production with each curing getting its distinct voice. It added dimension to an already diverse story.
Overall Impression
I don’t think this is a book for everyone as it is a bit peculiar and left just as many questions as answers. Although, I like that it made me think and mull over everything I had just absorbed. Follow Me to Ground is unique and unlike anything I have read before. Like the curing ground, it is a plot that needs to be churned over before coming back up for air.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
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