Review: Only Child by Rhiannon Navin

Did Not Finish Only Child by Rhiannon Navin.

I always feel that it is delicate business spinning stories from young children's point of view. It is not easy to write, nor is it easy to be well liked, especially by fastidious readers like me.

Only Child is a story told through the eyes of Zach, a six-year old boy. It starts off really well with Zach's internal thought process running in circles amidst a gunman and the popping sounds he makes in the elementary school. The first person narrative is so childlike against the disturbing backdrop that I cannot help but read the entire first chapter with a heavy heart.

Sadly, the above moment and the feelings it stir up do not last. When Zach talks about his father making partner at his firm the year before, I am reminded yet again that this is actually an adult posing as a young storyteller. And so, my interest to read starts to dwindle.

Not for lack of trying, I find myself unable to go any further beyond the 20% mark.


Publisher: Knopf
Publication date: 6 Feb 2018

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We went to school that Tuesday like normal.
Not all of us came home....

Huddled in a cloakroom with his classmates and teacher, six-year-old Zach can hear shots ringing through the corridors of his school. A gunman has entered the building and, in a matter of minutes, will have taken 19 lives.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the close-knit community and its families are devastated. Everyone deals with the tragedy differently. Zach's father absents himself; his mother pursues a quest for justice - while Zach retreats into his super-secret hideout and loses himself in a world of books and drawing.

Ultimately, though, it is Zach who will show the adults in his life the way forward - as sometimes only a child can.

*Blurb from FantasticFiction*

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