The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It’s 1979 England. Thirteen-year-old Vincent and his two brothers, are orphaned triplets, living in a children’s home together. They are cared for and monitored around the clock by different “mothers”. They take daily medication, learn from the “Book of Knowledge”, have nightmares recorded in the “Book of Dreams”, and when they do “bad things”, these events are documented in the “Book of Guilt”. Their house used to be filled with other orphans, many who seemingly did good things to manage to be sent to the utopian “Margate” , an amusement park-type of home. The boys are visited occasionally by an elderly doctor, kindly Dr. Roach, who checks in on them and coordinates their care with the mothers. The three seldom venture beyond their property, and the few times they have entered the village, they have been either avoided or treated with hostility by the villagers. They are different.

In a parallel story, a girl named Nancy is being raised by her parents, spoiled and sheltered, handled most preciously. She is never allowed outside, hasn’t met anyone else beyond her parents, and is asked to hide in a hidden part of her wardrobe, whenever anyone comes to the house.

What is the connection between the two? Something was not quite right in either of these settings.

This was a dystopian novel, and the further I read the more quickly I had to continue. The layers peeled away to reveal horrors and violence, in such sharp contrast to the childhoods that were initially cloaked in hazy innocence.

I was very much reminded of the novel “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro which I read almost 15 years ago. It gave me the same type of unsettling chill. I can’t describe more without spoilers.

A 4 star rating. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and Penguin Random House Canada for the ARC in exchange for a review.




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