'The stars shine brightest out of the deepest dark'. Hester is a young girl of dark beginnings and few words. She is kept at home by her painfully reclusive parents and allowed no contact with the world outside the front door. And yet Hester finds joy in life's ordinary moments - to her, everything is an Alice-in-Wonderland discovery. But from the moment Hester is forced to attend school, she quickly learns that there are some things she cannot tell her parents. She knows that 'a secret has no sound; it lives in your darkest corner where it sits and waits'. Until the day the secret can no longer be contained and Hester reclaims her freedom with one final, powerful act. Published around the world to huge acclaim, "One Foot Wrong" firmly establishes the arrival of an immensely talented new writer. You will not forget this powerful and haunting story..
One Foot Wrong
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Australian actor and young-adult writer Laguna (Too Loud Lily) delivers a grim, creepy, powerful first-person narrative about a direly neglected child whose knowledge of the world is severely circumscribed by her fanatically Christian parents. Told entirely in the solipsistic point of view of Hester, the only child of paranoid, abusive parents, the novel pursues the girl's deeply troubling relationship with them and their bizarre world view. Begrudged her difficult birth, Hester is routinely hung, Christ-like, from her arms in the basement by her depressed mother, who sequesters the young girl in their shared cabin, her only book The Abridged Picture Bible. Hester's brief foray to school, thanks to the intervention of the town authorities, proves eye-opening (she makes her first friend, Mary), but ultimately disastrous. Molested by her father through her adolescence, Hester is finally institutionalized when her parents can no longer control her. Laguna's rendering of Hester's fragile mental state is sympathetic and touching, especially through imagined dialogue with inanimate objects and in the friendship Hester makes with Mary, and then in the institution, with Norma. A truly haunting tale that readers won't soon forget, from a compelling, original voice. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Unique and absolutely hypnotic' Emily Maguire, author of Taming the Beast
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
You won't have read anything like this before,
By dreamlily "dreamlily" (Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: One Foot Wrong (Paperback)
One Foot Wrong by Sofie Laguna is one of the strangest books I have ever read. As in...I don't think I have ever read a book quite like the way this one is written.
It is written speaking in the words and thoughts of Hester, who at the beginning of the book, we are introduced to as a young child. As we travel through Hester's life we see things from her point of view and gather, from the disjointed language, word and imagery of Hester, that she is kept inside the house, forbidden to go outside. In fact, mostly she is kept in the one room as a young child. As she gets older she is given chores to do, and we learn that her parents are eccentric Christians. She refers to her parents as Sack and Boot, and this is the way she talks about other people and items around her. For example she doesn't refer to a door handle as 'the door handle' she refers to it as 'handle' as though you would say someone's name. She is mentally, sexually and psychologically abused through her life, and slowly but surely Hester rebels. She is not allowed in school, and is forced to stay at home. As she gets older, and rebels more, her parents commit her to a mental institution where more unspeakable acts occur and Hester makes a friend who becomes an integral part of the story. Sometimes I wonder, if Hester had been given a normal childhood, would she be normal? Or still mentally disturbed? Also, I half don't doubt that her parents (especially the mother) were mentally disturbed in some way either. Especially since the mother would take her to the basement downstairs and hoist Hester up like Jesus on the cross as punishment. But I won't give too much more away than that. One Foot Wrong is an extremely interesting read, not only for the content, but for the way it is written. This would make an excellent read for a book club.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sweetly Disturbing,
By
This review is from: One Foot Wrong (Paperback)
This was a dark and strange book. In the midst of the horror of Hester's life, her narration was at times oddly, incongruously, beautiful. The limitations of the narrator left some rather important gaps in the story, but in the end, there was surprisingly satisfying closure. It was certainly a unique book and one that almost begs for discussion.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the most memorable, enjoyable books I've ever read,
By Wash "Claire" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: One Foot Wrong (Paperback)
I'm not going to get into the plot of this book, because that's easy to find, but I just wanted to share my opinion that this book is simply amazing.
It will truly stay with you long after you've finished reading it. I read the entire book in one night, and I wished I could have had more. The main character, Hester, is absolutely lovable and unique. 5 stars for sure!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Listmania!
|
|
