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Mice: A Novel
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Published:
Penguin Publishing Group 2011
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description
An electrifying psychological thriller about a mother and daughter pushed to their limits.
Shelley and her mom have been menaced long enough. Excused from high school where a trio of bullies nearly killed her, and still reeling from her parents' humiliating divorce, Shelley has retreated with her mother to the quiet of Honeysuckle Cottage in the countryside. Thinking their troubles are over, they revel in their cozy, secure life of gardening and books, hot chocolate and Brahms by the fire. But on the eve of Shelley's sixteenth birthday, an unwelcome guest disturbs their peace and something inside Shelley snaps. What happens next will shatter all their certainties-about their safety, their moral convictions, the limits of what they are willing to accept, and what they're capable of.
Debut novelist Gordon Reece has written a taut tale of gripping suspense, packed with action both comic and terrifying. Shelley is a spellbinding narrator, and her delectable mix of wit, irony, and innocence transforms the major current issue of bullying into an edge- of-your-seat story of fear, violence, family loyalty, and the outer reaches of right and wrong.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
08/18/2011
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781101517710
ASIN:
B004IYIJ34
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Gordon Reece. (2011). Mice: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Gordon Reece. 2011. Mice: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Gordon Reece, Mice: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2011.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Gordon Reece. Mice: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2011.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Grouped Work ID:
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Needs Update?:
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Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 18:13:30
Date Updated:
Oct 24, 2021 06:14:56
Last Metadata Check:
Apr 21, 2024 09:48:47
Last Metadata Change:
Apr 14, 2024 09:53:27
Last Availability Check:
Apr 21, 2024 09:48:50
Last Availability Change:
Feb 11, 2022 19:52:52
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
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OverDrive Product Record

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publishDate
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title
Mice
fullDescription
An electrifying psychological thriller about a mother and daughter pushed to their limits.
Shelley and her mom have been menaced long enough. Excused from high school where a trio of bullies nearly killed her, and still reeling from her parents' humiliating divorce, Shelley has retreated with her mother to the quiet of Honeysuckle Cottage in the countryside. Thinking their troubles are over, they revel in their cozy, secure life of gardening and books, hot chocolate and Brahms by the fire. But on the eve of Shelley's sixteenth birthday, an unwelcome guest disturbs their peace and something inside Shelley snaps. What happens next will shatter all their certainties-about their safety, their moral convictions, the limits of what they are willing to accept, and what they're capable of.
Debut novelist Gordon Reece has written a taut tale of gripping suspense, packed with action both comic and terrifying. Shelley is a spellbinding narrator, and her delectable mix of wit, irony, and innocence transforms the major current issue of bullying into an edge- of-your-seat story of fear, violence, family loyalty, and the outer reaches of right and wrong.
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        June 27, 2011
        Early on in Reece's disappointing first novel, a predictable psychological thriller, bullies attack shy, unpopular Shelley Rivers in the girls' bathroom at her London secondary school, setting her hair on fire with a cigarette lighter. After Shelley gets out of the hospital, her recently divorced mother, Elizabeth, withdraws her from school, and they move to Honeysuckle Cottage, a remote country property bought with Elizabeth's share of the divorce settlement from her stock cad of a husband. At first, everything is looking up: Shelley's former school arranges for tutors so she can prepare for her exams, and Elizabeth throws herself into her job at a law office. But their peace is shattered in the early morning of Shelley's 16th birthday when a burglar breaks into the cottage. The violent repercussions force Shelley and Elizabeth to question how far they're willing to go to protect the new life they've built. While bullying is a hot topic, much of the plot relies too heavily on known genre tropes and coincidence.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        August 1, 2011

        Victims, pushed to their limits, turn aggressors in a starkly polarized debut thriller.

        There's no mistaking the villains in Australia-based Reece's black-and-white story of cold-eyed, remorseless schoolgirl bullies; suave, vindictive, philandering husbands; and greasy, smelly, drug-pushing burglars. Nor the heroes either: Clever English schoolgirl Shelley and her equally smart mother Elizabeth are the endlessly meek "mice" who have lived through a chapter of horrors and recently moved into a remote new home to start afresh. Elizabeth's divorce has stripped her of money and forced her into a job where she is overworked and underpaid. Shelley, bright but innocent, has seen her friends turn violently against her, their final attack landing her in the hospital, burned and scarred. Rebuilding their lives in Honeysuckle Cottage, the women begin to rediscover contentment until a thief breaks in and unleashes their repressed anger, setting off an escalating sequence of bloodshed. Reece has a strong visual sense and does a neat job of ratcheting the tension, but a shortage of subtlety and Shelley's histrionic adolescent narration create an overall mood of near-comic caricature.

        Mice roar and worms turn in a bare-bones moral fable that, despite visceral episodes, creates little impact.

        (COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        March 15, 2011

        "We were mice, after all. We weren't looking for a home. We were looking for a place to hide." Teenaged Shelley is being bullied, her mom is newly divorced, and they've fled to a remote cottage. Then an unwanted guest arrives. Debut novelist Reece, born in the UK and currently living in Australia, has published several illustrated children's books but is now trying out adult fiction. A pretty big push from the publisher, and I'm intrigued.

        Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        July 1, 2011
        When the intruder infiltrates their isolated country home, 16-year-old Shelley and her mother are already at their breaking points. Accurately described in Shelley's first-person narration as mice, the two have been a study in meekness. Her mother retreated from a bad divorce to a humiliating job, while Shelley chose home schooling to escape from the high-school tormentors who nearly murdered her. So when the junkie burglar tries to take advantage of them, something snaps, and they kill him. I think we should bury him in the garden, says the mother. Anyone who has seen an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents knows the exquisite pleasures of what followspotentially ruinous overlooked details (the burglar's cell phone was buried with him) and stressful little scenes of noticing a piece of evidence (a bloody handprint) while having to pretend everything is swell. Reece wrings these set pieces for all they're worth and gets inside the heads of his antiheroines to the point where we, too, begin to expand the definition of justifiable self-defense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        August 1, 2011

        This debut novel is a lukewarm psychological thriller that tells the story of Shelley, a teenager whose three best friends suddenly turn on her, turning her life into a living nightmare. The girls have been friends since grammar school, but by their senior year in high school, Shelley's friends have changed; they are no longer interested in school, instead turning to boys, drugs, and rebellion. Rather than going their own way when Shelley loses interest, their verbal harassment soon turns into frightening physical abuse. The title refers to Shelley and her divorced mother, once a formidable lawyer but now a subservient secretary. Shelley laments that they never show their true feelings and that they let people, her absentee father included, bully them. When Shelley and her mother finally crack, the story turns predictable. VERDICT The novel moves along at a fast pace, but the characters are not fully realized. The bullies and the father come off as stereotypes, and victimized Shelley and her mom fail to evoke the reader's empathy. Still, despite the novel's weaknesses, it is satisfying to watch Shelley's personality shift and the "mice" come into their own. Recommended for collections where Sophie Hannah is popular.--Marianne Fitzgerald, Annapolis, MD

        Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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shortDescription
An electrifying psychological thriller about a mother and daughter pushed to their limits.
Shelley and her mom have been menaced long enough. Excused from high school where a trio of bullies nearly killed her, and still reeling from her parents' humiliating divorce, Shelley has retreated with her mother to the quiet of Honeysuckle Cottage in the countryside. Thinking their troubles are over, they revel in their cozy, secure life of gardening and books, hot chocolate and Brahms by the fire. But on the eve of Shelley's sixteenth birthday, an unwelcome guest disturbs their peace and something inside Shelley snaps. What happens next will shatter all their certainties-about their safety, their moral convictions, the limits of what they are willing to accept, and what they're capable of.
Debut novelist Gordon Reece has written a taut tale of gripping suspense, packed with action both comic and terrifying. Shelley is a spellbinding narrator, and her delectable mix of...
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