Oct 24

Oct 24 The Safekeep

About the book

Author: Yael van der Wouden
Publisher: Avid Reader Press

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

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Bookshop.org (print) | Libro.fm (audio)

My Review

I’d owned a copy of The Safekeep since before it was published (thanks, Avid Reader Press!), but for whatever reason it just never bubbled up to the top of my TBR — until it was nominated (and then shortlisted) for the Booker Prize. And WOW, am I glad for it. I loved this one.

The Safekeep is a fever dream of a novel about a woman named Isabel in the Netherlands in the early 1960s. She lives a life of curmudgeonly solitude in the house her family moved into during WWII — until her brother’s latest girlfriend comes to stay, and her belongings start to disappear one by one (or do they?).

I don’t want to say too much more about the plot, except that the tone and trajectory does a 180 about halfway through, and there’s a decent twist that you can see coming if you look carefully (although I did not). Also, fair warning, this book is extremely horny.

What an incredible debut novel. What a look at desire and loneliness and what home means and the obsessive pursuit of the thing you want. But above all, what a look at complicity and what it means to have been complicit.

I’m still rooting for James, but I definitely wouldn’t be mad if this won the Booker.