Gordon Reece
Author of Mice
About the Author
Works by Gordon Reece
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Reece, Gordon
- Birthdate
- 1963-01-01
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Oxford (Keble College)
- Occupations
- professor of English Literature
lawyer
novelist
children's book author - Short biography
- Gordon Reece is a writer/illustrator born in the UK in 1963. He studied English Literature at Keble College, Oxford and taught at KCS, Wimbledon, and Brentwood School in Essex. After completing his MA in literature, he retrained as a lawyer before dedicating himself full-time to writing and illustrating in 1999. He has had 15 books for children and young adults published in Australia and Spain where he lived for six years. Mice is his first novel. Gordon also writes graphic novels and is a life-long comics fan. He is a member of AACE, the Spanish association of comic book writers.
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- UK
- Associated Place (for map)
- UK
Members
Reviews
Shelley Rivers and her mother, Elizabeth, are emotionally battered and bullied – Elizabeth by her ex-husband and Shelly by the schoolmates who nearly kill her. No one seems to be interested in protecting them. Justice for the wrongs leveled against them is elusive. What they both want is to escape to the country and hide. They purchase a English country home called Honeysuckle Cottage – a place which is remote and private – and enjoy their evenings together drinking hot chocolate, show more playing duets and watching television. But on the eve of Shelley’s sixteenth birthday, their quiet world is shattered when a creaking floorboard signifies that someone uninvited is in the house. As events unfold, Shelley makes an impulsive decision that will forever change their lives.
We think we control the course our life takes, we think we’re the captain of the vessel with our hand on the wheel, but in fact it’s luck (or fate or destiny or God or whatever we choose to call it ) that’s really in control. We might as well take our hands off the wheel and go to the back of the boat and sleep, because it’s this other force that really decides whether we make it to the shore or we sink without a trace. – from Mice, page 314 -
Gordon Reece’s debut novel is narrated from the first person point of view of Shelley whose self-esteem is at a low point when the book opens. She is awkward, overweight and brainy – the perfect target for bullies at her school. Reece reveals the worst that bullying behavior involves – teasing, physical aggression and a system that does little to protect the victim. And the narrative asks the question: What defines the bully vs the victim? Is it personality? Is it appearance? What is the crucial defining moment at which a person makes the decision to lash out at another human being?
Does the way we look affect our personality? Or does our personality affect the way we look? Does the warpaint turn the tribesman into a fierce warrior? Or does the fierce warrior put on the warpaint to advertise his cruelty? Does a cat always look like a cat? Does a mouse always look like a mouse? – from Mice, page 18 -
As the plot unfolds, both Shelley and Elizabeth will begin to re-evaluate who they are as they are driven to the breaking point. Decisions they make and the consequences of those decisions drive the narrative. The novel is certainly plot driven vs. character driven. Elizabeth and Shelley could be anyone who has suffered emotionally (or physically) at the hands of another.
Clearly, Mice is a psychological thriller, but I was surprised to see that it also became a black comedy of sorts. There were times I found myself laughing and then realized that what I was reading should not be funny…but it was. Twists and turns of plot keep the tension high until the final page.
I read this book over the course of one day – a very speedy read for me. Readers looking for a fast-paced, roller coaster of a ride will definitely enjoy Mice. This is not “great” literature, but it is highly entertaining genre fiction. The perfect summer read.
Recommended. show less
We think we control the course our life takes, we think we’re the captain of the vessel with our hand on the wheel, but in fact it’s luck (or fate or destiny or God or whatever we choose to call it ) that’s really in control. We might as well take our hands off the wheel and go to the back of the boat and sleep, because it’s this other force that really decides whether we make it to the shore or we sink without a trace. – from Mice, page 314 -
Gordon Reece’s debut novel is narrated from the first person point of view of Shelley whose self-esteem is at a low point when the book opens. She is awkward, overweight and brainy – the perfect target for bullies at her school. Reece reveals the worst that bullying behavior involves – teasing, physical aggression and a system that does little to protect the victim. And the narrative asks the question: What defines the bully vs the victim? Is it personality? Is it appearance? What is the crucial defining moment at which a person makes the decision to lash out at another human being?
Does the way we look affect our personality? Or does our personality affect the way we look? Does the warpaint turn the tribesman into a fierce warrior? Or does the fierce warrior put on the warpaint to advertise his cruelty? Does a cat always look like a cat? Does a mouse always look like a mouse? – from Mice, page 18 -
As the plot unfolds, both Shelley and Elizabeth will begin to re-evaluate who they are as they are driven to the breaking point. Decisions they make and the consequences of those decisions drive the narrative. The novel is certainly plot driven vs. character driven. Elizabeth and Shelley could be anyone who has suffered emotionally (or physically) at the hands of another.
Clearly, Mice is a psychological thriller, but I was surprised to see that it also became a black comedy of sorts. There were times I found myself laughing and then realized that what I was reading should not be funny…but it was. Twists and turns of plot keep the tension high until the final page.
I read this book over the course of one day – a very speedy read for me. Readers looking for a fast-paced, roller coaster of a ride will definitely enjoy Mice. This is not “great” literature, but it is highly entertaining genre fiction. The perfect summer read.
Recommended. show less
Mice by Gordon Reece
"Is that what our middle-class culture created? People formed more by the books they'd read than the lives they'd lived?"
Shelley and her mother have finally escaped from their persecutors - Shelley from school bullies who used to be her closest friends and Elizabeth from her domineering husband. They've found a new start in a beautiful cottage in the countryside and are getting on with their lives. When a burglar enters their house on the eve of Shelley's sixteenth birthday, the cowering show more women fear for their lives once more...
The first thing to be said here is that the book is written in Shelley's voice and Reece writes an extraordinarily convincing 16-year-old girl. She's a little immature, can be a bit of a know-it-all, but the scars left by the bullies (physical and mental) are there for all to see.
Secondly, this is a really scary book! I don't often give up on books because they frighten me (admittedly, I never read horror, and I did give up on Deliver Us From Evil because of the awful torture being doled out by the bad guys), and "an electrifying psychological thriller" on the inside cover should have been plenty of warning, but this got to me in a way that other, more graphic novels (Taboo, The Survivor) did not. In the end I had to speed-read from about page 150 to the end because I couldn't take the horror any more!
The plot is not terribly complicated, which is one of its strengths - Reece spends 100 pages setting up the characters, about 50 on the main event, and the rest of the book preying on Shelley and Elizabeth's sanities. The setting is so prosaic, a little countryside cottage, that the events become all too plausible and realistic. The writing is not high-quality in the conventional sense, but like Emma Donoghue's Room, the author has achieved an authentic child narrator and sacrificed a little lyricism in that pursuit.
Highly recommended to those who like this kind of harrowing psychothriller. Not recommended at all to women who live alone in creaky buildings. show less
Shelley and her mother have finally escaped from their persecutors - Shelley from school bullies who used to be her closest friends and Elizabeth from her domineering husband. They've found a new start in a beautiful cottage in the countryside and are getting on with their lives. When a burglar enters their house on the eve of Shelley's sixteenth birthday, the cowering show more women fear for their lives once more...
The first thing to be said here is that the book is written in Shelley's voice and Reece writes an extraordinarily convincing 16-year-old girl. She's a little immature, can be a bit of a know-it-all, but the scars left by the bullies (physical and mental) are there for all to see.
Secondly, this is a really scary book! I don't often give up on books because they frighten me (admittedly, I never read horror, and I did give up on Deliver Us From Evil because of the awful torture being doled out by the bad guys), and "an electrifying psychological thriller" on the inside cover should have been plenty of warning, but this got to me in a way that other, more graphic novels (Taboo, The Survivor) did not. In the end I had to speed-read from about page 150 to the end because I couldn't take the horror any more!
The plot is not terribly complicated, which is one of its strengths - Reece spends 100 pages setting up the characters, about 50 on the main event, and the rest of the book preying on Shelley and Elizabeth's sanities. The setting is so prosaic, a little countryside cottage, that the events become all too plausible and realistic. The writing is not high-quality in the conventional sense, but like Emma Donoghue's Room, the author has achieved an authentic child narrator and sacrificed a little lyricism in that pursuit.
Highly recommended to those who like this kind of harrowing psychothriller. Not recommended at all to women who live alone in creaky buildings. show less
Oh my goodness! What on earth is this novel saying? I have yet to read a book with characters that live in such a callous and morally compromised world. Am I supposed to feel compassion for the two female characters? Or to admire their ability to survive when they are so persecuted? No. No. No. These two are serial killers. But the novel is worthy of a great deal of discussion. I feel it would have been more powerful if the results of the bullying were more explored, informing Shelley's show more actions in the first murder. Having said that, this is a book that I will remember, if only because of the moral dilemmas it posited. show less
Mice was an engrossing read. A unique play on the idea that the quiet, nerdish people that seem to make such good teasing victims finally fight back to such an extreme that two people are murdered. Well, in fairness, the first murder victim is really more of a justified self defense case or, at worse, provocation manslaughter.
As the characters are revealed to us, circumstances unravel them in unpredictable ways. What is at first a meek, submissive teenage girl who is bullied to the point of show more great bodily harm, later becomes a strong, willful young lady emerging fully into her own life and no longer haunted by nightmares.
Reece's writing style is masterful. The pace of the story itself is so intense and real that I could not put this book down until I was finished. As a reader, I fully enjoyed being along for the transformation of the mice into lions, making this read a worthwhile venture. show less
As the characters are revealed to us, circumstances unravel them in unpredictable ways. What is at first a meek, submissive teenage girl who is bullied to the point of show more great bodily harm, later becomes a strong, willful young lady emerging fully into her own life and no longer haunted by nightmares.
Reece's writing style is masterful. The pace of the story itself is so intense and real that I could not put this book down until I was finished. As a reader, I fully enjoyed being along for the transformation of the mice into lions, making this read a worthwhile venture. show less
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 14
- Members
- 297
- Popularity
- #78,941
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 15
- ISBNs
- 40
- Languages
- 7