Book review: Katherine Carlyle

THE central theme of Rupert Thomson’s haunting novel is how we shape our identity, and ultimately our destiny.

Our protagonist Katherine was conceived by IVF and kept frozen for eight years until her parents decided they wanted her.

Now a naive 19-year-old and due to start university, she’s virtually an orphan — her mother has died of cancer and her busy war correspondent father is often absent.

To spite him, she decides to disappear, dropping her phone into the river in their home city of Rome and travelling to Berlin on a whim.

Convinced she’s being sent celestial ‘messages’, she allows her interpretation of a series of random encounters to shape where she goes.

Although well-researched and with an acutely observed take on the growing pains and self-infatuation of a teenager on the cusp of a new life, Thomson’s book leaves the reader cold with a protagonist who’s ultimately unlikeable.

Katherine Carlyle

Rupert Thomson

Corsair, £14.99;

(ebook £8.99)