Book Review: Talking at Night by Claire Daverley
Title: Talking at Night
Author: Claire Daverley
Rating: 4/5 Stars
WARNING - SPOILERS
Talking at Night is a literary love story. It is so beautiful and so painful and so frustrating, but in a way that makes the characters feel real. The novel follows Will and Rosie. The pair meet at a bonfire as teenagers, both students at the same sixth-form. Rosie haunts Will’s thoughts from that very first meeting and he craves to see her again. Will has good grades but a bad reputation, struggling with alcoholism and trauma from a young age. Rosie is a perfectionist and people pleaser, desperate to meet the high expectations of her lawyer mother. The two are opposites, but Rosie isn’t looking for another identical half to make herself feel whole. Her sense of self is already interwoven with Josh, her twin brother. When friendship blossoms between Will and Josh, Will steals moments alone with Rosie; in the kitchen in the middle of the night, conversations over cereal, at the lighthouse in the icy wind. Will and Rosie are drawn to each other like magnets. Until tragedy strikes.
Josh dies in a tragic accident on Will’s birthday. I can’t express how much I cried at this point in the novel. Daverley renders grief in such a heart wrenching, accurate way that I felt the loss like a weight in my chest for much of the rest of the novel. Will and Rosie are bound by grief, and pushed apart by it, too. Rosie feels like half a person after the loss. She is a twin without a twin. Her ‘checks’ (obsessive compulsions later diagnosed as OCD), worsen extensively until she struggles to sleep at all. Unsure what else to do, Rosie calls Will in the middle of the night. He talks to her through the phone. He talks of his life and of mundane, comforting normality. He talks until she falls asleep and then he talks some more to make sure she stays there. This continues until finally, the pair argue over something that happened after Josh’s funeral, and Rosie stops calling. There are numerous instances like this through the novel. It is a story comprised of moments of intense, intimate connection followed by heart wrenching disconnect. I loved the push and pull of Will and Rosie’s relationship. Daverley captures such tenderness and emotion between the characters. She really made me understand why Will and Rosie are so important to each other and why they can’t forget each other and move on despite every traumatic thing that happens between them.
“He finds he waits all day for that moment, when his phone will ring. Feels both a sadness and gutting relief, because it means that she still needs him.”
Whilst I loved this book, the characters could be frustrating at times. As a reader, it was clear how badly Will and Rosie wanted to be together, yet both characters made choices that kept them unhappy and apart. Some of Rosie’s decisions, in particular, were aggravating. Even so, these decisions were understandable in the context of Rosie’s personality and upbringing. Rather than making decisions based on what she wants (which is to pursue music and to be with Will), Rosie makes choices based on what she thinks is ‘right’. She tries to be a ‘good’ person, and in doing so, she makes herself and others in the novel miserable. Whilst some of Rosie’s choices and rationalising made me want to scream, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. Daverley crafts realistic characters; they are flawed and complex, but this is why the book is so captivating. The characters feel real. Many reviews have likened Talking at Night to Normal People, and I can see similarities in how both writers craft multi-layered, imperfect characters.
“You let other people choose for you, over what you want, and that’s not just sad, Rosie, it’s fucking spineless, which is the opposite of what you actually are.”
The only letdown of the novel, for me, was the ending. I found it a little anticlimactic and it didn’t pack the same emotional punch for me as the rest of the story. Nonetheless, I loved the book overall. Talking at Night made my heart feel bruised and empty and heavy all at once. Daverley has such a beautiful, lyrical style of writing that I found it hard to put the book down, even when I felt consumed by melancholy and grief for the characters. It strained my eyes when I read by the glaring torch light of my phone in the early hours, made me late when I put off getting ready so I could read one more chapter. It’s hard to believe that this is Daverley’s debut novel, and I can’t wait to read more of her work!
Favourite Quote:
“and what might a soul look like, if you could touch it, if you could dance with the light and the dark of it.”
Written by Megan Black
Writer
Hi, I’m Megan and I’m a tattoo artist from the West Midlands. I’ve been tattooing for three years now and love anything creative!
I read a lot in my own time and this has inspired me to start writing, too. Alongside tattooing, I also have a small pottery business with my mom. We create functional, homemade ceramics under the name ‘Two Peas in a Pottery’.