The plot is very character-focussed, told from the perspective of Aina, and we are rooting for her throughout the story, with occasional chapters dedicated to (vaguely) explaining what happened before to cause them to have been exiled.

Much of the pleasure of my initial reading of this novel was driven by the desire to discover what had happened in the past and how the novel was going to end; consequently my reread was less satisfying. As it is, with omniscience at play, Watson uses the idea of funnelling his information from the broadest possible view, zooming down to the specific minutiae – and out again.

I loved the mention of Yan, tan, tethera, methera, pip and googled it as it sounded like an old song of sorts and it interested me. This book really emphasises the two types of people - those who accept what is, and those who try to chang their situation. As both characters have lots of secrets that they keep to themselves throughout the novel and we don't ever really get to understand what they all are.

You never really learn anything about the outside society so you have to just imagine a future population controlled civilization also subject to the poisonous effects of climate change. I loved the premise of this book and had high hopes of learning more about a world which exiles people as punishment, making them dependant on pills for survival. Brilliant imagery, magical symbolism, and use of objects throughout – from a favourite mug to a large sailing vessel – confirms how Tom pays incredible attention to detail of their life, within defined boundaries, but having to think outside the box.

Instead of leaving the story in a state of complete hopelessness, we are given some hope, which is almost immediately dashed by a 'deus ex machina' event and a scene, which may or may not be an illusion. There will be readers who respond so strongly to Watson’s transparent prose, to the curiously lulling strangeness of his world, that they can set aside the trivial matter of cause and effect. Does he like what’s going on in the world (at the time of writing Metronome it was the pandemic; at the time of writing this review, there is war in the Ukraine). When the tension attracts the mystery, the book becomes un-put-down-able, through its patterns and hints and red herrings, perfect in its use of double meanings. She is ambitious, industrious, working hard to create whatever they need and investigating their surroundings.

The setup is that a couple, Aina and Whitney have been in exile on a supposed island for 12 years for the crime in their future dystopian society of conceiving a child without a permit.She is desperate to learn the fate of their son, Max, and fears her husband may be keeping this knowledge to himself. This was an easy and reasonably intriguing read, but ultimately a bit vague and bleak for me, and not distinguished enough at the level of the prose (e. They’ve also scavenged as much as they can from the boats which wash up on the rocks surrounding the island, taking such things as mugs, waterproofs and any dried or tinned goods they can lay their hands on.

In every chapter, paragraph and sentence we are invited to ask how we feel, how Watson has made us feel. It is also the number of sections on a clock face, months of the year, days of Christmas, apostles, stations of the cross, inches in a foot, face cards in a deck, signs of the zodiac, stages of the hero’s journey—twelve stations of the moon and sun, stages of life . The book is short and very pacy, with a lot in it to hold my interest and I finished it in two sessions on a particularly long train journey.She last promoted PR packages within the Press Association before full-time motherhood allowed Barbara to pursue her interest in Creative Writing. Most of the questions never got answered but I became so engrossed in their present that this didn’t matter. In Metronome, determination exposes any flaws or attributes that Whitney and Aina (which means always) might have.