Nutshell by Ian McEwan

Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home -- a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse -- but not with John. Instead, she's with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy's womb..

Nutshell is a dark comedy, a Hamlet-story narrated by an unborn baby yet to avenge his father.

Our womb-based narrator is smart, witty and oddly worldly. He has learned by listening to his mother's radio programs and conversations, and doesn't hold back sharing views on the state of society at large.

“In the middle of a long, quiet night I might give my mother a sharp kick. She'll wake, become insomniac, reach for the radio. Cruel sport, I know, but we are both better informed by the morning.”

I'm a big Ian McEwan fan and I’m pregnant so I found this story hilarious. Nutshell is definitely a book to liven up the usual list of stale pregnancy reads!

5 stars from me.

“However close you get to others, you can never get inside them, even when you're inside them.” 

Published in 2016. 199 pages.