Dark Lullaby

By: Polly Ho-Yen

Narrated by: Eva Feiler

For fans of Black Mirror and The Handmaid's Tale, in Dark Lullaby a mother desperately tries to keep her family together in a society where parenting standards are strictly monitored.

Kit is an 'out', she doesn't want children. Infertility is universal, and she has witnessed the agonies of her friends and sister going through the painful and dangerous fertility treatment, Induction and then struggling to keep their babies, and cannot face going through it herself. But then she meets Thomas, and gradually the idea of a baby becomes more and more important. She and Thomas go through Induction and have a baby girl, Mimi. At first everything goes well, but then the small mistakes, ISPs (Insufficient Standard of Parenting), build up and suddenly Kit is face to face with the idea of losing Mimi, and she is forced to ask herself how far she will go to keep her family together.

©2021 Polly Ho-Yen (P)2021 W F Howes

Critic reviews

"A heart-wrenching and beautifully told novel, absolutely compelling, and scarily plausible. This is the best kind of speculative fiction: thoughtful, committed, alert to the outlines of a possible near-future, that inhabits your mind long after reading. One of the most important books to be published this year." (Marian Womack, author of The Golden Key)

"An expertly crafted exploration of love and loss, with a truly haunting conclusion. Intimate, often poetic prose shines bright through the encroaching dread. Bleak, beautiful and bittersweet at every turn. I loved it." (Martyn Ford, author of Every Missing Thing)

"Polly Ho-Yen masterfully balances eerie, dream-like prose with a distressingly realistic portrayal of a world where reproductive right has become reproductive responsibility. To be a parent is to live with your heart outside your body and through smart world-building, memorable characters and sharp insight, Dark Lullaby perfectly encapsulates the power and terror of that love." (Dave Rudden, author of The Wintertime Paradox)

Ending fell flat...

As a fan of The Handmaid's Tale and the unsettling feelings it evokes, Dark Lullaby delivered a similar atmosphere without the discomfort.

Overall, Dark Lullaby had a well-rounded and intriguing story that kept me hooked. At times, it even managed to make me feel infuriated in the best possible way. The characters find themselves in a distressing situation that will leave a reader unsettled in the best of ways.

However, where the book fell a bit flat for me was in its ending. The circumstances demanded a satisfying resolution, a closure that unfortunately never arrived. The lack of closure left me feeling unfinished and slightly frustrated.

If you're a fan of thought-provoking dystopian tales and don't mind a bit of ambiguity, Dark Lullaby is definitely worth a read.

Not bad, not ground breaking

The narration was wonderful, and I enjoyed the alternating then/now storytelling, which kept me waiting for each timeline to progress. But when the twist came, it didn’t feel particularly surprising.