This Census-Taker by China Miéville, 2016
Very intriguing and esoteric little tale of isolation and the such. A young boy and his parents live up a grand hill, far away from the bridge town below. After the mother leaves that world, he would run into town screaming murder, seeing the act vaguely, already aware of the father's penchant for coldly murdering small animals with his bare hands to throw into some deep corpse hole. So now it's just father and son and son isn't a bit excited about that equation. Then comes a census taker very late into the story and I guess everything's good then.
The atmosphere here is something else entirely, something highly unsettling.
This book was so interesting in the content it has that its length is downright disappointing, I'd really liked more from it, more details and insights, but as it is it's sort of like an appetizer for a monumentally amazing book that doesn't exist.
4/5