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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
Lonely World by Megan Hale begins in nineteenth-century London. A school outing ends in disaster when a carriage is deliberately wrecked, leaving a young girl named Cristal blind and quietly reclassified by the Crown. Removed from her family, she is absorbed into a state system that detains children deemed unfit and subjects them to confinement, experimentation, and erasure. Years later, Cristal escapes into a concealed network of survivors, defectors, and hidden houses operating beyond official reach. As government patrols tighten and punishments escalate, her past becomes inseparable from the machinery that hunts her. When the state turns its attention to those who protected her, Cristal is forced out of hiding and into action, setting in motion a confrontation between secrecy, obedience, and the cost of defiance in a society built on controlled disappearances.
Lonely World by Megan Hale is historical fiction with a gruesome bite, excellently written, and haunting to its core. Of course, Cristal's time at St. Mary’s Institution is horrific, and Hale uses a no-holds-barred approach in detailing institutional abuse. Given that Cristal is unable to see, her perception of what is happening is entirely sensory, and Hale does really well in grounding both the public and private experiences into what can be heard and smelled. I love the transition from the institution to a woodland refuge and the way small things can have a big impact, whether it is a blue blanket or a memory box. Hale sandwiches Cristal rebuilding her life between St. Mary's and the climax, with a twist ending that I did not expect at all. There's a tiny bit of the paranormal that is organically incorporated and used with the restraint of a talented writer. Overall, this is a wonderful read. Recommended.
