Perhaps that’s what scares us, but also intrigues us, about eggs. It’s definitely why I chose an egg as the perfect companion to Isaac, a man who might just be something of an egg himself. One of the most enduring images from Jurassic Park is of the baby velociraptor first breaking out of its shell. Later, those same velociraptors will be the scariest thing about the film – but for now, they’re something small, adorable, and in need of protection. As Isaac comes to grips with what he finds in the forest, and as a result with the lost state of a life brought to ruin by grief, he has to ask himself what it is he wants from it going forward. This book was everything. It is sort of a feel-good book, but not completely, it is also a very sad book but has many funny moments. It is definitely literary fiction but the plot is divine. This is undeniably a character-driven novel and Egg and Isaac are characters you'll fall in love with, I guarantee it. I imagine the portrayal of the characters by the narrator is exactly how the author intended. Johnny Flynn has a soothing, but engaging voice – absolutely perfect for such a touching, tender story. I even wonder would I have enjoyed the book quite so much had I read it myself. I will never know because I can’t unhear it, I’ve been spoilt and if all narrators were this good, I’d maybe never read a book myself again.

This review is for the audio version of the novel, I found the audio version made a great bedtime story, the narrators tone, pitch and pace matched the story perfect. I found the 30-40mins chapters just the right amount for a chapter before bed, with the excellent voices done by the narrator I felt I got a sense of how Iscca as feeling and I loved the sarcasm at times and the way the narrator conveyed this. This story made a great audiobook and I suspect it would be equally as great in print. The cover is such a fabulous representation of the book and I love it...so much so I just sat staring at the cover after I'd finished the book fully understanding what the cover was about. Isaac feels he has no option but to take Egg home to his empty house- and we soon find out what has been Isaac's emotional turmoil and heartbreak. The egg can tell us a lot about ourselves, but – by its nature as a blank, unassuming oval – is also entirely open to interpretation. Isn’t that the point of life itself? In Isaac and the Egg, the egg that a young widower finds in the woods is at times a metaphor for death, grief and loneliness – but also for life, for friendship, and for the power of opening up.

Books Multibuys

Ich hätte gerne mehr mitgefühlt, habe die Geschichte einfach heruntergelesen, ohne wirklich zu fühlen, was auf dem Papier steht. I read it in one breath… true and tragic and funny and hopeful and big – big enough somehow to contain all of our stories and all of our lives inside it’ JOANNA GLEN

I'd been hearing so many wonderful things about this book, the book with the egg, the debut that has everybody talking and ok WOW, I get it: what a special little book this is!

If that sounds like a lot, it is, and for all its magicality and whimsy and sheer endearing funniness at times, Isaac and the Egg doesn’t attempt, not once, to sugarcoat how utterly hard that whole journey is, and how even if something happens to you to begin reshaping things, which it most certainly does to Isaac Addy, that it’s not some overnight fix. When Isaac Addy walks into the woods on the worst day of his life and finds something extraordinary there, he already knows he's going to take it home. It’s an approach made to trigger the unheimlich, Freud’s concept of that which is creepy in its almost-but-not-quite-familiarity. Whether it’s James Cameron’s face-hugger home or George R. R. Martin’s dragon-filled moon, the intrigue is endlessly inviting: the bigger the egg, the bigger the question of what’s inside.