Cassie McCullough

So she's had this genetic modification and the side effect of which appears to be that it risks the child's life.

And that, you know, some children die, including, and we find this out early, this is not a huge spoiler, Josie's sister, Sal.

and so there's this great kind of concern of and this is actually where it plays into the loneliness thing as well because i mean josie has become this obsessed upon object i would i would say almost um by her mother she is kept

She's continuously kind of brought out for the purposes of almost observation and learning.

She's wrapped in cotton wool.

I think also, like with the mum...

Like on the first reading, I really didn't like it.

I just didn't like her.

I thought, you know, she subjected Clara to a whole bunch of demeaning tasks.

She often seemed kind of like petty.

Like there's a scene towards the end where she pulls Rick aside and she's actually really nasty to him.

And then on rereading, I just suddenly, I realised that a lot of,

her, actually almost all of her, what she does is sort of filtered through two lenses.

One is grief, you know, and the fear of losing, the grief of having lost Sal and the fear of losing Josie, but also this kind of question that came up.

And I think of this actually weirdly as a parent, the length that you would actually go to to make sure your child,

has a chance at life or the best possible life.

And so I think when you kind of see the mother operating through those two lenses, she becomes a much more sympathetic character.

Yeah, I actually think like it's very similar to Never Let Me Go when, you know, towards the end you realise what has actually happened.

Yes.

And when you come to realise what has actually happened or what the world is that you're reading, it's just, you know, and again, just trying to avoid spoilers, you almost have to go back and reread it because it's so different to what you thought you were reading.