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lightreadsWe Are All Completely Beside Ourselves: A Novel
3/5. Fictional memoir focusing on a stretch of time in college for our narrator, whose sister is gone and whose brother is in the wind.
Okay, I tend to be moderate on the spoiler question as a general rule, but in this case I strongly recommend against reading the jacket copy. Because it will tell you the sorta science-fictional "twist" to this book, whereas when the book tells you – about a quarter of the way through, IIRC – is so artfully precise and well-calculated, and you should not let an idiot publisher fuck that up for you. That space before you know the score is incredibly important for what this book is doing with families and kin and self.
Because damn kids, Karen Joy Fowler is good. I'd gotten that vague impression from people, but no one told me she can do funny and bitter in the same sentence, or that she can control such a complicated narrative and make it look effortless.
This is a titch more literary than I tend to bother with, and noticeably less spec fic. And it upset me in places. Exactly, I should note, the places intended to upset me. And I kind of don't ever want to read it again. But. It is very, very good at what it is doing.
Here's the thing I really admire about this book though. It commits to the narrator and Fern as sisters. They are never, ever not sisters, not after the twist is revealed, not after it's clear no one outside the family can see that. It is part of this book's mechanism that it never, not once falters in that conviction – Fern and Rosemary are mirrors, they are each other – but a less thoughtful author would have flinched from a love like that. Would have faltered, and would have lost the book, essentially. So yeah. I admire that.
Content note: Animal harm. Like….a lot. There isn't actually a lot on screen, with a few exceptions, but animal harm permeates the book. See above re how this is really good but I don't want to read it again.
3/5. Fictional memoir focusing on a stretch of time in college for our narrator, whose sister is gone and whose brother is in the wind.
Okay, I tend to be moderate on the spoiler question as a general rule, but in this case I strongly recommend against reading the jacket copy. Because it will tell you the sorta science-fictional "twist" to this book, whereas when the book tells you – about a quarter of the way through, IIRC – is so artfully precise and well-calculated, and you should not let an idiot publisher fuck that up for you. That space before you know the score is incredibly important for what this book is doing with families and kin and self.
Because damn kids, Karen Joy Fowler is good. I'd gotten that vague impression from people, but no one told me she can do funny and bitter in the same sentence, or that she can control such a complicated narrative and make it look effortless.
This is a titch more literary than I tend to bother with, and noticeably less spec fic. And it upset me in places. Exactly, I should note, the places intended to upset me. And I kind of don't ever want to read it again. But. It is very, very good at what it is doing.
Here's the thing I really admire about this book though. It commits to the narrator and Fern as sisters. They are never, ever not sisters, not after the twist is revealed, not after it's clear no one outside the family can see that. It is part of this book's mechanism that it never, not once falters in that conviction – Fern and Rosemary are mirrors, they are each other – but a less thoughtful author would have flinched from a love like that. Would have faltered, and would have lost the book, essentially. So yeah. I admire that.
Content note: Animal harm. Like….a lot. There isn't actually a lot on screen, with a few exceptions, but animal harm permeates the book. See above re how this is really good but I don't want to read it again.