author of we are all completely beside ourselves

Look, I’ve been doing this for a long time. I might have written an extremely lengthy review, arguing how awful Karen Joy Fowler is for this dumpsterfire of a novel. It’s a nauseating mixture of literary pretentiousness and unreliable narration that would have annoyed my mature, post-postmodern sensibilities that looked down on anything so trite as the conceits in this book. When I was younger, I might have hated this book. I might have written an extremely lengthy review, arguing how brilliant Karen Joy Fowler is for this masterpiece of a novel. It’s exactly the right mixture of literary pretentiousness and unreliable narration that would have tickled the still-forming prefrontal cortex of my young university student brain. It is beautifully written, different, believable and keeps you engaged throughout.When I was younger, I might have loved this book. (As people who know me in real life will attest – such self restraint is amazing!!) The friend who recommended it had been told by her mother about what this twist was – and she thinks therefore made the book less enjoyable for her – hence me not revealing it. Twice.”īasically – there is a massive important factor to this book 25% in (can you tell I read it on my Kindle – otherwise it would have been ‘about a quarter of the way through’!) and not giving this away I think is fundamental to the book. So now she’s telling her story a looping narrative that begins towards the end, and then goes back to the beginning. But there’s something unique about Rosemary’s sister, Fern. Both are now gone – vanished from her life. Rosemary is now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her, and an older brother. So we’re not going to tell you too much either: you’ll have to find out for yourself what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other. And she definitely doesn’t talk about her family. Now Rosemary has just started college and she barely talks at all. So much so that her parents used to tell her to start in the middle if she wanted to tell a story. “As a child, Rosemary used to talk all the time. It was also nominated for the Man Booker Prize, and the blurb on there is slightly longer:

Big, life-defining choices.”Īlthough there are lots of Amazon reviews praising this beneath the blurb. “By the author of worldwide bestseller The Jane Austen Book Club: you can’t choose your family, but they can make choices for you. Again – this is a recommendation from a friend (I love that I have so many book loving – I’m not going to put geeky, because we’re far too cool for that, but actually we are – friends!)

Author of we are all completely beside ourselves