My Reading Experiment (Book #20) - A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing
Target: 100 books
Current: 20 books
I found this one while walking around in the book store. The title piqued my curiosity. The covert art helped. Before I knew it, I had picked it up, and was reading the little blurb at the back. The reviews were all glowing. I thought I'd give it a shot, and proceeded to read the first few pages right then and there. That's something I do - reading the first five, or ten, or twenty pages at the store before deciding whether to buy a book or not. I feel like I didn't have much of a choice here. The style of writing was one that I'd never encountered before. It was far too intriguing to ignore. That I'd be buying the book was a foregone conclusion.
#20
A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing
- Eimear McBride
Liked it, Fiction, Tragic, Heavy themes, Irish Catholicism, Stream of consciousness writing style
I mentioned that the style of writing was something I hadn't experienced before. It felt like the entire book was a jumble of thoughts strung together in a manner meant to evoke a visceral understanding in the reader. All sense of grammar, the way we know it, tossed right out the window. How could anyone sit through that style of writing for more than 200 pages? Finding the answer to that question was my initial motivation in reading this book.
Soon the book itself was motivation enough. By the time I was past the first twenty pages, I hardly even noticed the unusual writing style anymore. Instead, I found myself getting sucked into the mind of a nameless little girl in Ireland, growing up with her tumor affected brother in a single mother, religious, Catholic household. Emotionally speaking, this book takes quite a big chunk out of you as you steel yourself to listen to the girl's voice as her life spirals out of control. The book follows her journey right from her mother's womb, through childhood, and into a dark young adulthood. We are witnesses to her tortured mind as she struggles to come to terms with her brother's painfully limited mortality.
Without doubt, this is a book that will make you sad. The story is depressing, and yet, that doesn't stop you from reading it. It is a poignant, stirring tale about a girl's vulnerability, captured in an almost primal manner that is both beautiful and terrifying all at once.
"Two me. Four you five or so. I falling. Reel table leg to stool. Grub face into her cushions. Squeal. Baby full of snot and tears. You squeeze on my sides just a bit. I retch up awful tickle giggs. Beyond stopping jig and flop around. I fall crack something. My head banged. Oop. Trouble for you."
Current: 20 books
I found this one while walking around in the book store. The title piqued my curiosity. The covert art helped. Before I knew it, I had picked it up, and was reading the little blurb at the back. The reviews were all glowing. I thought I'd give it a shot, and proceeded to read the first few pages right then and there. That's something I do - reading the first five, or ten, or twenty pages at the store before deciding whether to buy a book or not. I feel like I didn't have much of a choice here. The style of writing was one that I'd never encountered before. It was far too intriguing to ignore. That I'd be buying the book was a foregone conclusion.
#20
A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing
- Eimear McBride
Liked it, Fiction, Tragic, Heavy themes, Irish Catholicism, Stream of consciousness writing style
I mentioned that the style of writing was something I hadn't experienced before. It felt like the entire book was a jumble of thoughts strung together in a manner meant to evoke a visceral understanding in the reader. All sense of grammar, the way we know it, tossed right out the window. How could anyone sit through that style of writing for more than 200 pages? Finding the answer to that question was my initial motivation in reading this book.
Soon the book itself was motivation enough. By the time I was past the first twenty pages, I hardly even noticed the unusual writing style anymore. Instead, I found myself getting sucked into the mind of a nameless little girl in Ireland, growing up with her tumor affected brother in a single mother, religious, Catholic household. Emotionally speaking, this book takes quite a big chunk out of you as you steel yourself to listen to the girl's voice as her life spirals out of control. The book follows her journey right from her mother's womb, through childhood, and into a dark young adulthood. We are witnesses to her tortured mind as she struggles to come to terms with her brother's painfully limited mortality.
Without doubt, this is a book that will make you sad. The story is depressing, and yet, that doesn't stop you from reading it. It is a poignant, stirring tale about a girl's vulnerability, captured in an almost primal manner that is both beautiful and terrifying all at once.
"Two me. Four you five or so. I falling. Reel table leg to stool. Grub face into her cushions. Squeal. Baby full of snot and tears. You squeeze on my sides just a bit. I retch up awful tickle giggs. Beyond stopping jig and flop around. I fall crack something. My head banged. Oop. Trouble for you."
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