Indie Press - A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing

Image courtesy of Washington Post

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimar McBride almost lost me at the get-go.  This book has caused a lot of buzz in the reading community, though, so I forced myself to push through.  Whether I was happy that I did or not I am still unsure about... but there's no denying that this is a book that lingers with you.

A girl grows up in an unstable household, with a controlling single mother and an uncontrollable brother with special needs.  Their relationship remains extremely complicated through a series of life events, as well as the introduction of various characters.  It's not giving too much away to say that the main character makes some objectively poor choices, almost compulsively, and the way that she deals with them speaks to the depths of the trauma she has lived through.

Told from the point of view of a girl growing up in Ireland, it begins with barely any recognizable speech.  In fact, throughout the whole book, the Irish dialect mixed with the idiosyncrasies of the main character rule the page, in such a way that by the end when I was reading it semi-fluently, I still wasn't sure if the writing got clearer as the main character grew up or if I was just getting used to the style of writing. Certainly, the half-formed thing that this girl is also carries through in her manner of thinking and thereby how her thoughts are being expressed on the page.

This is the most Irish thing I have read in a good long while, It has influences of James Joyce stamped all over it.  Once I learned to let go and simply try to feel the narrative rather than actively read, it was a better go-around for me.  This was an intense experience and I'm not sure I'll be putting myself through it again, but it is the first book in a long time that has stuck out to me so much.

Takes Place in Asia - A Thousand Splendid Suns

From Amazon - Believed to be fair use.

A Thousand Splendid Suns,from Khaled Hosseini (best known for Kite Runner), had all of the things you loved in Kite Runner and yet another story to take with you wherever you go.

This book tells the lives, almost-lives, and not-lives of two women as they attempt to survive, persevere, and thrive in Afghanistan during much of its tumultuous recent history.  Each must make impossible decisions and sacrifices in the pursuit of justice, their dreams, and love.  As their stories come together, these choices become harder.

Hosseini has certainly found his bread and butter in reflecting the complexity of the human experience.  Once again he tells a story of friendship, and the exploration thereof was as important to this text as it was to Kite Runner.  I keep comparing these two books, and that's not a bad thing!  What Kite Runner was to the exploration of a male experience, A Thousand Splendid Suns is to the female.  Both are easily universalized, and I enjoyed them immensely in part because of this. It was also an easy read, language-wise.  In fact, in some moments the forced grandness feels a bit contrived, but not so much that I was put off my reading. Additionally, many have said that the similarity to Kite Runner is a bad thing - to them, it feels a little "Dan Brown" in the way it sticks to a formula.  But I like the way Hosseini writes, and I look forward to picking up And the Mountains Echoed as a continuation of the positive experience I've had with his work.

Published in 2014 - Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven's very creation is a testament to the fact that, as the book notes, "survival is insufficient."  Twenty years have passed since the Georgia Flu swept through the world faster than anyone could have imagined.  It has been twenty years since civilization has collapsed.  This book follows the pasts and (if they dare to dream them) futures of a loosely connected group of characters.  Their connecting thread is an actor dead just one day before the world began its descent into chaos.

Author From Africa - Americanah

Wikipedia. Believed to be fair use.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was all I heard about during the lead-in to summer, so I knew I had to read it during my time off from work.  Ifemelu grows up in Nigeria, but does a lot of growing up when she moves to the United States, as well.  She goes there to study when dictatorship and unrest in her home country make it impossible for her to get the education that she deserves.

Author Under the Age of 25 - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Wow.  Such an interesting novel, from such an interesting time in history.  I thought I really didn't like this book, and kind of forced myself through it.  But I've been thinking about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter all week, since I read the last page.  It's stayed on my mind for a few distinct reasons.

One, it definitely framed my thinking that this is by an author under the age of 25.  The writing style, the development of such a wide array of characters, the themes she explores (loneliness, spirituality, otherness) all shock me coming from someone who was 23 at the time of publication.  Read any biography of her, however, and you can glean that the troubled characters in her novels, this included, had something of herself in them.

Then, I've been thinking a lot about the characters.  Character development is a real highlight in this book.  I noticed it a bit while reading, and then I went on Goodreads to rate and shelve the book quickly when I glanced at the first review.  And the reviewer said "Mick Kelley, the main character..." and that simply blew my mind - as the main character is John Singer, and Mick Kelley is simply one of the revolving characters that inexplicably (?) opens up their life to him during the course of the novel.  I realized then that the power in this book andin John Singer himself lies in that fact - that depending on the person reading this book there is a depth to each character that can really sing to you.

While the prose can be a little dreary and a bit Southern Gothic, I pushed through and my reward was lots of deep thinking to accompany into whatever novel I end up with next!