WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES.

WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES by KAREN JOY FOWLER.

BACK COVER BLURB: What if you grew up to realise that your father has used your childhood as an experiment?

Rosemary doesn't talk very much, and about certain things she's silent. She had a sister, Fern, her whirlwind other half, who vanished from her life in circumstances she wishes she could forget. And it's been ten years since she last saw her beloved brother Lowell.

Now at college, Rosemary starts to see that she can't go forward without going back, back to the time when, aged five, she was sent away from home to her grandparents and returned to find Fern gone.

FIRST SENTENCE {Prologue}: Those who know me now will be surprised to learn that I was a great talker as a child.

MEMORABLE MOMENT {Page 79}: We went to exactly one party in my first five years, and I don't even remember it, but Lowell told me there'd been an unfortunate incident involving a pinata, a baseball bat and a lot of flying candy that ended with Fern biting Bertie Cubbins, the birthday girl, on the leg. Biting someone who's not in the family - apparently, a really big deal.

SOURCE: Apparently the talk of the staff room where Mr T works. My thanks to Rachel for the loan of this book.

MY THOUGHTS: A book that had I known the twist in the tale beforehand I would not have considered reading. Let me begin by saying that it is despite and not because of 'the twist' (a twist that is making this review that much harder to write for fear of spoilers) that I rated this book as I did.*

A story of sibling rivalry, of the childhood events and memories (real, imagined, and misremembered) that shape us as adults. A novel that explores love, loss and attachment.

A literary work of what I guess most would think of as an unusual if not dysfunctional family, a family in which the relationships aren't always what they at first seem - heck, a story in which the individuals aren't always as they at first seem.

Beginning not in the beginning as most stories do but in the middle as, not nearly as complicated as it sounds, the novel darts around in time chronicling the life events of our narrator, Rosemary, who in order to protect herself has buried certain things deep within the recesses of her mind.

Though very readable ultimately this was a book that I found somewhat emotionally draining, the message that the human animal can (intentionally or otherwise) cause such devastation brought home to me in no uncertain terms. 

 * As you probably know I no longer do star ratings here on Pen and Paper but for those sites requiring it I awarded this three 'It was OK' stars.