Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Fallstudie

A very clever book, weaving fact into fiction. It was a bit of a (sedate) rollercoaster for me. I started out being fascinated by the two main characters, then began to get irritated by them, and ended up feeling quite sentimental towards them. A lot happens in this book, without very much actually happening.

Content Warnings

jen_prouvaire's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Content Warnings

alisonannk's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Case Study is a work of fiction carefully designed to look like non-fiction to the extent that it is sometimes hard to tell one from the other. Which is obviously the point but something I can find irritating. An author has become interested in the life and work of an influential and somewhat notorious psychiatrist, Arthur Collins Braithwaite. No one seems interested in publishing his work until he receives some notebooks from a relative of a young woman whose sister Veronica, a former client of Braithwaite’s committed suicide. Believing he is responsible for the death she decides to visit Braithwaite herself, under an assumed identity of course. This novel consists of the young woman’s notebooks interspersed with an account of Barithwaite’s life as compiled by the author. Except the author, despite sharing the same initials as Macrae is fictional, as is Braithwaite, as are the diaries etc. It’s all very meta and absolutely nobody is to be trusted or relied upon, despite some people, places and events being real.

Overall this wasn’t the book for me. It felt like an exercise in intellectual cleverness, designed to show off the actual author’s prowess. I like to get emotionally invested in a novel and I was unable to do so here. The atmosphere of 1960s London was vibrantly recreated, and the character studies of both Braithwaite and the notebook writer/Rebecca Smyth were compelling, even if the characters themselves were neither likeable nor reliable. I thought the emotional and mental unravelling of Veronica’s sister was convincing. The book kept my interest throughout and the writing went down smoothly but at the end I was left asking myself what was the point of it all and feeling that perhaps I just wasn’t clever enough for this book.

Content Warnings

dezembrluft's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Content Warnings

bethanylouise17's review against another edition

Go to review page

mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

kirstym25's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Content Warnings

backpackfullofbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

“I could feel London pulsing into my body.”

“This is what people did. They sat in pubs drinking beer and gin and listening to each other talk. They pretended to be interested and then took their own turn talking. It was difficult to see the point in any of it.”

“She would be better off without me.”
~
An author researching a mostly forgotten phycologist is presented with five notebooks relating to a specific patents experiences with said phycologist. He can’t quite believe his luck.

With the reality of these notebooks called into question from the outset of the book we then get alternating perspectives for the remainder of the book. One from the author of the notebooks, a repressed and nieve young woman who is try to piece together her sisters suicide and starting to mentality unravel herself. The second from the author of the book chronicling the phycologists influence and life.

These narratives are simultaneously disparate and intimately connected. This combined with the contents of the book makes for a strange and intense reading experience.
~
This isn’t usually my kind of thing at all but I found it so incredibly readable I finished the entire thing in one day.

It is extremely intense and weird I couldn’t put it down.

The sense of what is real and want isn’t is completely thrown and you just have to commit to the story and not worry about the truth.

I actually decided to pick this up as the author came in the shop to sign some copies and was really nice. I’m glad that I did as it’s completely out of my normal comfort zone.
~
I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys unreliable narrators and phycological confusion. Or to be honest is looking for something a bit different but still gripping.

Content Warnings

More...