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kyrajade's review against another edition
3.0
It took me a week to finish this book despite it only being 230 pages. I feel like it only really picks up around p. 100, where another tragedy occurs and Justine spirals deeper into her depression. It reads as slightly repetitive because there are lots of 'I dreamt of...' entries (ESPECIALLY in the beginning). Past p. 100, she begins to invest more so in her investigation into mysticism and the occult etc, which is really interesting. Picardie interweaves bits of text from varied sources (some from Freudian journals and letters, others from poems and fiction texts), which worked in some places and in others were slightly incomprehensible without knowing the context into which they were written. The writing is nice - a little bit unnecessarily poetic in some places - and I did mark a favourite passage:
This child is warm and real and constant, as alive as my sister in last night's dream; as sweet as her mother's smile in the photograph that is pinned on the wall next to Juliette's bed at home; as loved as any child can be, by her father and Eileen and me and the ghosts that surround us all, tonight, at the end of this long, long strange day. (p. 88)
I really didn't like that this was written in a diary entry kind of format, because it didn't help with the repetitive way in which some of the entries were written. I think maybe if I was a little bit older than I would understand Picardie a little better. I can really empathise with her mental health struggles however, and I liked the way that she isn't always on an upward trajectory, her journey is very bumpy, and is ongoing even in the ending. The way Justine speaks about her sister Ruth is truly heartbreaking (I actually teared up on page 2) and I loved being able to see their relationship through Justine's memories and descriptions.
This child is warm and real and constant, as alive as my sister in last night's dream; as sweet as her mother's smile in the photograph that is pinned on the wall next to Juliette's bed at home; as loved as any child can be, by her father and Eileen and me and the ghosts that surround us all, tonight, at the end of this long, long strange day. (p. 88)
I really didn't like that this was written in a diary entry kind of format, because it didn't help with the repetitive way in which some of the entries were written. I think maybe if I was a little bit older than I would understand Picardie a little better. I can really empathise with her mental health struggles however, and I liked the way that she isn't always on an upward trajectory, her journey is very bumpy, and is ongoing even in the ending. The way Justine speaks about her sister Ruth is truly heartbreaking (I actually teared up on page 2) and I loved being able to see their relationship through Justine's memories and descriptions.
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