Reviews

Self-Portrait with Boy by Rachel Lyon

momadvice's review against another edition

5.0

Looking for a thriller with a plot that you probably have never considered? Self-Portrait With Boy is one of the most inventive plot concepts that I've read in a long time and absolutely captivated me. This novel is about a struggling photographer who lives in an artist loft where she has been working on a personal photography project taking a daily self-portrait.

A little boy, in the apartment above her's, tragically falls to his death and Lu happens to be taking an image of herself when the tragedy occurs. Upon development, she sees that it is one of the most beautiful images she has ever taken and has to grapple with the decision to let this work be seen.

As the tenants grow closer together following the tragedy, she finds herself entangled in a friendship with the mother and must decide if she is going to share the image of her son with the world.

Adding to the deep moral dilemma, she is barely making ends meet and her father has to undergo a pricey surgery. It isn't just about the fame, it's about survival.  This image could help her become known in her field, but at what cost?

I listened to this one on audiobook in a single day, and had to know what was going to happen with this photo. I don't want to say more- it's really awesome.  This book would lend itself well to a book club discussion.

capeybara's review against another edition

5.0

A satisfying story that’s compelling, tense, and heartbreaking. A love letter to art, scrappy (and painful) youth and old(ish) New York. There were some moments where i had to suspend my disbelief re: the main character’s employment but overall really nice to read.

enidsorko's review against another edition

3.0

Overall, I enjoyed this read about a struggling artist, squatting in warehouses filled with other artists in 1990s Brooklyn, but part of that may be due to the fact that I remember this NY. The ghost aspect of the story didn't really go with the other bits, IMO- the parts devoted to how she worked on her art, her various crappy jobs, her awkward social interactions and such were much more interesting and had a better flow for me. If the ghost part didn't exist, or had been handled differently, this would have been 4 stars for me.

annekrag's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-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

3.0

aimeedarsreads's review

3.0

In Self-Portrait with Boy, set in the early 1990s, aspiring photographer Lu Rile lived in a warehouse in Brooklyn and survived by working in a pretentious natural foods grocery store. Although the other squatters were also artists, she kept to herself, still burdened by the taunts of her high school classmates.

Lu had been working on a self-portrait project in which she took a photograph of herself each day. On day four hundred, she set up a photograph in which she was jumping into the frame in front of the large window in her apartment. To get the shot right required practice timing her jumps, but finally, she was satisfied she had captured the image she was seeking.

Shortly after, there was a commotion on the roof where the neighbors where having a party to which she wasn’t invited. Some of the party-goers rushed outside while others looked over the railing. Later, Lu learned that nine-year-old Max Schubert-Fine had accidentally fallen from the roof to his death.

When she developed her film, she saw a smudge on one frame in the negative. On the print, she realized that the smudge was Max falling. Despite capturing such a horrific moment, the photograph itself was a marvel of composition, the best of all her self-portraits, and she was convinced that it would be her entree into the art world.

All she needed was to tell Max’s parents, Kate and Steve. Lu visited their apartment with every intention to broach the subject, but she became caught up in Kate’s orbit, captured by her grief. Her friendship with Kate gave her a sense of belonging she’d never felt before, and the more she spent time with Kate, the harder it was to ask her about showing the photograph at a gallery.

At the same time, Lu’s financial pressures increased. The owner of the warehouse where they were living disappeared, and the tenant board hired a lawyer to whose fees Lu was expected to contribute. Her father was afflicted with cataracts that were robbing him of his eyesight, and she had to help him pay for his home health aid.

Lu wrestled with what was the moral thing, with what was the right thing for her, with what was the necessary thing. If she showed the painting, she didn’t know if she could bear losing Kate, yet if she let the opportunity go by, she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to produce something as magnificent again.

Posing these interesting questions, Self-Portrait with Boy offers a tantalizing moral puzzle, and it depicts struggling artists in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn in the early 1990s in a way I hadn’t seen before. Although Lu is a photographer and does see the world through her camera lens, this is a frequently used theme and could have been more developed here. One awful strand of the book is the legal status of the building and the terrible lengths an owner will stoop to to force current tenants to leave.

I never quite gelled with the characters. I had a difficult time feeling empathy for Lu and her conundrum, and though it was certainly easy to feel empathy for Kate, the grieving mother, it was never quite clear what her motivations were in befriending Lu. Additionally, there was a supernatural element to the story that I didn’t care for. While Self-Portrait with Boy operates from an interesting premise and setting, for me, it never completely lived up to its potential.

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kimnickens's review against another edition

4.0

I enjoyed this read in spite of (or perhaps because of) my difficulty with the moral question that lies at the heart of this novel. Well-written debut.

relodwick's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad 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

3.0

maria1085's review against another edition

3.0

This was an interesting read. Parts of it I really enjoyed and other parts I felt were drawn out and could have been left out of the book. It was an interesting plot that kept me interested but I definitely didn’t love the book. Definitely different from what I’ve been reading lately. It wasn’t really the ghost story I was expecting. A good book, but not my favorite.

sophronisba's review against another edition

4.0

I think this novel could have been a bit shorter, but its portrait of an artist as a young woman will haunt me nevertheless. There's nothing I like more than a well-written character study, and you really get to know Lu Rile in the course of this book. I often did not particularly like her, but I did understand her, and that is all I ask for.

annwampler's review against another edition

3.0

“It has often occurred to me in the intervening years that if I'd had a digital camera back then, the kind with a screen where you can look at the picture you've just taken - if in the very moment of taking that four hundredth self-portrait I had seen immediately how the picture had turned out - I might have just deleted it. These days, working in digital, I often delete pictures reflexively. But a strip of plastic, gelatin, and silver halide crystals doesn't just disappear. You have to burn it.”

She should have deleted it! This book is hard for me. I really didn't enjoy the main character, Lu. It has an interesting plot, but as characters are more important to me than plot I am giving it three stars. If I had three and half I would.