Reviews

I have never been so excited to get to the end of a book to then be so spectacularly let down. This book went from a rating of 4 to I would never recommend. Nothing was explained. Nothing was brought around full circle. No meaning was provided for the suspense and intrigue that carried me along. I went from thinking this was potentially masterful to thinking this is a book that didn’t know what it wanted to be or what message it wanted to portray. It fell dreadfully flat with the most mundane ending possible. I am bitterly disappointed.

lindseyzwilson's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

raulbime's review

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4.0

"...people do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive."

This quote from Proust opens this elegiac book, titled as an elegy on the cover too, and as if to reiterate, the story begins: I don't want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt.

Cassandra is twelve when her eight year old brother, Wayne, dies. What follows is a lifetime of mourning; what remains of life in the aftermath of tragedy and the enshrouding grief.

The first half of this book is narrated by Cassandra recounting the tragic death, the uncertainty and hopefulness that follows when the body is missing, and the ways a family reels and breaks. Cassandra sees her brother in others as she grows into an adult and in ways that's startling to the reader.

The second half is mostly narrated by a man that Cassandra meets also named Wayne. His connection to Cassandra's deceased brother, even when he explains it, is never certain and parts of the story read like Dostoevsky's The Double, when it seems like one of the Waynes is a shadow of the other. Also, parts of the book are reminiscent of Morrison's Beloved

Spoiler

where Sethe believes the young woman named Beloved is her daughter returned to her

. It's almost as though the writer is leaving the door slightly ajar for the reader to explore possibility.

This is a dizzying tale and the book clearly frustrated some readers, for a reason, and has been harshly reviewed, in my opinion, and misunderstood. Reality is bent and the reader, using myself here, doesn't completely understand what is happening most times. Prose is expected to elucidate. Where poetry rises heavenward, prose is supposedly grounded. Which I think explains some of the frustration with the other reviews of the book I've seen.

But this book already described itself as an elegy, and not a novel. The lines: "I don't want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt." recur like a refrain, perhaps to remind the reader and even assure them that the feeling of grief and loss is more important than plot. Undoubtedly, I've not understood what happens in this book, not completely anyway, which can be very annoying for the reader as we don't like to feel inadequate, but I've understood how it felt. The beautiful prose and clear and brilliantly written voices carried me while everything else jostled and tumbled (this is truly well organised chaos in the form of a book), and this is a confounding read filled with uncertainties. But what's certain is that it's a smart book, Serpell is clearly an intelligent person and writer, and that it is a challenging but good book.