Reviews

It was then that I saw the business of writing for what it truly was and is to me. It is your penance for not being lucky. It is an attempt to reach others and to make them love you. It is your instinctive protest, when you find you have no voice at the world's tribunals, and that no one will speak for you. I would give my entire output of words, past, present, and to come, in exchange for easier access to the world, for permission to state 'I hurt' or 'I hate' or 'I want'. Or, indeed, 'Look at me'.

For the writer there is no oblivion. Only endless memory.

she’s literally me

Content Warnings

ughew's review against another edition

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4.0

omg i wanna be looked at too

eliotscratch's review against another edition

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4.0

Frances works in a Library. Her work there is secondary to the work she undertakes each evening - using the cast of characters she encounters at the Library to inform her writing. Eventually she is one of the Doctors from the Research Institute (which the Library is part of), Nick, and his wife Alix seem to take Frances under their wing. Frances is delighted, she feels like she is leaving her old life behind and entering into a new world of excitement, sensual pleasures and selfishness. But she experiences it at a remove, she is always the outsider, always the observer. Always looking, seldom if ever looked at despite the refrain which echoes throughout the work.

This is a novel that takes its time getting under your skin, but once it does you can't look away. You can only look on, looking through Frances. She wants change, but any change is ephemeral, her thoughts are like quicksilver as one moment she has resolutely made up her mind only for an uttered phrase, a perceived slight, a memory, to send her down a different road.

I will admit that because Look at Me is a slow burner that I didn't enjoy it initially. Compared to some of my recent reads it felt like a slog, but once you get about a third of the way through you will stay with Frances.

dianac9's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

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