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A review by kalkie
The World I Fell Out Of by Melanie Reid
3.0
This is a hard book to review.
I’ve read some autobiographies that are very similar to this. “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by Jean-Dominique Bauby and “The Little Big Things” by Henry Fraser immediately spring to mind. In both cases the authors suffered extensive life changing injuries and their books told the story of their struggles. Not dissimilar to Reid’s book. But whereas both Bauby and Fraser were charismatic and inspiring, I found Reid to be prickly and abrasive.
I think a lot of that is to do with a shell she has built up around herself - possibly to protect her reputation as a journalist. But the result for me was a kind of detached telling of her story, with bits that were repeated in an almost disbelieving kind of way. As if repeating things multiple times may change the outcome. This is most likely due to the book being an extension of her “day job” as a writer, whereas the other books I mentioned have probably been written more as reflective therapy and are a bit more personal.
That said, where we did see glimpses of her emotion and humanity you really did get a sense of the person underneath all the anger. And I am not for one second taking away anything to do with the utter tragedy of her accident or how hard she has worked on her recovery. I have had up close, personal experience of the recovery involved in a traumatic brain injury, and I can only imagine how hard Reid has had to work to overcome her even more extensive injuries.
It’s a very readable book and I did enjoy it and hope that Reid continues to improve every day.
I’ve read some autobiographies that are very similar to this. “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by Jean-Dominique Bauby and “The Little Big Things” by Henry Fraser immediately spring to mind. In both cases the authors suffered extensive life changing injuries and their books told the story of their struggles. Not dissimilar to Reid’s book. But whereas both Bauby and Fraser were charismatic and inspiring, I found Reid to be prickly and abrasive.
I think a lot of that is to do with a shell she has built up around herself - possibly to protect her reputation as a journalist. But the result for me was a kind of detached telling of her story, with bits that were repeated in an almost disbelieving kind of way. As if repeating things multiple times may change the outcome. This is most likely due to the book being an extension of her “day job” as a writer, whereas the other books I mentioned have probably been written more as reflective therapy and are a bit more personal.
That said, where we did see glimpses of her emotion and humanity you really did get a sense of the person underneath all the anger. And I am not for one second taking away anything to do with the utter tragedy of her accident or how hard she has worked on her recovery. I have had up close, personal experience of the recovery involved in a traumatic brain injury, and I can only imagine how hard Reid has had to work to overcome her even more extensive injuries.
It’s a very readable book and I did enjoy it and hope that Reid continues to improve every day.