A review by foggy_rosamund
Who Do You Think You Are? by Alice Munro

3.0

Rose grows up in a very poor suburb on the outskirts of a small town in Canada. The interlinked short stories follow her as she leaves behind her oppressive home, goes to university, suffers a disastrous marriage, and struggles to have satisfying relationships with men. Munro's prose is clear, easy-to-read, and subtle. I found the stories about Rose's early life particularly satisfying: the struggles with her step-mother and the horrors of surviving a brutal school are memorable and engaging. Each story works on its own merits, but this does not quite hold together as a novel. It's hard not to consider this a novel when the stories build up a picture of one person's life, but the picture often feels fragmentary and unsatisfying. I also felt that Munro could have edited the stories before she published them in one book to avoid repetition between them. This is the first full collection of Munro I have read, and I was impressed by her skilled narrative voice: I am certainly interested in reading more, even if this did not completely win me over.