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A review by janetmf3
A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
In scathing, furious, unforgettable prose, Eimear McBride tells the story of a young girl's devastating adolescence as she and her brother, who suffers from a brain tumor, struggle for a semblance of normalcy in the shadow of sexual abuse, denial, and chaos at home.
This stream of consciousness novel explores an Irish girl's relationship with her disabled brother, religious mother, and her own troubled sexuality.
McBride's experimental style "forgoes quotation marks and elides verbiage for sense, sound and sheer appearance on the page. For emphasis it occasionally wreaks havoc on capitals and reverses letter order."
'A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing' is an example of an author mirroring the style and structure of the story with the subject material of which it is concerned. McBride seems to have carefully considered even the decision of not naming her narrator
– a decision which further enforces her state of being half-formed, as the title suggests. The story’s unique prose and dual plot-line combine to create a suggested series of images that seems not so much an account, but a mental framework of the story’s protagonist.
I read this in college almost ten years ago and I always remember it having such a huge impact on me. I absolutely adored its dark, gripping themes and unusual writing style. Having listened to the audiobook now, it didn't have the same kind of impact, I'm not sure if that is because it has been so long since I last read it and I have romanticed the novel, or if it's because I listened to it this time when I read it the last time, but the story still had that kind of shocking impact because of the themes, images, characters etc.
I do think that this book won't be for everyone. Like many people hate how Sally Rooney doesn't use quotation marks, this is much worse, with using stream of consciousness, fragmented sentences. However, there is something about the way that it is written that leaves a bigger impact when discussing really dark themes. Everyone in the book is anonymised and even the location, apart from the obvious Irish background, is unknown. It's almost like anyone could read themselves into the story and become the narrator through the process.
The ending has stayed with me for the last 10 years and I have given this book to people in the past as gifts because of the mark it left on me when I first read it. I would love to physically read this book again, but Eimear McBride herself did a fantastic job of reading the audiobook. I don't think anyone else could have emphasised the power behind the message in this novel like she has.
This stream of consciousness novel explores an Irish girl's relationship with her disabled brother, religious mother, and her own troubled sexuality.
McBride's experimental style "forgoes quotation marks and elides verbiage for sense, sound and sheer appearance on the page. For emphasis it occasionally wreaks havoc on capitals and reverses letter order."
'A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing' is an example of an author mirroring the style and structure of the story with the subject material of which it is concerned. McBride seems to have carefully considered even the decision of not naming her narrator
– a decision which further enforces her state of being half-formed, as the title suggests. The story’s unique prose and dual plot-line combine to create a suggested series of images that seems not so much an account, but a mental framework of the story’s protagonist.
I read this in college almost ten years ago and I always remember it having such a huge impact on me. I absolutely adored its dark, gripping themes and unusual writing style. Having listened to the audiobook now, it didn't have the same kind of impact, I'm not sure if that is because it has been so long since I last read it and I have romanticed the novel, or if it's because I listened to it this time when I read it the last time, but the story still had that kind of shocking impact because of the themes, images, characters etc.
I do think that this book won't be for everyone. Like many people hate how Sally Rooney doesn't use quotation marks, this is much worse, with using stream of consciousness, fragmented sentences. However, there is something about the way that it is written that leaves a bigger impact when discussing really dark themes. Everyone in the book is anonymised and even the location, apart from the obvious Irish background, is unknown. It's almost like anyone could read themselves into the story and become the narrator through the process.
The ending has stayed with me for the last 10 years and I have given this book to people in the past as gifts because of the mark it left on me when I first read it. I would love to physically read this book again, but Eimear McBride herself did a fantastic job of reading the audiobook. I don't think anyone else could have emphasised the power behind the message in this novel like she has.