A review by kyrajade
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride

3.0

Appreciate how experimentative the form is but it's honestly pretty dull to read something so incomprehensible and my eyes just kept running over and not taking anything in. I also feel like you can't form a connection with a character who you can't understand. I didn't get her motives for anything, the story isn't fleshed out enough to properly portray her character development. Considering it's pretty much just a cluster of thoughts on every page I had no idea what she was thinking most of the time. Events which were supposed to be sad were kind of cheapened by the form and just passed by without much thought. I think my main problem is that if the form is supposed to represent the character's consciousness it should have become more legible as she got older and only descended into madness when her brother is diagnosed/passes. Realistically even when she is 13-16 it should have gained some consistent clarity. Also I mean people don't even really think in these kinds of thought patterns anyway. I think the plot is so interesting but I would have been more engaged if I actually could get to grips with what was going on and why the protag is acting this way.