A review by jcschildbach
Your Story, My Story by Connie Palmen

4.0

The writing here is exceptional. And let me mention that when I started reading this I had completely forgotten what the premise was, and since the narrator kept referring only to "my bride" and other similar "titles", I was pretty deep in before I actually realized who the book was about (weirdly enough, I thought 'wow, that's odd that the narrator's bride is writing a book with the same title as Sylvia Plath's book'...ahem/duh). I was really torn here, though, because as brilliant as the writing was and as compelling as the story was, I didn't really LIKE any of the characters. The narrator was constantly bemoaning how he had been wronged by history and his wife's fans, while freely admitting he had 'betrayed' his wife, while also portraying his wife as a troubled, somewhat paranoid, 'difficult' person who was perpetually in conflicted interactions with other people, and who most of his friends and family couldn't stand. I highlighted a number of quotes in the book, because they had that sense of 'universal truths' or brilliant observations. But in the end, I guess it's something like really admiring an author's work and finding out that they are kind of terrible (that said, I am not at all familiar with the works of Plath's husband, and only familiar with Plath's work and history in a very surface way). For the quality of the writing and imaginative sense of the (perhaps truly terrible) characters, though, I think this is something that all readers will connect with on some level.