A review by eileen_critchley
Self-Portrait with Boy by Rachel Lyon

3.0

I really wanted to love this book and looked forward to reading it. I like what the author was trying to do and the idea behind the book, but feel there were too many little subplots going on. There was the main story of the photograph, there were the issues with living in an artist's loft under a slum lord, there was some attempts at 90s nostalgia, there was a friendship between the main character and a neighbor which she kept saying was her "closest friend" but it wasn't really developed, there was the main character's social awkwardness, there was her role as caretaker of her aging father, there was a sorta kinda ghost story, there was the plight of the starving artist, there was a relationship thrown in at the end.. and on and on. All of this came at the cost of none of these story lines becoming fully developed. The first part of the book really dragged me in as the main story was developing and then it all became somewhat tiresome for me.