bookishmarie 's review for:

This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison

3.0

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Jonathan Evison pulls no punches in his portrait of Harriet Chance looking back on 78 years of life. He careens through her life like the ball in a pinball machine, offering us snippets of Harriet over the years. Like us all, it has not all been a fairy tale. Evison frames his portrait with devastating news which requires Harriet to reconsider the circumstances of her life. While Evison has given us ample evidence of the negative aspects of Harriet's personality, the reader can't help but feel sympathy for her as she reels in the discovery of numerous betrayals. Ultimately we are given a nuanced portrait of a life lived although I found myself annoyed by Evison's game show gimmicks as he escorted us through Harriet's life.