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A review by jacki_f
The Mirror World of Melody Black by Gavin Extence
5.0
I loved this. Much like a nervy pregnant woman, I didn't think I could find room in my heart to love another book by Gavin Extence as much as I loved the one I already had ([b:The Universe vs Alex Wood|22379895|The Universe vs Alex Wood|Gavin Extence|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|21738568]), but I do. Melody Black is quite a different book, but at its core there are similarities. Both are about a quirky misfit and both are told with both heart and humour.
I knew very little about the story when I picked up this book. The description on the book's inside cover is extremely vague and the title also gives nothing away - it sounds like a story about a drag queen! - and in any case has only a tenuous link to the plot. My issue, and I suspect the publisher's concern, is that if you know what the book is about you might say "huh, sounds like a downer" and not read it. And yet it's anything BUT a downer. It's clever, it's engaging, it's witty, it's truthful and it's cautiously optimistic. So read the next paragraph with all of that in mind.
The book is narrated by Abby, a freelance journalist in her late 20s who lives with her boyfriend Beck. One evening she goes to borrow a can of tomatoes from their neighbour and finds his dead body in his living room. (This is not a thriller - the death is from natural causes.) The discovery affects Abby. She develops insomnia and starts to have increasingly wild ideas. Gradually we learn that Abby has bipolar disorder and that the incident has triggered a spiral into mania. Which is what the book is about - what happens to Abby next.
As Gavin Extence explains in the Author's Note at the end of the book, he has some experience of mental illness on which he has drawn to create Abby's completely fictional story. Perhaps this is why the descriptions of how she feels and behaves seem so real and comprehensible. The book is littered with the kind of sentences that you want to read out to someone. One example I loved is when Abby is talking about her sister Fran: "Fran was never someone who was likely to understand her little sister's mood disorder. In terms of her own mental health, she was the equivalent of the person who has never caught a cold."
I loved this book. Abby got under my skin and I am sorry to be saying goodbye to her. Bravo Gavin Extence.
I knew very little about the story when I picked up this book. The description on the book's inside cover is extremely vague and the title also gives nothing away - it sounds like a story about a drag queen! - and in any case has only a tenuous link to the plot. My issue, and I suspect the publisher's concern, is that if you know what the book is about you might say "huh, sounds like a downer" and not read it. And yet it's anything BUT a downer. It's clever, it's engaging, it's witty, it's truthful and it's cautiously optimistic. So read the next paragraph with all of that in mind.
The book is narrated by Abby, a freelance journalist in her late 20s who lives with her boyfriend Beck. One evening she goes to borrow a can of tomatoes from their neighbour and finds his dead body in his living room. (This is not a thriller - the death is from natural causes.) The discovery affects Abby. She develops insomnia and starts to have increasingly wild ideas. Gradually we learn that Abby has bipolar disorder and that the incident has triggered a spiral into mania. Which is what the book is about - what happens to Abby next.
As Gavin Extence explains in the Author's Note at the end of the book, he has some experience of mental illness on which he has drawn to create Abby's completely fictional story. Perhaps this is why the descriptions of how she feels and behaves seem so real and comprehensible. The book is littered with the kind of sentences that you want to read out to someone. One example I loved is when Abby is talking about her sister Fran: "Fran was never someone who was likely to understand her little sister's mood disorder. In terms of her own mental health, she was the equivalent of the person who has never caught a cold."
I loved this book. Abby got under my skin and I am sorry to be saying goodbye to her. Bravo Gavin Extence.