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

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing is devastatingly incredible, but also technically challenging and possibly the most emotionally difficult book I’ve read. But incredible.

For you if: You like to read books in experimental formats, and you are OK with the triggers this one presents.

FULL REVIEW:


“Do you hear me? Is it ever time for you to understand. I meant I meant that for I never thought you could think you were low. Were lost at the moment when they cut you off. Cut your head out heart brain. It is not I know was not that but to me it was to me. Like I could have seen you in the bright of day. Like the light could have come up from the sea and take you over.”


I read A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing as part of the #ReadingWomen challenge to read all the previous winners of the Women’s Prize. This one won in 2014. Eimear McBride wrote it in six months and then spent ten years trying to sell it. Once she did, it won five awards (including the Women's Prize) and was nominated for three others.

This book is an incredible work of art. It's also technically challenging and possibly the most emotionally difficult book I've ever read.

The novel is not so much a stream of consciousness as a stream of sub-consciousness, told in raw fragments and broken snippets as the narrator takes in the world around her. (See the quote above.) It's the internal subconscious of a girl whose brother's childhood brain tumor looms over everything, so she asserts control over her life and emotions through an increasingly reckless and dangerous sexuality.

I read the first chapter three times (it’s short) to really make sure I understood what was going on, and to get used to the style. And I did get used to it — you end up sinking in. But you also kind of have to get used to reading all the sentences together and then interpreting rather than interpreting each sentence one by one. You have to read it for the forest, not the trees. In fact, if there were ever a book to listen along to the audiobook while you read, it's this one. The author herself narrates, and her personal interpretation of the words on the page was invaluable to my reading of the text. She knows which words are quotes, when the speaker shifts, which words are the ones that require emphasis, which periods to ignore and which to pause at.

I read it in one sitting and was really glad I did — I don't think I could have popped in and out of this roller coaster, emotionally. The ending is really, really hard to read. Disturbing and difficult and raw and also just so impressive.

Ultimately, I was blown away by this one. How did she do that? The narrative skill, the pacing, the trust she puts in her readers. Incredible.

I absolutely recommend this book, but only if you're up for the experimental format and emotionally prepared for the triggers I'll list below. Full review on the blog, link in bio.




TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Statutory rape; Violent rape; Questionably consensual violence during sex; Death (cancer); Suicide
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