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by Ali Smith
I don't necessarily know how I feel about it. There were times I was highly engaged and yet I was very rarely motivated to pick it up (there's a chance was just my reading mood though idk).
I don't think I've very been in this situation before - reading the first book by an author I consider a favourite. Most of the time, I started with their first, but I've read a good 8 Ali Smith books already. Mad.
It's so interesting reading an authors first book. In many ways it reminds me of How to be both. It focuses on 2 friends, it has a roughly-50-50 split for the perspectives, and these two people seem to be mirrors of each other.
We get snapshots of Amy's and Ash's lives, Amy when she's in her 30s (I presume) and Ash in her mid-20s. Both leave a lot of questions and there's a doubling with the leads.
There's purposefully a bunch of mysterious interwoven in the plot - primarily surrounding where Ash goes, who the child Kate is, and how did Amy lose her ability to read. It's a whirlwind of a book that focuses, as Ali Smith always does on the human mind. Sure the plots there, but really it's about the complicated dynamic between these two characters and the characters and their families.
Like a lot of Ali Smith novels, there's a few familiar sights. Out of touch/un-self aware old people, the quirky young child, the strangely close friends whose relationship cannot be easily described, and paragraphs of observational one liners.
One thing I couldn't help but notice (and was definitely not intended at the time), is how incredible Like other Ali Smith stories this is.
I don't think I've very been in this situation before - reading the first book by an author I consider a favourite. Most of the time, I started with their first, but I've read a good 8 Ali Smith books already. Mad.
It's so interesting reading an authors first book. In many ways it reminds me of How to be both. It focuses on 2 friends, it has a roughly-50-50 split for the perspectives, and these two people seem to be mirrors of each other.
We get snapshots of Amy's and Ash's lives, Amy when she's in her 30s (I presume) and Ash in her mid-20s. Both leave a lot of questions and there's a doubling with the leads.
There's purposefully a bunch of mysterious interwoven in the plot - primarily surrounding where Ash goes, who the child Kate is, and how did Amy lose her ability to read. It's a whirlwind of a book that focuses, as Ali Smith always does on the human mind. Sure the plots there, but really it's about the complicated dynamic between these two characters and the characters and their families.
Like a lot of Ali Smith novels, there's a few familiar sights. Out of touch/un-self aware old people, the quirky young child, the strangely close friends whose relationship cannot be easily described, and paragraphs of observational one liners.
One thing I couldn't help but notice (and was definitely not intended at the time), is how incredible Like other Ali Smith stories this is.