A review by casskrug
Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett

3.5

initially read this in oct 2022 and rated it 3.5 stars. wanted to reread it after reading her other book pond last year and enjoying it a lot! i think my rating will stay at 3.5 but i did get a lot more out of it this time around. there’s a section where she is talking about a story she wrote when she was younger, and going through what books and authors she had and hadn’t yet read when she had written it, and how in the present day there’s more she’d want to add to the story based on the other books she’s read. i remember this expanding my TBR the first time i read it, and upon rereading i think it is parallel to my experience with the book itself - one of those cases where i needed to get some more experience reading literary criticism and nonlinear narratives to fully appreciate what’s going on here. i wouldn’t go into this expecting a traditional novel, as it’s more interconnected short works and musings about reading and writing. i thought that the interview with the author that’s included in this edition was also really helpful in understanding some of the larger goals of the book.

the thing that lost me here was the dreamlike fantasies that our narrator sometimes slips into. i appreciate that she included them because as she says in the interview, books are on the threshold of fantasy and reality, but just for my personal tastes as a reader, i would’ve loved if it stayed more along the lines of her real world experience with/her analysis of the books she loves. the sections about her character tarquin superbus, as well as the supermarket customer, really trudged along for me and took me out of the book, but i enjoyed what she was doing otherwise. i can see the writing style, which can be repetitive and lacking in punctuation, not work for some people but i didn’t have too much of an issue with it once i was immersed in the book.

this has helped me see the value in rereading for sure. really looking forward to reading more from claire-louise bennett in the future and would recommend picking up pond if checkout 19 didn’t fully work for you either!

“Writing could do that. Here was a way of reaching someone, of being with them, when you were not and never could be. Here was where we met. Here was where the distinction between us blurred.”