It is most certainly a great example of a book which people will have very differing opinions about.Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 02:32:36 Boxid IA40010121 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier This was something many of us had missed/ignored and demonstrates perfectly how a book club can show you the side of a book you never would have spotted on your own! One of the points discussed was the way the author introduced seemingly pointless characters and objects, and went in to great detail about events which seemed to have absolutely no relevance to the story, yet it was pointed out that these apparently unrelated and unnecessary additions were perhaps a clever way of giving us an insight in to the personalities of the characters through their acts and thoughts. Some really didn’t like it, found it too strange and almost rather smug in the way it was written, whereas others thoroughly enjoyed it, finding the story really quite moving and thought-provoking. The story is highly unusual and quite unique in both the storyline and the way in which it is written, and was received in very different ways by many members of the book club. She talks directly to the reader, which some of us liked and others really didn’t, but takes the unusual path of starting in the middle, then moving back and forth through her own memories and the things she discovers as she gets older, and finally finishing in the present. The story is written in the first person by Rosemary, now an adult, talking the readers through her very unusual childhood and the reasons for the oddities, often discovering things herself along the way.

This would be quite the plot spoiler and completely ruin the entire first half of the book! So suffice it to say that none of us were expecting the twist that was sprung upon us, and several of us were so surprised that we had to put the book down for a few days to consider whether we wanted to carry on! Essentially the book follows the life of a girl named Rosemary who used to have an older brother and a sister the same age as her, both of whom have now disappeared something she has found, and is still finding, very difficult to deal with. Now, this will be a difficult review as the key twist (the page 77 ‘reveal’) absolutely must not be mentioned. None of us knew anything about the book other than what we’d read, but based on the reviews and the mysterious nature of the story, we were all intrigued and willing to give it a go.

The reviews for We are all Completely Beside Ourselves were outstanding ‘Readably juicy and surreptitiously smart’, ‘A strong, unsettling, novel…’ and ‘A dark, cautionary tale’ to name just a few. So the latest book for the book club was an interesting one.

We are all beside ourselves book review