We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
By Karen Joy Fowler
Published 2013
Read March 2016
This reader must admit she’s not sure how she came upon this book. The title was intriguing and the cover was bright. Wow that’s about it! This reader was fully virginal about the book’s characters, plots, and the interesting plot twist revealed about 1/3 way into the book which will not be revealed.
What this reader will tell you is that Rosemary, the narrator of the story, is quite clear she’s starting in the middle of the story and will come back to the beginning later. In the middle, Rosemary is a dilatant student at UC Davis. She tells us that both her older brother, Lowel, and her sister, Fern, stopped living with the family for some unspecified reason(s). She and her parents moved from the house they had all lived in to a smaller house and that in-between she stayed with her grandparents. During that in-between time, she wasn’t sure why she was there or whether she would see her parents again. So now this reader was fully engaged—what happened and why?
Before we learn that we are introduced to some characters that Rosemary meets via a chance encounter. These characters are clearly not people her parents would be enthusiastic about, but Rosemary is apparently lonely and engages with them.
All of the characters we meet are drawn as “full-bodied” meaning brimming with interesting histories and facets but are all flawed, damaged, or both. This makes for engaging reading as well. Fortunately for Rosemary and the reader, Lowell briefly comes back into Rosemary’s life, and we start learning why we’re all beside ourselves.
This reader won’t spoil anymore of the book. Unfortunately, after the plot twist occurs, the book dragged a bit for this reader but eventually got back on track and this reader completed the book quite quickly, wanting to know what was coming after the middle of the story.
This reader wouldn’t put this book at the top of a “must read” list but it’s certainly an interesting read.
MarshaReads.com 