Oh We Are Completely Besides Ourselves, why is such an awesome title wasted on a book I didn’t like? I did not like this book guys. I actively detested the point of the narrative from about halfway through. I cannot honestly suggest it to you, but I feel a little bad about that since it did work for other people. Seriously, I think I’m the only one on Cannonball Read who rated it below four stars.
So, take my review with a grain of salt.
I picked this one because it was the December pick for the Go Fug Yourself book club on Goodreads. They all seem to have enjoyed it. Having seen a few reviews I knew to go in clean and not read reviews, or even the book flap descriptions, since others had been spoiled of the twist
This one did nothing for me. There was so much that Karen Joy Fowler did right – but it’s all the structural stuff. The character growth, development, and pacing is all lackluster. And it was very heavy-handed. SO HEAVY-HANDED. And a certain amount of first world problems, but mostly heavy-handed.
AND I’M REALLY TIRED OF UNRELIABLE NARRATORS.
I also don’t want to spoil the book for others, but know that the book explores the themes of family, and sibling relationships, and what scars us, and what makes us human… I just don’t think it did it very well.