At the halfway point of reading Aurélie Valognes’s debut Out of Sorts (2016), my mind took me to Rose’s dream sequence in the Golden Girls’ season 1 episode “A Little Romance.” It was a farcical scene that brought on much laughter mostly because of the brilliance of the four lead actresses. As an audience member, I could follow along because the set up had been clear. I was in on the joke.
That wasn’t the case when I got to the midpoint of Out of Sorts. I started to wonder whether I had wandered into a dream sequence and had missed the cues that set up the ridiculousness of the events that occurred. Nope, no such misses, so it was also at that point that I wanted what started out as a quirky but entertaining read to just freaking end.
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