WARNING: several trigger moments.
When you get about a third of the way into a book and you know if you like it or not is an odd sensation. But a helpful one. Afterall, if you really really do not like it, you can stop and nothing is really lost. And if you like it, you can continue and nothing is lost but mostly it’s all gain. But what about that book (it might be rare) but you don’t like anything but you don’t hate anything and you are just staring at this thing in your hand or on the computer screen (as with Silence, Full Stop: A Memoir by Karina Shor which I read online, though currently available).
You then keep on reading, start a review about half way through and hope the ending stays on course. I am giving this a 3, but leaning towards a 2.5 and I’ll tell you why. I averaged out things like how it made me feel, the illustrations, how I think others might feel, if they would like or dislike, the originality of things and a few other criteria. However, I went back to this review (as I write them out before I post) to add something else. This book is going to be a five for some and a one for others. It is fairly grotesque at times and it is disgusting. And it is one of the things that I can’t stand but think is pretty damned amazing.
Focusing on the two main points of illustrations and originality, I realized they were the pieces that gave the book a bad name. And perhaps, any good name someone could give it. Now, I cannot draw a stick figure and my fancy item I can draw is a green dot on the page as it is an ant wearing a green sweater, so I am not saying I could do better, but what it boiled down to was I was nauseous watching them. And not just when they are showing our main characters seriously bad trips on LSD, heroin, coke, pills, you name it…. As her face is melting, her eyes growing bigger than her face, people pull her face into a smile, and everything is spinning and big scribbles on the page. And I don’t just mean when she is giving her Health Ledger Joker Grin of lipstick practically up around her ears. No, even when she is just sitting at the table things are disturbing. Maybe because you know what came before and that there is more of the same coming, but it was a wrecking ball!
How they do it in the movies influences their thoughts on things. In the movies they do coke on a cash bill. In the movies this is how they dress, act, think, what they do. And you know this is not a movie. This is reality. The thing is, so do they. They just want to forget that. And that is why it is sad. In the end you wonder what could have happened to make them feel so bad? Well, with Karina, we learn the horrible events that took place, that made her hate herself, and not just the events but how it was or was not handled afterward.
This is not a book about one thing, but a lot of things. It is how society treats females. How many “smile you’ll be prettier” or “you’re pretty, smile” can you count? How many times was she violated and “asked for the pain” can you find her saying? It is about growing up during a time and place that makes you feel other so you make yourself other. It is about…. Fill in the blank….. When I got to the college years, I added more to my review and still had more to go. But I didn’t want the ending to affect how I wrote the review. So, I’m posting without knowing how it ends. But since it is a memoir, we know at least she was alive to tell her story. Yet, who knows in what condition? Shor is one heck of a writer and sounds like one heck of a survivor. Only I didn’t say heck and added the F word in front of it.