Book Review: "Girl in Pieces" by Kathleen Glasgow

There are not many books in the world that I would call ‘boring’ necessarily. But that does not mean the book is badly written and neither does it mean that you should not read it. The term ‘boring’ simply means that it did not appeal to me and it did not conjure any emotions or thoughts afterwards within myself. Apart from that, it does not mean anything about how well-written or how badly written the book is. I will give you an example or two. The first example is James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake” which is obviously, brilliantly written but, I have to say that I find it intensely boring. However, the book “Men Who Hate Women” by Laura Bates is the opposite; I found the concepts interesting and the arguments well thought out. But, I found the writing itself a bit all over the place and reductive for a nonfiction book on its particular topic of misogyny. So the term ‘boring’ does not apply to either of these situations but instead is purely my own opinion. I would actually encourage you, reader of this review, to read the book for yourself and offer your own view. I would love to read about what you think of this book.

Charlotte is a complicated woman. She self harms, she is depressed, she is a character with many different facets of being, each of which are written and entwined brilliantly within the story. The story itself shows us that everyone, though they may have similar afflictions, is not the same. Two people experiencing the same affliction or mental state can feel very different things, can react in very different ways and ultimately have very different processes towards recovery. The message of mental health never being a ‘one size fits all’ or an ‘attention grab’ is explored deeply within the novel and is written with a true sense of experience and storytelling quality.

A storytelling quality that is probably better fitted to autobiography and not a fiction novel…

I found that there was little to no atmosphere in the book and the way in which people were describing it as ‘dark’ was something I simply did not understand. Yes, I understood that the women themselves were in ‘dark’ places mentally and that was projected in the story, but the writing style is anything but ‘dark’. Instead, the writing style is almost repetitive in nature, with little attention needing to be paid to emotions since they are basically told and not shown to us. This would work so much better in an autobiography or something nonfictional. But, as a story, I want to be shown how these emotions reflect out on the world from inside the character, not just be told ‘I [the protagonist] feel X, Y and Z…’ I want to travel through the novel with this character’s changing state, not feel like I am standing on the outside of the action like the women are some sort of clique I am not allowed to be a part of.

All in all, I thought the concept was very much a ‘Girl, Interrupted’ situation and that was okay, but the repetitive nature of the book really did get to me after a while. I think that though the book was well written, this style of writing (especially the speech and dialogue) is more suited to nonfiction writing and not storytelling. I think that there are certain things in this book that could have done with another editing process but ultimately, this is the book that we are left with. There are a number of good things about the book, but unfortunately, I found it simply boring. There’s nothing else for me to say.