We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves | Karen Joy Fowler

Wasn't sure what to expect with this one. It's not a new book (2013) but it didn't hit my radar until recently. I had read Jane Austen Book Club by Fowler but I wasn't familiar with her other work (which is pretty extensive). Since I hadn't read anything about this, or at least anything that included a spoiler, the information about lead character's sister Fern was an interesting turn (and one I won't spoil for you here in you also haven't read anything about it).

What I liked about the book was that it deals with strong emotional topics like grief, loss, love and animal rights and the trauma that occurs when all of these topics collide. But Fowler is also witty. There are funny comments throughout that lighten up the pretty heavy themes of the book.

What I didn't like is that some of the characters are a little thin, especially Rosemary. You learn about her mostly from how other people treat her. Maybe that was the point.

Rosemary was a talker as a kid and she was told, many times, to start her story in the middle instead of the beginning since it would just go on too long. She was also told to talk about only 1 of the 3 or 4 things she was thinking about. This informs the structure of the story and it works very well. You can imagine that Rosemary does a lot of self-editing once she internalizes these lessons. It won't spoil anything to tell you that Rosemary and her mother end up together at the end of the story, and that requires a bit of a leap since the relationship between the two wasn't particularly well-drawn. Interestingly, Rosemary's brother Lowell, is a relatively small but key character in the story and despite this I have a good picture of what he's all about and how he gets through life.

I think it's well worth reading more of Fowler's work.