This is a semi-autobiographical telling that is 68% true and 32% fiction and the author will say no more.
I needed to choose a book from the pile - something quick, something easy - so I selected 4 books and started reading a bit from each. The first three were OK but I was going to try the fourth before I made a decision. Any Other Mouth was the fourth. I was several chapters in before I realised that the decision had been made!
People who have had sound bites quoted have said things like "shocking", "brutally honest", "this is the best thing I've read in years" and on the whole I found it all to be true, although while I would say it is now my book of 2014 but whether it is "the best I've read in years"... the jury is out on that one.
What I found very surprising about it was that while many things happen in the telling that are immensely sad, truly horrific, terribly shocking or merely very deep the author doesn't pull you in and involve you but merely seeks to inform you. It's a ploy that keeps you reading when you might otherwise feel that you can take no more and close the book - but I still developed a degree of empathy for the author.
Relationships, self harm, rape, grief are all covered and I came away with one big regret and that is that I missed seeing her at Edinburgh as her event was over before we even set out on our annual sojourn. While on the subject of Edinburgh International Book Festival... if you find yourself in that neck of the woods why not slip into the bookshop, pick up a copy, start reading it and see if you can put it down - and then consider voting for it as the début book of the year? I did.
Publisher - Freight Books
Genre - Adult, contemporary fiction
No comments:
Post a Comment