Book Review | A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride

 

A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is Eimear McBride's debut novel, and I'm not going to lie to you, it's hard to get through. It's written in a kind of "stream of consciousness" style, and it's really choppy and hard to follow. It's from the point of view of a young woman and the relationship with her brother, and the shadow cast by his childhood brain tumor. It took my reading the description to figure that out though, it was hard to decipher from the text. The book is really intimate, it gives way to the inner thoughts, feelings and sexuality of an incredibly vulnerable and isolated main character. It's definitely not comfortable, it will feel awkward and that is something I really like about this book. It makes you feel something, even if it's uncomfortable. This novel touches on domestic violence, sexual promiscuity and even an incredibly unhealthy relationship with a family member. It covers the struggle of trying to remain intact after an intense trauma. 

This book is intense and really quite beautiful, in an almost unbearable way. The writing has a lot to do with that, and the beginning is quite hard to get through. I imagine that's because the main character is younger, so her thoughts are less cohesive. But as the book goes on it gets easier to understand what is happening around her, and therefore makes it easier to read. 

I gave this book 3 stars and if you read it - i'm incredibly interested in knowing your thoughts. This book left me kind of confused and a bit disturbed, so I want to know others thoughts. I've spent a substantial amount of time reading other reviews on Goodreads, which I don't do on the regular.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.