Sunday, May 29, 2005
Wonder When You’ll Miss Me by Amanda Davis
Wonder When You’ll Miss Me is such an original novel.
The first third of the book was hard for me to read and the end of it much more easy (although my friend who loves dark things more thought the exact opposite). The first part of the book details all the reasons that led to her attempted suicide and fracturing of her personality. The last part of the book detail how she chooses to keep living by running away from home and towards this illusory person who she thinks will take care of her, not finding him and joining the circus and therefore growing up and past the dependence on others for her acceptance and level of happiness.
Sure, it is a coming of age story where the protagonist goes through some horrible situations and runs away and joins the circus so that she can grow up and be accepted. Sounds simple enough, but then throw in that when she goes through a particularly horrible incident, he personality sorta splits giving her an invisible friend who happen to be all the parts of herself she never liked. Her waking persona is rather oblivious to the world around her and invisible friend basically helps run her life. In order to face her new life in the circus she renames herself to give her to courage to move forward in the world. Some of the more interesting scenes in the book are when she is interacting with her invisible friend.
The book was disconcerting at times and hard to belive all the parts, but it was also such an orginal voice and interesting look at how hard growing up (even in middle class America) can be.
Sadly we will not see any more books from Amanda Davis as she was killed in a plane crash with her parents as they were flying her around the country for her book tour.
The first third of the book was hard for me to read and the end of it much more easy (although my friend who loves dark things more thought the exact opposite). The first part of the book details all the reasons that led to her attempted suicide and fracturing of her personality. The last part of the book detail how she chooses to keep living by running away from home and towards this illusory person who she thinks will take care of her, not finding him and joining the circus and therefore growing up and past the dependence on others for her acceptance and level of happiness.
Sure, it is a coming of age story where the protagonist goes through some horrible situations and runs away and joins the circus so that she can grow up and be accepted. Sounds simple enough, but then throw in that when she goes through a particularly horrible incident, he personality sorta splits giving her an invisible friend who happen to be all the parts of herself she never liked. Her waking persona is rather oblivious to the world around her and invisible friend basically helps run her life. In order to face her new life in the circus she renames herself to give her to courage to move forward in the world. Some of the more interesting scenes in the book are when she is interacting with her invisible friend.
The book was disconcerting at times and hard to belive all the parts, but it was also such an orginal voice and interesting look at how hard growing up (even in middle class America) can be.
Sadly we will not see any more books from Amanda Davis as she was killed in a plane crash with her parents as they were flying her around the country for her book tour.
# posted by lyskie @ 3:47 PM 
