Laura van den Berg
Autor(a) de Find Me
About the Author
Image credit: Author Laura van den Berg at the 2015 Texas Book Festival. By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44361948
Obras por Laura van den Berg
The Greatest Escape 1 exemplar
Find Me by Laura van den Berg (2015-06-04) 1 exemplar
Associated Works
You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside The Story (2009) — Contribuidor — 20 exemplares
Fairy Tale Review: The Grey Issue — Contribuidor — 2 exemplares
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Data de nascimento
- 1983
- Sexo
- female
- Nacionalidade
- USA
- País (no mapa)
- USA
- Local de nascimento
- Florida, USA
- Locais de residência
- Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA - Educação
- Rollins College (BA)
Emerson College (MFA) - Ocupações
- fiction writer
- Relações
- Yoon, Paul (spouse)
- Agente
- Katherine Fausset
Membros
Críticas
Listas
Prémios
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 10
- Also by
- 9
- Membros
- 1,266
- Popularidade
- #20,271
- Avaliação
- 3.5
- Críticas
- 69
- ISBN
- 40
- Marcado como favorito
- 2
I started Find Me knowing that it's ranking on goodreads was awful. But it sounded so freaking cool, that I had to do it anyway. In fact my to-read notes were: "A woman immune to the impending amnesia-plague uses it as a chance to rewrite her life, but supposedly it's terrible?" As billed.
OK, that's not fair: the first half was far from terrible. In fact, while I don't think even the first half would have wide-based appeal, I thought it was fantastic: just a touch of surrealism, beautiful language, The central discourse --the interconnection of current self and the people we've been in our lives; how memory matters (or doesn't) and whether we choose to be who we are or are shaped -- was interesting and I felt van den Berg really had a lot of new ideas on this well-worn topic and certainly a new way of showcasing. A side note on "beautiful language:" I think there's a fine line between "lyrical" and "purple prose" and often the more beautiful the language is purported to be, the less I like this book; van den Berg steers well-clear of this problem. She is a master of English. Her sentences are gorgeous, thought-provoking and clear. They build her story, rather than detract from them. It's honestly the only reason I finished part two -- she's truly superlative.
The second half, though, is rough. It's basically a travelogue through the post-apocalypse, although just how apocalyptic is kind of unclear. The problem is that without a solid plot to support everything else, the surrealism and existentialism become overwhelming and repetitive. This part both drags and is actively painful to read. I kept hoping it would get better, but it doesn't: it just ends, all of a sudden, after completely abandoning narrative and leaving a very surreal passage. I'm not even totally sure what happened in the end.… (mais)