The Terrible Girls by Rebecca Brown p. 136
The book reads like a nightmare built around rejected and betrayed love. Like a nightmare, the settings sometimes change, but it seems to be a continuous interrelated story rather than distinct stories. Among other things, the pretty, brown-eyed beloved/betrayer remains the same.
SPOILER: In the final story the narrator returns, with help, to recover the narrator's heart which she abandoned after it had been torn from her. What I found most moving was that I think it was other aspects of herself who were the terrible girls that tore it from her. The narrator mentions some of them walking with a limp or having a hanging sleeve. The narrator is a previous story acquired a limp and another one lost (gave up) an arm. The narrators of all of the stories describe the beloved and almost the same words. Maybe an aspect of the beloved was among the attackers, one of them uses the same phrase that the beloved once used (it just be a callback to a betrayal with betrayed becoming betrayer), but I definitely think it was other parts of the final narrators self who actually tore out the heart. This is the aspect of the book that I'd like to talk about if anyone I was read it.
The book was haunting and painful to read but I'm glad that I wrote it.
N.B.: I read this as an e-book and it didn't list page numbers.The page count is based on the paperback edition that is listed on Amazon.
Also, if this post is a mess, I apologize. I am without a computer and writing it on my phone.
SPOILER: In the final story the narrator returns, with help, to recover the narrator's heart which she abandoned after it had been torn from her. What I found most moving was that I think it was other aspects of herself who were the terrible girls that tore it from her. The narrator mentions some of them walking with a limp or having a hanging sleeve. The narrator is a previous story acquired a limp and another one lost (gave up) an arm. The narrators of all of the stories describe the beloved and almost the same words. Maybe an aspect of the beloved was among the attackers, one of them uses the same phrase that the beloved once used (it just be a callback to a betrayal with betrayed becoming betrayer), but I definitely think it was other parts of the final narrators self who actually tore out the heart. This is the aspect of the book that I'd like to talk about if anyone I was read it.
The book was haunting and painful to read but I'm glad that I wrote it.
N.B.: I read this as an e-book and it didn't list page numbers.The page count is based on the paperback edition that is listed on Amazon.
Also, if this post is a mess, I apologize. I am without a computer and writing it on my phone.