A GIRL IS A HALF FORMED THING BY EIMEAR MCBRIDE

A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing By Eimear McBride

Galley Beggar Press (Paperback), 2013

205 Pages  

http://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/title/a-girl-is-a-half-formed-thing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Girl_Is_a_Half-formed_Thing

This is a library book borrowed from The Mitchell Library (http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries/the-mitchell-library/Pages/home.aspx).

BLURB FROM THE COVER

Eimear McBride’s debut tells the story of a young woman’s relationship with her brother and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. It is not so much a stream of consciousness as an unconsciousness railing against a life that makes little sense, forming a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a young and isolated protagonist. To read A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is to plunge inside into the narrator’s head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn’t always comfortable – but it is always a revelation. 

EXTRACT 

For you. You’ll soon. You’ll give her name. In the stitches of her skin she’ll wear your say. Mummy me? Yes you. Bounce the bed, I’d say. I’d say that’s what you did. Then lay you down. They cut around. Wait and hour and day.

REVIEW 

I really didn’t enjoy A Girl is a Half Formed Thing. I love the title and the blurb on the back cover made me think this would be right up my street. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. A Girl is a Half Formed Thing is one of the worst novels I’ve ever read. McBride’s debut is even worse than the last couple of volumes of Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein series which were dire. McBride uses a stream of consciousness style in A Girl is a Half Formed Thing. This is not my favourite novel structure but I’ve read and enjoyed a few books that use this. A Girl is a Half Formed Thing is the most extreme example of stream of consciousness I’ve read and I really didn’t get on with it. I found A Girl is a Half Formed Thing extremely hard to follow most of the time. The novel was disjointed, rambling and confusing. There were times when I was enjoying what I was reading for a few pages only for the prose to become rambling nonsense once again. I thought A Girl is a Half Formed Thing was awful. I have no problem reading novels that use an experimental novel but the experiment has to be a success in the end and I don’t think McBride pulled this off. Any regular readers of this blog know I read widely and diversely. I consider a novel a success if I enjoy what I’ve read, found the prose engaging and the writer took me somewhere memorable and unexpected. A Girl is a Half Formed Thing failed to engage me on every level. 

RATING