The Girl Booker

The Girl Booker

Monday, August 3, 2015

Lying Empty

Since Baby Girlbooker arrived on the scene, I have been reading much more slowly than I used to.  For those of you out there who do not have children and cannot imagine why the hell everything takes your child-ed friends so much longer to do, just imagine yourself being forced to look after a tiny drunk person. A tiny drunk person who is so blotto that you need to support them to walk, ask them to repeat everything six times because their slurring is so bad, and help clean up the inevitable vomit and other unmentionable acts.

I'm sure you've all been in this situation before at one time or another, but you probably weren't trying to get dressed or cook dinner at the same time... anyway, I seem to have inadvertently turned this into a waffling, directionless parenting blog. The point is this: I read The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty (due for publication in September 2015) very quickly. And I enjoyed it.

I don't think I have read a book written in second person narrative since my last Choose Your Own Adventure some time in the early nineties. It really ratcheted up the tension and sense of immediacy, and worked surprisingly well. I would have finished the book even sooner but I needed a break from it one night because everything was all feeling too dramatic and intense. Parts of it made me too sad to cry, but mostly I was just dead curious the whole way through to find out what was on the next page. And the next, and the next. It was great, but I think I need to read something where people drink herbal tea and honey next.