When I Was Invisible
Aug. 2nd, 2023 08:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI've read a few books by Dorothy Koomson and enjoyed them, so I picked this up when I spotted it in a charity shop recently.
It's a split narrative - following two young women with almost identical names, who meet at the age of eight and become friends. The 'present day' narrative for each is set in 2016, and the book gradually charts what has happened to each of them from the time of their meeting to that present day.
It took me a while to really get into it, because there wasn't much information to go on in the early stages that drew me in to wanting to find out more. It's one of those books where you know there are going to be 'shocking revelations' and 'terrible secrets revealed' but the initial setup was so nebulous as to be less than compelling.
However, I stuck it out and things did start to come together, as more became clear. I liked both narrators and things really picked up in the latter third, once the two 'present day' narratives joined together.
The amount of abused suffered by the two protagonists (and other characters) was pretty relentless, though, and it got a bit much by the end.
There were two main aspects to the revealed story - one of them looked like it was going to reach a very melodramatic conclusion and didn't, but then the melodrama hit from the other one instead. So, I guess subverting expectations was good, but it did get a touch over the top.
The ending made me cry, though - so I'd definitely become very emotionally invested in the story of both women by that point.
So, not the best example of this type of book I've read - but it got where it needed to go (hitting me in the feels) by the end.
It's a split narrative - following two young women with almost identical names, who meet at the age of eight and become friends. The 'present day' narrative for each is set in 2016, and the book gradually charts what has happened to each of them from the time of their meeting to that present day.
It took me a while to really get into it, because there wasn't much information to go on in the early stages that drew me in to wanting to find out more. It's one of those books where you know there are going to be 'shocking revelations' and 'terrible secrets revealed' but the initial setup was so nebulous as to be less than compelling.
However, I stuck it out and things did start to come together, as more became clear. I liked both narrators and things really picked up in the latter third, once the two 'present day' narratives joined together.
The amount of abused suffered by the two protagonists (and other characters) was pretty relentless, though, and it got a bit much by the end.
There were two main aspects to the revealed story - one of them looked like it was going to reach a very melodramatic conclusion and didn't, but then the melodrama hit from the other one instead. So, I guess subverting expectations was good, but it did get a touch over the top.
The ending made me cry, though - so I'd definitely become very emotionally invested in the story of both women by that point.
So, not the best example of this type of book I've read - but it got where it needed to go (hitting me in the feels) by the end.
