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How To Be Both (2014)

by Ali Smith(Favorite Author)

3.87 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Penguin

review 1: Highly recommendable, better books of the year, short-listed for Booker prize, could've easily won it. Two parallel stories, order depending on the copy. The first one about a renaissance artist and his art, the second about a teenager in the 1960s who's overcoming the death of her mother. Stories are linked to each other in so many ways, the book is so innovative and thoughtful that it requires another reading. The other story is one of the most beautiful stories about grief, the importance of friendship and overcoming loss. So many levels that everyone should have their own interpretation of it.
review 2: My borrowed version was ordered chronologically, and I really struggled with getting into the story. Maybe this was in part due to my fairly recent reading... more of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing, which has a similarly strangled use of language in the beginning which interrupts the narrative flow despite being a narrative device. However, I persevered, this being my nature, and it paid off. I enjoyed both halves of the story and think this may be a book to read again in the future as I had to rush to finish for, due to demand, it was not renewable. How to be oneself is the theme in both halves and the challenges therein will be familiar to most of us, yet the stories are extraordinary more than commonplace and drawn with deft delicacy. less

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