I love Meg Rosoff as a writer. I read her debut novel, ‘How I Live Now’ when it first came out and loved it, and have continued to buy her books throughout the years when I saw them on the bookshelves. I will never get over the heart wrenching plot twist at the end of ‘What I Was’, by far my favourite novel of hers.
‘Picture Me Gone’ was another library haul book – I hadn’t actually heard of this one before, but knowing I like Rosoff’s stuff I picked it up. One unusual thing Rosoff did with her prose in this particular novel was that there was no formal dialogue. Rosoff didn’t include speech marks in her writing, and instead filtered the dialogue in with her first person narrative. This was an interesting concept, and really reinforced the idea of this being a younger protagonist of 12 years old. However, it was a little confusing at times, as at certain points it was unclear as to what was dialogue and what was the character simply describing characters around her.
The characterisation was interesting, and I did at points question whether the protagonist was intended to be autistic – due to the paying attention to things other people wouldn’t question, and then being able to connect the dots to guess at what was going on in that person’s life.
The story was cute – the protagonist, Mila, goes on a road trip to America with her father to try and find his old friend. The plot was almost an examination of the relationships people have with one another, from Mila’s best friend back home, to her relationship with her parents, to Matthew’s relationship with his wife after the tragic loss of their older son.
The ending really made this novel, as you didn’t see the plot twist coming. Plus as nice as this story was, and the dark twist at the end really uplifted the overall story, this particular novel was a little lacklustre compared to some of Rosoff’s other novels I’ve read. I enjoyed it, but it was a little disappointing when I know Rosoff can do so much better. Overall I’d give it a 3/5.
http://www.megrosoff.co.uk/
Advertisements Share this:
