We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

by Karen Joy Fowler, Karen Joy Fowler

Paperback

Published Jan. 13, 2013 by Penguin Group.

ISBN:: 978-0-14-218082-2

(11 reviews)

Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. "I was raised with a chimpanzee," she explains. "I tell you Fern is a chimp and, already, you aren't thinking of her as my sister. . . . Until Fern's expulsion . . . she was my twin, my fun-house mirror, my whirlwind other half. . . . I loved her as a sister." As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence. In We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler weaves her most accomplished work to date--a tale of loving but fallible people whose well-intentioned actions lead to heartbreaking consequences.

14 editions

Stephanie Jane reviewed We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Thought-provoking

4 stars

Content warning Vague allusion to a significant plot point

My partner bought the paperback of We Are Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler during his last Waterstones shopping spree when we returned to the UK in April. I hadn't read anything about it prior to picking up the book so didn't know anything about the 'otherness' of Fern until Fowler reveals her in the text. In her afterword, Fowler says that many people do already know and this doesn't detract from the novel. I don't want to give the secret away though - just in case there is still someone else out there in blissful ignorance. This stance does make reviewing the book a tad tricky!

I can say that We Are Completely Beside Ourselves is a very readable book, well plotted and with strong characters throughout. I liked our protagonist, Rosemary, a lot especially her discussions of memory and how events we think we remember aren't always as they actually were. We unwittingly alter our memories simply by repeatedly remembering them. The path that Rosemary's family chose to take - yes, I'm being deliberately vague for plot reasons - shocked me and I did google in disbelief. Scientists really did think this was a 'good' thing to do. There are several real life occurrences and relatively recently too!

This is certainly a thought-provoking book. Issues such as the consequences of lying to children, animal rights, scientific responsibility, our understanding of intelligence, and the blurred distinction between fighting for freedom / terrorism, are all thrust into the spotlight for the reader to consider. Fowler does include lots of long words so there were times when I wished I had it on Kindle with the inbuilt dictionary, but all in all, an engrossing and interesting novel.

Simon Vandereecken ~ Nithou reviewed We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

We are all completely beside ourselves

4 stars

We are all completely beside ourselves tells the story of a peculiar family and their troubles seen through the eyes of the little sister Rosemary, telling us about her family, her brother that went away and her sister that suddenly disappeared, breaking the family in pieces.

Through her eyes and memories we go around time in a messy way, just like we remember ourselves. Bit by bit we uncover an unique family and every chapter brings another surprise. While at first the family looks quite dysfunctional, you begin to realise that the way they act and behave might be quite understandable.

I loved reading this book, every single person in it is quite unique in its own way and lovable.

luch@books.solarpunk.moe reviewed We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

A Grounded, Complex Look at Intersecting Worlds

5 stars

This was the first book I picked up this year. I think about it all the time, and it's one that I expect I shall revisit. There's a lot going on here: individual and familial conflict and splintering in loss; some of the potential effects of choosing an active, militant, radical, underground life; the close, easy bonds between people and the "natural" world we inhabit, and the ways that these are distorted and ruptured by contemporary social structures; and on.

I think that any radical—especially those interested in animal liberation—should pick this up, at the very least for the lens it offers. But I also think that those who aren't radical will find insights here to hold on to—and may come to understand some pieces of what move the rest of us.