Book #44
No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
A benign encounter, a misunderstanding, a shy revelation can reconfigure the world.
I think I'm rediscovering my love for short stories this year, and these have helped me on my way quite a bit. I do think I'll have to read them all again at some point to improve my understanding of them, but for a first read it was wonderful. Having said that, I didn't really love it in the way I thought I was going to, and I still can't quite figure out whether this is a good or bad thing.
I felt a couple of the stories fell flat, but I really did enjoy the majority of them, particularly This Person, which made me cry on a train because I felt I could identify with it so much.
Each of the stories have elements that are either forlorn or perverse, sometimes both. I enjoyed reading about all of the characters, and fell in love with a few of them too, despite the fact that many of them were downright disgusting.
At times it seemed like July was behind each word whispering, "It's okay, everyone really is like this, it's not just you," but realising this still makes you feel incredibly alone and strange. It's an odd feeling.
I'm finding it quite difficult to put my thoughts on this one into words. It really is quite difficult to review short stories that have been bound together as a novel, as they can all be so different.
I will say that the first few stories aren't as good as ones that come later on, so if you're planning on reading this, please persevere because it gets a lot better further in.
I'm putting this one back on my 'to be read' pile because I feel that a re-read may bring some more things into perspective for me. Prepare yourself for a future review. This one was a bit watery, I'm still overwhelmed.