I doubt it is a novel that will make anyone rethink how they conduct themselves (except perhaps to pay more attention to animal rights campaigning), but as a quirky, entertaining read it fares extraordinarily well. Infused with a subtle humour throughout, Beside Ourselves navigates family relationships, feminist issues, and animal rights abuses with equal candour. True to my initial impression, the book is quite unlike any that I’ve read in a while this is no standard coming-of-age story or boy-meets-girl romance. Told from the perspective of Rosemary Cooke, a woman whose entire childhood formed the basis of a psychological experiment run by her father, the novel follows her life after the disappearance of her sister Fern. Of all the books longlisted for the Man Booker Prize this year, the synopsis for We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Karen Joy Fowler) was the one that intrigued me the most (followed by Orfeo by Richard Powers and Paul Kingsnorth’s The Wake).
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