Rachel Reviews: We Are Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Karen Joy Fowler has written a family story with a difference in this book. Told by Rosie, it is a tale of siblings and tensions and rivalries but it is also a conversation about our relationship with animals and how humans variously have differing views of whether or not animals should be put to use, kept for purposes other than as pets or if what is needed is a reimagining of how we treat others who share our planetary space.

I am going to have to tread carefully in this review to not reveal the big conceit around which the book is shaped because it would spoil it for you.

So, proceeding circumspectly, what the book is about is Rosie coming to terms with something which she does in her childhood which results in her sister, Fern being taken away. Also, Rosie is without her brother, Lowell, who also disappears unexpectedly and Rosie ruminates throughout the book on how this happened, showing us events from her past and present to try and make sense of how she finds herself alone. She feels guilt and responsibility for the disappearing people from her life but she has no memory of the circumstances, a bit like a repressed memory and the book charts her discovery of what really happened.

What the novel also does is raise a lot of questions: should animals be used for experimentation? Do we have any more 'rights' than them and are we abusing them if we exploit them? In this, it is a thought-provoking read.

It also discusses an unorthodox family set-up and the dynamics between siblings and how bringing our children up in situations which do not totally conform to the current norm can affect the in averse ways in that they can spend time essentially coming to terms with the way they've been raised differently for the rest of their lives.

This was a good read for the most part. I felt like the middle 100 pages could probably have been better paced; it wasn't the content so much as detail which I felt was extraneous to the book's development and I mentally trudged through it. In contrast, I felt that the first 100 and last 100 pages were highly interesting. However, in my opinion, this slowing down of the narrative did not detract from making this a 4 star read, purely for its subject matter.

Rachel Rating: 4/5 stars

This review was first published on Reedsy Discovery:

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