This week has chosen to be dark themed on its own. I have been reading on and off these days, erm.. actually took a long break from reading and that is for sure going to affect my yearly target of 52 books. I know it sounds an easy mark for few, but seems such right now a difficult one to reach. Hey don't hold it against me, there were many books that I read and decided to not continue further.
Anyway coming back to the topic, I received '
The Girl Who Couldn't Come Up With an Original Title' for review and I picked up not knowing that it contains two short stories both based on the above mentioned dark themes like suicide, depression and despair. All I knew was it had a intriguing and title and it came in highly recommended by Maxine herself. So go ahead find out if I was satisfied.
The Girl Who Couldn't Come Up With an Original Title' for review and I picked up not knowing that it contains two short stories both based on the above mentioned dark themes like suicide, depression and despair. All I knew was it had a intriguing and title and it came in highly recommended by Maxine herself. So go ahead find out if I was satisfied.
Author: The Behrg
Genre: Fiction - Short Story
The first short story is about 'the girl' who is a writer with incessant suicidal thoughts. She attempts to commit suicide thrice but fails miserably. The story starts with her struggling to find a title for her writing all through the story, falling and travelling between lines. I loved the word play and her struggle to cope up with depression and the thin gap between survival instinct and to give up and choose the easy way out.
It took a few pages for me to get into the story, and once we are past that we are worried if she is ever gonna return back to the land of normalcy. The pain of not feeling anything and having no one to speak to hits too near to home to not understand her frustration.
The second story is about another struggling writer again fighting his emotions to go ahead with his decision to die. He knows Despair too well and his tug off war with Insanity and Reluctance creates the necessary suspense in the reader to know if Dave is going ahead with his decision.
I loved the second story better even though it was shorter of the two. It was like watching the Inside Out (the movie) but only darker and more grown up. I know this may not be a fair comparison but I liked the personification of our emotions.
Both the stories wouldn't make you love them or feel happy after you read them, many might be put off by the theme, but they struck a chord with me and make me mull over it for a while.The author's note made a lot of sense and her call to understand and help people affected by depression and suicidal tendencies is welcome.
I picked up the book for its quirky title and I wasn't disappointed and all in about 36 pages!
Watch out for this space where I try attempting to review one of those much hailed author's book pretty soon!