Book 22 - Death as that We-Should-Totally-Catch-Up-But-Never-Do Friend

Title: I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death Author: Maggie O'Farrell Genre: SpooOOOooky Irish memoir

This book was really, REALLY cool, and unlike anything I've ever read before. It took me a good few chapters to even realize it was a memoir; it seemed more like folklore, or dark fiction - not some woman's life so frequently punctured by brushes and touches of death!

O'Farrell starts out with an incredibly creepy, eerily familiar story that hearkens to the creepy crawlies you feel when someone around you just oozes violence without moving a single muscle. From there, she jumps around her life, relaying her incredibly adventurous and highly enviable life with quietly agonizing opportunities where if a butterfly on the other side of the world had so much as goddamn sneezed, her life would have been OVER.

What really struck me about her tales was that while being absolutely unique to her experience, they also sucked me in by being so accessible somehow; like I said already, they were familiar in a way. For example, she had a childhood illness and talks about the minute effects on memory and experience that such an experience had on her as a child, and continue to have looking back as an adult. When I was in kindergarten, I broke my leg and was imprisoned in a bright purple full body cast for six weeks. I wasn't even strong enough to move the wheels on my own wheelchair (but I did get a teddy bear bigger than myself as a gift so, you know - worth it!). Never have I felt as though my experience, and my thoughts and feelings looking back on that time, have been so well illustrated - nor did I even realized I had been searching for the words to do so all this time.

There is one recurring problem I found with O'Farrell's writing style. Most of the time, I loved it; she creates these fairytale-esque landscapes and somehow communicates truths through highly personal stories. BUT, sometimes her writing became a bit much. She has a habit of repeating herself, emphasizing points through simile, twisting her words to do the same thing again and again to drive home the point...(see what I did there?? SEE?!) This was definitely effective in some areas, but in others it became repetitive to the point of annoying, and then just plain frustrating. I felt like I wanted to grab a red pen and start slashing away some of the lesser repeats for the good of the stronger ones.

That being said, this book was an excellent read; totally new and eerie, and highly recommended!

Rating: 🌏🌎🌍🌏/ 5