Eimear McBride

Eimear McBride's novel tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother after a tumour leaves him severely brain damaged. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and sensual urges of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, to read A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation.

A Girl is a Half-formed Thing

This Book is Full of Half-formed Sentences

Lindy

Eimear McBride's debut tells, with astonishing insight and in brutal detail, the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, to read A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation.Touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma, McBride writes with singular intensity, acute sensitivity and mordant wit. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is moving, funny - and alarming.

it took me a bit to get into it because I’ve never read a book with this kind of writing style but once i got into the grove of it I actually really liked it 

Essence

Mia Caven

A sad and touching story but I couldn’t truly get with the way it was written. It got better by the end and was very emotional but the way it was written meant I couldn’t connect with the character. Additionally I think books like this that are pure negative experiences and no positive ones are a hard read for me. Life is negative but it also is positive (for example a little life; such a sad story but it had moments of beautiful happiness too which is why I loved it because that way it was realistic)! I can see the potential and I think it’s great so much was conveyed with honestly such little genuinely said.

genius writing. never seen it before but it was so cleverly crafted that i could grasp so vividly despite the broken english and grammar

Tailah Clarkson

Heather Ellis

I read this with the full knowledge that the subject matter would be hard and heartbreaking, but I had no idea about the difficulty the prose would cause me. 

I consider myself a pretty fast reader, I can read through classics fairly easily and if it is a well-written book I can finish it in about 2-3 days while still appreciating and analysing the author's motivations. However, this book, this tiny book, took me over a week to read. I agonised over the prose and the lack of sentences in some sections. I loved that McBride did this, I was forced to appreciate every word, sentence and phrase that she had decided to write down. The messy prose mirrored the messy life that 'the girl' had throughout the narrative.

I saw that someone wrote it was like a long string of poetry, which I would agree with, but I also think its much more than that. I want to pick McBride's brain and ask her how she was able to write this way, and still create meaning for her readers and her characters.

Charlie Demosthenous

clara

Minjae

Ricky Burgess

azliana aziz

The dazzling, fearless debut novel that the New York Times hails as "a future classic" In scathing, furious, unforgettable prose, Eimear McBride tells the story of a young girl's devastating adolescence as she and her brother, who suffers from a brain tumor, struggle for a semblance of normalcy in the shadow of sexual abuse, denial, and chaos at home. Plunging readers inside the psyche of a girl isolated by her own dangerously confusing sexuality, pervading guilt, and unrelenting trauma, McBride's writing carries echoes of Joyce, O'Brien, and Woolf. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is a revelatory work of fiction, a novel that instantly takes its place in the canon.

A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing

Will Vunderink

Jason Skicewicz

Zaynab Waqas

Iris Emily

Edward

Tugce Arslan Ucer

"Winner of the 2013 Goldsmith Prize."Eimear McBride is a writer of remarkable power and originality."-The Times Literary Supplement"An instant classic."-The Guardian"It's hard to imagine another narrative that would justify this way of telling, but perhaps McBride can build another style from scratch for another style of story. That's a project for another day, when this little book is famous."-London Review of Books"A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is simply a brilliant book-entirely emotionally raw and atthe same time technically astounding. Her prose is as haunting and moving as music, and the love story at the heart of the novel-between a sister and brother-as true and wrenching as any in literature. This is a book about everything: family, faith, sex,home, transcendence, violence, and love. I can't recommend it highly enough."-Elizabeth McCracken"My discovery of the year was Eimear McBride's debut novel A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing."-Eleanor CattonEimear McBride's acclaimed debut tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumor, touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma.Eimear McBride was born in1976 and grew up in Ireland. At twenty-seven she wrote A Girl is a Half-formed Thing and spent the next nine years trying to have it published"--

Roger Amundsen

James Haliburton

WINNER OF THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONWINNER OF THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZEKERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARDWINNER OF THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZEEimear McBride's award-winning debut novel tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. It is a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist. To read A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world at first hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation.

A Girl is a Half-formed Thing

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