Helwig, Maggie - Girls Fall Down

[oyceter]

A girl falls down in the Toronto subway; no one is sure if it's the result of chemical terrorism, hysterics, or just random. But as more and more people begin falling down, tension in the city rises and people start getting hurt in retaliation. Meanwhile, Alex is trying to hold his life together even as his old flame Susie-Paul has returned.

I loved Helwig's Where She Was Standing, and I like this, although not quite as much. Part of it was because I'm not sure if I grasped how everything tied together in the end, from Alex's uncertainty about his failing eyesight to Susie-Paul's worries about her twin brother to the general uncertainty of the city as a whole. The language is beautiful, and the imagery is gorgeous, but possibly because the story is centered on uncertainty, sometimes it felt a little static.

On the other hand, Where She Was Standing is also about uncertainty, particularly about the uncertainty of information coming out of East Timor, but that had an overall narrative drive that I felt this book didn't. Possibly it's because Alex and Susie-Paul's search for her brother is less tightly connected to the girls falling down plot, or just because I am generally less interested in the plight of a medical photographer and his new chance at love than I am in the plight of human-rights workers.

Still, I did like it, and there's a quiet beauty to it. Also, it may be something I warm up to on a reread.

Links:
- rachelmanija's review

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Hey! I just got my hands on a copy of this. I'm a little afraid to read it; I love the idea so much, I'm not sure the book itself can possibly measure up.

[oyceter]

Ooh, will be interested in what you think! I think I liked it more intellectually than I did emotionally; I couldn't quite grasp on to some ineffable thing.

[loligo.livejournal.com]

One thing I loved about this book was the beautifully complex role of the teenage girls -- how they're trivialized or turned into symbols by the people around them (as they always are), but secretly their true lives are at the very nexus of this thing that affects the whole city.

I keep meaning to write a longer post about this.

[oyceter]

Yes, I forgot to comment on that! I loved those bits SO MUCH!

I keep meaning to write a longer post about this.

*makes big blinky eyes*