Knock Knock (edition 2012)

I found this book to be confusing at first-a memoir about the author presumably but with a different name and written in the third person. March, the main character, lives a very emotional life told in a poetic, almost flat way. This is a unique book-not totally my taste but I did appreciate the writing and the story.

I really didn't care for this book. It took me a few weeks of picking it up and putting it back down to actually get through the first few pages. It seemed like it was overly-stylized and wordy. Every time it felt like it was going in one direction and getting to the point, it veered off another way and lost me again.

Knock Knock by Suzanne McNear is fantastic. The narrative is a bit stream of consciousness, although it is a third person narrator, not first person. The book follows March Rivers through her life, from childhood to old age, concentrating a lot on her emotional responses to events. So much of what March feels is relatable.

The writing style is unique and provocative. As lyrical as poetry. Again, part of the point of the book (in my opinion) was to focus on March's emotions, so this style works well. The immediacy is clear and strong.

I know not everyone will enjoy this novel, but fans of literary fiction will. ( )

Wow, what a surprisingly delightful book! I received a copy from the publisher and, admittedly it did take me a while to really get into the story. The book is described as a "fictional memoir" but it didn't read like a memoir to me. It was actually quite stylized and reminded me of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." It sort of meandered from one moment to the next and the lack of quotation marks was at first difficult to adjust to but later helped the narrative to flow unencumbered.

Once I got into the story I couldn't put it down. It's beautifully written; in fact it's quite lyrical. The story is that of March, who begins life as a rather unhappy soul and descends into a downward spiral of depression and hopelessness. Eventually she slowly begins to come out and find her way in the world.

There did come a point where I worried that the story would go so deep into this woman's troubled mind, that I would somehow lose the empathy I had for her, or perhaps the belief I had that her struggles mirrored many other woman living in the same time period. But the author pulled her out, slowly and realistically, and in the end, while her life wasn't perfect, March indeed had a story that was worth sharing.

I highly recommend this book and hope to convince several of my friends to read it, as the constant literary references and unique story should lead to many interesting discussions. ( )

Reading much like a memoir, this novel is presumably an autobiographical account of the author's journey both geographically and emotionally. A naive young woman from the Midwest, March lands in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago at different times in her adult search for belonging and purpose. From a slow start, this book gains momentum as March does. The flat affect is somewhat hypnotic, and there's a distance between the reader and the narrator that is somehow compelling. ( )