Meet Me in the In-Between: A Memoir

So, part way through the chapter I was thinking of as The Godfather chapter, I started to wonder if maybe I was reading a fiction book and not a memoir. I mean, book started out with an incubus, and I was cool with that as non-fiction, but the dappled Italian summers filled with olive trees and mafioso in-laws, my mind could not process that as anything other than fiction. Is that a failure as a memoir or a success for a creative non-fiction piece? We have a Woody-Allen-1970s-New-York childhood crisis, a Godfather quarter-life crisis, a Thelma-and-Louise roadtrip-type crisis, a Cormac McCarthy forties crisis, and a British stiff-upper-lip NHS healthcare crisis. And an incubus (we'll call that a pale Paranormal Activity crisis). And show more comics (Fun Home?). The whole book has a cinematic feel, a poor-little-rich-girl-wandering-to-try-and-find-herself feel that may not be relatable: I, for one, do not have a vacation house in Colorado and a non-vacation house in England; I've never tried to cross the Mexican-US border illegally for a magazine story; I'm not married to a prime minister's grandson, etc.

So something about Meet Me in the In-Between doesn't seem real. I'm guessing that's the point of meeting Pollen in the in-between. Real, not real, incubus, mafioso, Colorado, sharp, unexpected turns like in a dream. Off-putting but neither in a bad nor a good way.

Meet Me in the In-Between by Bella Pollen went on sale June 16, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. show less

I should have given up when the incubus turned up in chapter one. But as ever, my stupid persistence kept telling me to give it a chance. I feel bad being so negative. After all, this is the author's memoir, so criticizing anything about it feels kind of wrong. But honestly, I didn't enjoy this. Some of that was due to the style. It was delivered in a smug tone that I just didn't like. It was overwritten, trying too hard. Then there were some elements relating to race, nationalities, and descriptions of people that I believe the author intended to be amusing (at least I hope so), but I didn't find those funny at all. Reading somebody's memoir is all about getting to know that particular person, and in this case, the author and I just show more didn't click.
At times, I felt I was reading short fictional stories rather than an autobiographical account. It seemed like a collection of stories from somebody extremely privileged and I just couldn't muster up any empathy. Not many people can just take off when they feel boxed in, in particular when you're a mother.
The best part of this was right at the end when the author talks about her relationship with her father. If there had been more of that same poignancy and the same level of sincere feelings that I could have related to, I would have enjoyed this a lot more.
So, sadly, this wasn't for me, but if you're looking for something a bit different and very quirky, and you can relate to the privileged POV, you will enjoy this a lot more than I did. The second star is basically on the account of the parts about the father - daughter relationship. Apologies for my negativity.
I received an ARC via NetGalley. show less