The Story of You by Julie Myerson

The Story of You Reviews

• 
  Lucy Banks

  This was a really fascinating book. I'm not actually sure I enjoyed reading it, but the writing was so powerful (and at times, raw) that I felt it had to have five stars.
  
  The story centres around one woman's grief (I won't spoil the plot) and how she essentially has a mental breakdown. I like the ambiguity of it all - I still wasn't sure at the end whether or not she was going slightly mad or experiencing something supernatural.
  
  As a parent, certain scenes in this book were agonising to read - and it's testament to Myerson's literary ability that she made those scenes so powerful. I did actually cry a little bit at one part - which is highly unusual for me!
  
  Only one weak area - the 'you' character (without giving too much away) was a bit irritating towards the end. Too many 'I love you baby's' for my liking! But that's only a small, nit-picky point.
  
  Don't expect an easy ride when reading this book - it's painful, nostalgic, and at times, oddly drifting. But it certainly is worth reading, as it's moving, thought-provoking stuff.
• 
  Julie

  3.5 ⭐ for me... Quite good.
  
  Oh boy, what an emotional read and one that I think very few will say that they 'enjoyed '.
  No speech marks, so sometimes had to re-read to establish who was talking.
  Very well written, almost poetic. A roller-coaster of "Is this reality or not." I'll leave you to read it to find out.
• 
  Clare

  Myerson’s prose is almost poetic, and I found myself entranced from the very first paragraph. The story is beautifully written as Myerson weaves together memories of an encounter many years ago with the story of today.
  
  Rosy, the central character and the voice of the novel is battling to keep her family life on track following the tragic death of her youngest daughter. When her husband takes her away to Paris she takes a walk in the snow at the crack of dawn and meets a man who was once the boy she spent the night with more than twenty years ago on that memorable night that continues to haunt her.
  
  When she returns home she strikes up an email conversation with the man, who behaves as though they haven’t seen each other for twenty years.
  
  Myerson weaves the past and the present together in such a way that the true account of her daughter’s tragic death isn’t made clear until more than half way through the novel. The relationship she has with Tom, her almost-husband, is a stark contrast to the affair she strikes up with “you”, the man who understands her in a way no one else ever has, and whose name the reader never learns.
  
  I couldn’t put this book down as I wanted to know more about the events of the past, and whether Rosy’s lover really existed; I wondered whether he was real, a figment of her imagination, a ghost or even an hallucination.
  
  The Story of You took my breath away, made my heart ache and made me think about the preciousness of love, relationships and the simple gestures and understandings that draw people together.
  
  It’s been almost three days since I finished reading the book and I still find myself thinking about it, which is why I’ve decided to award The Story of You by Julie Myerson the elusive 6 star rating at Blue Archipelago Reviews!
• 
  Louise

  A strange book, I do not think I have ever read anything like it - though this could be purely down to me needing to read more!
  
  Rosy has suffered a terrible tragedy in her family and is finding it hard to readjust to normal life with her partner Tom and two sons. On a anniversary trip to Paris she runs into a old friend but something seems to make her wonder if she imagined him being there, to confirm this an email from him arrives soon after implying he has not seen her in twenty years.
  
  I become engrossed in this book very quickly, the lack of regular chapters only heightened my desire to keep reading and I read in three large sittings. I was swept along with Rosy and her emotions and although sometimes I find her behavior odd I cannot judge as she has gone through a terrible ordeal.
  
  The tragedy is not revealed until a good half way through the book although there are clues. The various plot lines integrate very well and the book keeps you guessing, my only negative would be the ending seems too neat and simple.
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Rebecca Stonehill

  This was not my kind of book really. It started off promisingly, written in the second person, 'you', which caught my attention as it's such an unusual way to write. As the story went on though, this began to grate and the writing felt a little too pleased with itself, exacerbated by the lack of speech marks throughout the novel. I also just didn't buy the premise on which the whole story hung: the encounter Rosy has during university with a boy didn't feel powerful enough to merit what comes twenty years later. The one thing I did feel that Myserson handled masterfully was the slow, tragic unfolding of the death of the two year old daughter's death. Heart-wrenching, really.
• 
  Susie

  This is a beautiful, haunting work of fiction, and one of the best studies of obsessive memory I have read. It captures the persistence of memory in all its complexity and irrationality.
  
  It is both consummately-conceived and completely resolved.
  
  I almost dare not read Myerson's others!
• 
  Francesca

  Io ho amato questo libro. L’autrice riesce a scandagliare come pochi l’animo femminile e l’atmosfera onirica, parigina, londinese, umida, fredda, invernale, di tardo pomeriggio, traspare alla perfezione. Sembra di essere lì, con Nic. Non mi aspettavo una storia così bella e lo consiglio.
• 
  Simona Moschini

  Dopo il bellissimo "Può sempre succedere", credevo di andare a colpo sicuro.
  E invece.
• 
  Beccy

  I didn't believe in the characters and I didn't like this book.
• 
  Tracy Birrell

  Beautifully written and moved me to tears in parts.
• 
  Deborah Allin

  From the opening line I was entranced by this book. It evoked powerful feelings of a long ago love that never really came to fruition, all tangled up with current feelings of loss over a different kind of love, that between mother and child.
  
  Its hard to find words for how this book affected me. I found it difficult to pick up another book following this one for in it I feel Julie Myerson reached deep into the soul of her central character Rosy/Nic providing a complex portrait with so many layers and textures.
  
  One of the very interesting aspects it explores is of how loss of a child can affect a couple in such a way that they are pushed apart both struggling in their own personal ways with a huge grief.
  
  In reconnecting with "you", Rosy is able to find and express parts of herself she cannot seem to in her relationship with her husband and yet in the end that relationship brings her back in touch with her love for her husband.
  
  I highly recommend this book.
• 
  Allan

  I've had to revisit this review as this book has stayed in my psyche since finishing it! I particuarly enjoyed the first half or so but then found some of the bits describing Nicole/Rosy's meetings with "you" somewhat repetitive (her Uni friend who comes back into her consciousness). I also wasn't sure about Tom's passivity- it suited the story and certainly made me think, but was it convincing in the light of Nicole's behaviour? Arguably he might nave been more concerned as to whether she was losing her sanity. However, I really enjoyed the fluidity of Julie Myerson's writing, and found myself empathising with many of the feelings it was evoking particularly early on. Certainly easy to read- and the movement between different time frames in consecutive sections for once seemed to work well- rather than being a distraction. On refelction, have changed my review from a 3 to 4 stars!
  
  
• 
  Heidi

  This is the story of Rosy who, following the sudden death of her young child, has an affair with an old flame.
  
  This book is very ambiguous, and by the end of the book you are not entirely sure whether what happened is real or imaginary in Rosy's head. It is very mysterious and ethereal. It is quite difficult to get into to start with, as it is written in the second person and ignores punctuation etc. However, the story pulls you along, although it is disappointing in places in that it doesn't really go into enough depth, and things seem to be resolved far too easily.
• 
  Sandra

  Ultimately it might have merited three stars but it started so badly that I was hard pushed to continue at times. I've never found first person narratives especially difficult but this verged on monotonous at times, and coupled with lack of apostrophes to denote speech and tricksy 'was it real or just her imagintion?' passages I did find this one hard to take.
  And the ending felt too OTT simplistically inevitable.
• 
  Sam

  This book started out with a lot of good potential. I finished this book in two days. I found it very hard to put down, and I thought that the writing was very well done.
  However, I really didn't like the ending - that kind of ruined the book for me. Without giving too much away, I just thought she could have done so much more with the book by ending it in a slightly different way.
• 
  Mary Lou

  This novel slips effortlessly between past and present, real life and another parallel one. The annoying characters overshadow the stunning writing style. Even so,this author is a master of suspense, and while you ache to know what happened Mary, at the same time you do nt ever want to know because it will be too hard to bear.
• 
  Mew

  This was as other-worldly as the books that I normally love to read. Somehow this didn't work for me though. At times the characters were annoying and the dialogue bordered on self indulgent. Not brilliant
• 
  Sarah

  So far, this book is amazing. Ending was a bit different than I expected, but still worth it.
• 
  Chryselle

  I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
  
  http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13642348