And Then She Fell

A evocative tale reflecting on reality vs unreality- culture and mental health, the internal and external worlds. A Native American woman deals with life after leaving her community to live with a white husband who doesn't understand her perspective or her struggle whilst she battles postpartum depression and the loss of her mother. Magical realism meets magic meets reality, honestly I adored this. 

I just finished And then she fell by Alicia Elliott and here are my thoughts.

Alice portrays the image she wants the world to see. Devoted mother, loving wife living in a nice neighborhood in Toronto. Her husband Steve is supportive but the loss of her mother has sent her spiraling. It doens't help that she can't connect with her own daughter and just feels like an imposter. An indigenous woman living a white lady's life.

Everywhere she turns, she feels self doubt seeping in and when she starts hearing voices and seeing things that aren't there, she feels she needs to write the stories of her people like her life depends on it.

It was an interesting way to narrate a book. The author took the characters state of mind and built a narrative that got more and more jumbled as the book went on. It was clever and slightly annoying at the same time. The one thing that didn't sit so well with me is the fact that Alice seemed to see racism everywhere. Anything anyone said or did, to her, had racial undertones. My husband's family is from cape mudge and I have part indigenous children and I don't know why, but it rubbed me up the wrong way. I know her mental health was on a serious decline but it didn't sit well with me. I know everyone's experiences are valid but it felt forced to me.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the tone to the book. Alice was blowing up her own life a lot and only her POV made it hard to connect with other people in any tangible way. Having said that, this book did hit home for me about how fragile our mental health truly is and the author did a stellar job of highlighting it in a serious and well researched manner. It was a little dark and on occasion humorous but all in all the pace was decent and I did find the end to be the best part of the whole book.

The book dug deep into Alice's psyche and the adaptations a person has to make in order to feel accepted. It was a clever construction and did have me thinking hard after I was done. I feel like this book made me hate it and love it. That doesn't usually happen to me.

3.75 stars

Thank you @netgalley and @penguinrandomca for my gifted copy