Pretend I'm Dead
Ratings9
Average rating3.8
Jen Beagins funny, moving, fearless debut novel introduces an unforgettable character, Mona--almost 24, cleaning houses to get by, emotionally adrift. Handing out clean needles to drug addicts, she falls for a recipient who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways. Always just under the surface are her memories of growing up in a chaotic, destructive family from which she's trying to disentangle herself. The story of her journey toward a comfortable place in the world and a measure of self-acceptance is psychologically acute, often surprising, and entirely human.
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2 primary booksPretend I'm Dead
Pretend I'm Dead is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2015 with contributions by Jen Beagin.
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3.5 Her work is peppered with white moments in otherwise humorous, off-center, compulsive reading. This one includes racist lampshading (‘I choose to have my character say something racist apropos of no theme, but she acknowledges it's racist so it's ok').
This one started out okay and then, by the middle, I kind of felt like I was being beat over the head with the writer's bag of tricks stick. I probably would have liked this better in small chunks spread out over time. I was NOT a fan of Mona, no matter how broken she was I didn't understand her lack of motivation to actually live. It didn't seem like depression.
