Inside Her Mind (The Trick Is to Keep Breathing - Janice Galloway)

Member Name: starry

Product:	The Trick Is to Keep Breathing - Janice Galloway
Date:	09/10/01 (266 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: gripping, probing

Disadvantages: dark, may depress some

The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway is a dark, sometimes confusing novel about a young woman (we find out near the end that her name is Joy) struggling with a mix of psychological issues after the death of her boyfriend.

Galloway is a Scottish writer, and being scottish myself I could understand the dialogue and the locations. Some of the speech is very broad, and the layout of the book has some words added off the normal margins of the page and many unfinished thoughts. I do like it when books look different and have a more creative feel to them, which this book does. It is almost a poetry of thoughts and neuroses.

The story is told from the heroine's perspective, almost like a journal, but Joy does not seem to have it in her to keep a diary at the moment. Instead the reader feels that we are inside Joy's mind. A secret, invisible confidante. There are aspects of her character and her habits that, in this day and age, we are all unfortunately familiar with.

This book tackles many themes along the way including eating disorders, grief and bereavement, paranoia and low self-esteem.
If you are looking for a light read, this is not the book for you. However the work is peppered with humour, some of it dark, some of it seemingly unintentional and all the better for it.

Joy really wants to get better, she really wants to be back in control. There are more issues to wade through than she realises, she has had a hard life and difficult childhood.

The final thought we are left with is to ponder the power of genuine forgiveness. Forgiveness of self, of others, and even forgiveness for life itself, with its strange way of teaching us things.

Summary: