Review: "We Are Not Ourselves" by Matthew Thomas

This is the history of Eileen Leary and her family. She was the only child of naturalized parents who immigrated from Ireland. She grew up in a small apartment in New York City in the 50’s. Her parents were hard-working, hard-drinking people. Although there was chaos in her life, there was also love and big family gatherings. She met Ed Leary when she was in nursing school. He was stable, just what she was looking for in life. They married and had one child, a boy named Connell. Life was good for the Learys until Ed suffered a health crisis and it was never the same again.

The author did an impressive job describing the health crisis that Ed faced. You could feel his pain and confusion and experience the suffering of the family. The writer is very detail orientated and I cried along with the characters. Although great detail worked very well in this section of the book, it was very tedious for most of the book. The author would spend pages building up a particular storyline and then it would fizzle out. I felt I was drowning in details and getting nothing out of the story. Also, although there was great detail on some levels, I felt the characters were flat and needed fleshed out.

I can’t say that I totally disliked this. Again, the handling of the family crisis was very poignant and realistic and for that aspect, I’m glad I finished it. It is apparent that the author spent a great deal of time in the research of this book; I just did not care for this style of storytelling.