Elephant Girl: A Human Story (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
This was a free download and I knew as I started reading that it wouldn't be a favorite. I kept waiting for some kind of success, joy, resolution or inkling of hope in her life. I think that is why I continued reading, to see if by some chance as she grew older that the victim of circumstance mentality would change. This is her story of her life told and felt in her perspective, and looking in from the outside, what a sad, sad life it was. Overall, I liked this book and there are plenty of other 4- and 5-star reviews that do an excellent job of explaining why. So I'll just keep this short and mention the two things I didn't like.1. At the 2/3 point, I grew a little tired of the dialogues and event sequences that were reproduced without much reflection. Portions were like reading a transcription or script: I said blah blah; he said blah blah; I drove here; my car died; I walked home, I got fired, etc.2. The wrap-up and Cinderella-story ending came a bit to quick and easy for me. I had the feeling that the author was tired of writing in so much depressing detail and decided one day to just end it. To be honest, I felt a bit cheated. After having invested so much time going through the depressing repetition of hard luck stories that make up the first 90% of the book, I expected a bit more than the few pages devoted to her turn around. I mean she's an obscure, frequently homeless and jobless blogger who's seriously ill and planning her own suicide. Then suddenly she's all better and is being handed new SUVs for a blogging road trip financed by Internet strangers? It would have been nice to see how the survival instincts, grit and determination that had brought her to that point became so much more powerful when backed up by the new "stampede" attitude that she finally acquired at the end of the book. Instead of feeling good about her hard-earned triumph, I simply felt let down.
What do You think about Elephant Girl: A Human Story (2011)?
Far too depressing to even finish reading. Not written especially well either.
—nightmanxcometh
this is a bit scattered and confusing to read at times.
—meka
