We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

A fantastic gem of a book. Rosemary Cooke is the narrator, telling the story of how she had a sister, Fern, when she was small, and then Fern disappeared and her family was turned upside down. The book deals with human and animal cognition and mental development, the ethics of animal experimentation, memory and family life, AND Rosemary Cooke is a delightful character. She feels herself to be an outsider to “normal” groups of people—girls she meets at college, for example. Her sense of herself as an outsider gives her a bit of an acerbic view of human relations, including her own relationships with other people. The result is often hilarious commentary on human behavior.

I really loved this book. I'll be looking up Karen Joy Fowler's other books to put on my reading list.