First person singular paperback7/6/2023 ![]() ![]() Although dark and moody, it's ultimately uplifting at the end, with a salute to all the loners of the world. With the caveat about the dated references, I'd highly recommend "First Person, Singular" to any marginalized teen. ![]() Without social media to either find connections or unfavorably compare ourselves with other’s carefully curated lives, we loners had to find coping methods including pets, nature and God forbid, parents. Like Pamela, who voices the novel, I felt isolated and generally out of it most of my middle school and high school years. ![]() Maybe I was in a particularly introspective mood, or especially sympathetic with the loners of the world following a couple recent school suicides, but I reconnected with the character and her experience. Naturally pretty and sensitive, she struggles to fit in at school, cope with her mother’s recovery from a nervous breakdown and her father’s self-absorption. Told by seventeen-year-old Pamela, “First Person, Singular” describes her lonely journey through middle and high school in a small, industrial Pennsylvania town. ![]() I'm rating this a 5 even though it's now a time capsule into the early 70's and has some rather "politically incorrect", although appropriate for the era, verbiage. I had to order it from a college library but I'm glad I did. First Person Singular: Stories (Paperback) Haruki Murakami. The iconic novel of my teens, it reappeared on my radar when it popped up in a random Amazon or Goodreads search. I had this 70's era YA book in my closet until my early 20's, finally giving it away in embarrassment. ![]()
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