Torn Skirt Book

Though i finished this novel some weeks ago, i had mixed feelings about its significance. At some times it was hard for me to suspend my disbelief in regards to some of the situations the narrator got herself into, and at other times i just wanted to roll my eyes becasue of her blatant stupidity passed off as teenage confusion and naiveté by the author.

Sara was not naive, in fact, she mentions several times that all she wanted to do was "fuck it all up." And that sums up my qualm with the entire novel. I couldn't help but feel that the author's intention was to make it seem as if Sara winded up in these situations by accident or due to lack of proper guidance, when in fact Sara's narration suggested that she was looking for trouble. She was looking for that grungy, raw, unapologetic, unaffected way of life. She was so fascinated by Justine's untamed wildness that she fashioned a life for herself in the same likeness while having conflicting emotions all the while.

That aside, her relationship with her father and the dissolution of it was heartbreakingly hard to read, i loved the characters of the lost girls she wanted to, but couldn't quite emulate. Although i feel like some of the story was contrived, what did inspire me was Godfrey's writing. There was a simplictic honesty in Sara's narration (even if i couldn't quite believe it all) that made me want to get out a notebook and write my life like that.

So the only reason that i gave it two stars was because it wasn't made clear or written between the lines why someone whose life was so unsable and desperate for connection would continually search for more instability, her explaintions, although well written were just not convincing enough for me.