Dona's Books's Reviews > The Book of Goose

THE BOOK OF GOOSE is my first book from Yiyun Li, but I intend after this reading to read more from her. Fabienne and Agnes are best friends in a poor French country town, where they make up a great deal: new names, new lives for themselves--new people. Fabienne is bold and careless, Agnes is creative and self-aware, and both are clever. One day, Fabienne invents a plan: they will write a book, and make Agnes famous, and will have everything they want.

This book was so strange and beautiful, I hardly know how to describe it. It's a surprising tale about girlhood and friendship. It's also a story about power and exploitation, and about resisting such forces. I deeply loved the characters Agnes and Fabienne and all the weird offshoots of them both.

I listened to an Audiobook, and many times I found myself wishing I was reading it. I both wanted to study the prose, which was beautiful, and I wanted the freedom to move backward and forward more easily in the narrative. I kept thinking that the timeline bore on my interpretation of the book's meaning. This is a clever, evocative book, so I'm going to buy a print copy and reread it!

Thank you NetGalley, Yiyun Li, and MacMillan Audio for an audio ARC of this wonderful book.

Rating 5 stars
Finished October 2022
Recommended for fans of literary fiction, coming of age tales, the Brontes

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