Reviews

Huh. This novel, told in 536 short anecdotes and non-sequiturs, is singular. Fragmented and disjointed without being incomprehensible, Why Did I Ever documents the everyday struggles of its protagonist, Money Breton. She listens to music. She doctors scripts. She argues with her friend and her neighbour. She does some speed. She shouts at cars on the highway. She searches for her cat. But this portrait of a woman constantly on the edge of something also manages to be quite funny. Rendered in plain, spare language, Money’s sense of the world is dry and vicious.

Zippy. Sad. Good.

3.5 Letters to Sean Penn out of 5

dillarhonda's review against another edition

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Just about the only thing that is clear about the protagonist in Mary Robison’s Why Did I Ever, is that she’s having a terribly hard time. Told in snippets occasionally only a few words long and accompanied by numbers or headings as though scribbled on index cards, the plot comes out in drips and drabs. She seems to be a Hollywood script doctor, she seems to own a cat, she seems to have gone insane. Robison’s deadpan humor peppers the mundane horrors of a life slid off the rails. As the protagonist lurches through existence, at a remove from her own narration, it’s unclear how much time has passed, where in the world she is at any moment, and whether anything of what she says is true. But as you piece together the splintered fragments, you can’t help but feel for this woman so disjointed and in so much pain.

tossied's review against another edition

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sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

margaret_adams's review against another edition

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Found this novel via Jane Alison's Meander, Spiral, Explode, which cited Why Did I Ever as an example of a radially-structured narrative. I loved this, loved the fragment form, and found it totally propulsive despite (because of?) the non-traditional structure.

lisadeluc's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

bjr2022's review against another edition

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4.0

This wild ride of a woman with a scrambled brain, a wacky career doctoring film scripts, and two grown children in terrible trouble reads like a series of Booth cartoon captions, if Booth were a woman who worked in Hollywood. Or it might also be written like a series of disconnected numbered scenes in a Hollywood shooting script. Or, or, or . . . who knows? I don't. It is funny and sad and completely unhinged. I enjoyed it.

sed's review against another edition

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funny reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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