A Girl, in Parts: A Novel

by Jasmine Paul

Book Overview

A first novel of adolescence that introduces a voice so fresh, so original, so pitch-perfect it seems destined to become a classic in the literature of coming of age. In the early 1980s in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 158243218X
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.8" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

more than 5-star book

This is a great book!! It is certainly an underrated novel, and should be on display everywhere books are sold. The only bad part about the book is the ending, only because that means that I have no more to read about Dorothy! I can't wait for the next book. ********cans of yoohoo!*********days working in the movie theatres********driving home with friends after graduating college********The Doors movie********zima********whiskey and the battlefield********** %%%%%%%%%% you bet!!! %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% I really can't wait for the next book, and the one after that, and the one after that......

LOVED IT!!!

I loved this book. The characters practically jumped off the page, they were so alive. I couldn't put it down. Great beach read.

Food for thought

This was truly an enjoyable read and I'm not a huge reader. I was hooked from the start and the character of Dottie continued to draw me in. Very revealing about how young female minds work - similar to An Egg on Three Sticks which I highly recommend.

Searing and endearing --

This book took me by surprise - I couldn't put it down. Narrator sounds like a real teenager who ages convincingly chapter by chapter. Both funny and heartbreaking. if you liked this book, you'll probably like "Feeling Sorry for Celia (J. Moriarty)," "Shadow Baby (A. McGhee)," and "Durable Goods (E. Berg)."

A Writer, on Fire

In the first few paragraphs of A GIRL, IN PARTS, Dottie the narrator describes a fire that she imagines will consume the home in which she lives with her family. It is perhaps one of the most passionately rendered openings of a novel I have read in years. And the voice remains as such to the very end--charged with conviction, anger, humor, but most of all, a mammoth sense of love that is liable to pierce even the hardest coats of cynicism. Amazingly, Jasmine Paul holds true the voice of a nine year old throughout the novel, but manages also to infuse that voice with an irresistable charm and wisdom, and with a knowing that at times radiates from the page like the words of a sage. Dottie speaks like a child, but in the inventive and intense rhythm and tempo of Paul's prose, Dottie transcends her age without ever leaving it. At worst, the prose is fluid, at best, on fire.The structure of the novel, 97 self-contained vignettes constituting a wickedly florescent whole, is perhaps one of the greatest achievements of A GIRL, IN PARTS. I felt compelled to read the novel slowly, sometimes one or two vignettes at a time, resisting the urge to consume the book at one go. I did so because each vignette stands so resolutely and independently on its own, inviting the reader to savor the parts like beautifully crafted songs. I even went back and reread a number of the vignettes before continuing on to the next. I wanted to extend the experience of reading the book.What also makes this novel powerful is Paul's uncanny ability to strip memory of nostalgia and evoke an age in a girl's life with such undaunted honesty. Paul's novel thankfully never romanticizes childhood; it opts instead for creating a time that is necessarily and realistically messy, and definitely more dynamic, true, and breathtaking as a result.I can't recommend this novel enough. I can't wait for Jasmine Paul to write another.