The Caffeinated Diva reads...

About a Girl is the third book in Sarah McCarry's Metamorphoses series, telling of a third generation. The first book, All Our Pretty Songs, tells the stories of Aurora and her nameless best friend. The second book, Dirty Wings, tells the stories of Cassie and Maia, the mother sof Aurora and her friend. This book tells the story of Tally, Aurora's daughter.

Tally has never met her mother, who left her as a newborn. She was raised by her mother's nameless best friend, whom she calls Aunt Beast, and her aunt's best friend Raoul and his husband Henri. No matter how their family was formed, it was one of love. They have fostered her super intelligence and supported her and between them and her best friend Shane, Tally has never needed anyone else. But a chance (or is it chance?!) look at a photo of her mother and a once famous musician named Jake sets her on a quest to find answers.

Fresh from heart ache because of seemingly unrequited feelings for Shane, her search takes her to the west coast to a town where strange things seem to happen. Finding answers is harder than she thought as she forgets why she is there and is drawn deeper and deeper into the weirdness that is this reclusive town.

I love these books, despite their very unusual lyrical styles. The first book was dark and disturbing, and written in a lyrical prose that seemed as if it came from an altered state of mind... totally appropriate for the themes of drugs and alcohol that were such a part of the story. It sucks you into the madness, losing sense of time and place, and then brings you back to reality. The second book rides the edge of sanity and danger, taking the reader back and forth with the lyrical writing. This last book is a foray into obsession and desire, the lyrical prose rich with description and emotion.

There are threads of mythology throughout these books, with references to various characters of the Greek stories. While the threads are there, the stories do't conform to the exact tales, but imagine those characters in today's world, the aftermath of the stories we all know.

My Recommendation

This is a book, and a series, that requires an appreciation for the dark and the disturbing and a unique way of telling a story. The prose is beautiful in its own way, even as it takes you down a path that, on the surface, makes no sense. It is necessary to give yourself over to it and to see it for what it is... a descent into a madness that can overtake us all.