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Still Life with Tornado

by A.S. King (Goodreads Author)

3.86 · Rating Details · 1,976 Ratings · 395 Reviews

“I am sixteen years old. I am a human being.”

Actually Sarah is several human beings. At once. And only one of them is sixteen. Her parents insist she’s a gifted artist with a bright future, but now she can’t draw a thing, not even her own hand. Meanwhile, there’s a ten-year-old Sarah with a filthy mouth, a bad sunburn, and a clear memory of the family vacation in Mexico th ...more

Hardcover, 295 pages

Published October 11th 2016 by Dutton Books for Young Readers

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Lists with This Book

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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30)

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Oct 15, 2016 Emily May rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult, magical-realism, 2016

But now it’s been so long that if I bring it up, I’ll look like a girl who can’t let go of things. Teenage girls always have to let go of things. If we bring up anything, people say we’re bitches who can’t just drop it.

If you're familiar with A.S. King, then you'll probably understand immediately that this book is not what it first seems. If you're new to her books, then expect to be taken into a weird world of existentialism and magical realism before what's really going on becomes apparent. ...more

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Aug 27, 2016 Lola Reviewer rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult, family, abuse, 1st-person-pov, magical-realism, 2016-publications, art, lyrical-writing

‘‘Still Life with Tornado’’ had me fooled.

I thought it was all about Sarah and her teenage existential crisis at first.

But it’s not… just about her. It’s about her, her mother, her father, her brother, her family, her future and her past.

I’ve read dozens and dozens of books dealing with the topic of abuse, yet this one manages to explore the theme in an original way, while keeping a realistic quality to it.

A.S. King’s writing moved me. It turned my insides into knots. It made me hold my breath ...more

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Oct 21, 2016 Alienor ✘ French Frowner ✘ (of badger and SNAKE) rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult, autobuy-authors, 2016-reads, magical-realism

►Nothing's really original so let's not start, alright?

"In eight days of riding around, that's what I've discovered. It's raining bullshit. Probably all the time."

I'm gonna be unoriginal and repeat what my fri en ds already said : don't be fooled and think that it's about an angsty teenage girl. It's really not. Or maybe it is, partially, but A.S. King challenges the way we see angsty teenage girls. After all, aren't we all a little unfair when judging them? What's our goal when we deny thei ...more

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Oct 13, 2016 Taryn rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult, received-from-publisher, prh-first-to-read

Sarah is in the middle of an existential crisis. She stops going to school and spends her days visiting abandoned structures in Philadelphia. An event at an art show triggered her crisis, but she actually started falling apart a long time ago. The key to unlocking the cause of her disillusionment may be confronting the events of a family vacation to Mexico when she was ten-years-old. Her older brother Bruce hasn't talked to the family in the six years since then. She can't remember what happened Sarah is in the middle of an existential crisis. She stops going to school and spends her days visiting abandoned structures in Philadelphia. An event at an art show triggered her crisis, but she actually started falling apart a long time ago. The key to unlocking the cause of her disillusionment may be confronting the events of a family vacation to Mexico when she was ten-years-old. Her older brother Bruce hasn't talked to the family in the six years since then. She can't remember what happened and her parents refuse to talk about it.

Here’s what I think. I think we’re really smart when we’re young. Ten-year-old Sarah is smarter than I am because I’m six years older. Twenty-three-year-old Sarah is dumber than me because I’m sixteen. Someone somewhere was way older and richer and dumber than all of us and paid forty-five million dollars for a bunch of dots. I think this kind of smart isn’t something they can measure with tests. I think it’s like being psychic or being holy. If I could be anyone for the rest of my life, I would be a little kid. (Sarah)

Sarah was an aspiring artist and I loved how that part of her life is integrated into the story, especially the concept of a tornado as something that is one thing on the outside, but another thing on the inside. Sarah is at a point in her life where adults are constantly asking her about her future, but she hasn't even dealt with her past. She's unable to stay in the present, which is where the future and past Sarahs come in. Versions of Sarah at different stages in life materialize to help her process her trauma. Ten-year-old Sarah is still a happy kid and the memories of the vacation are still fresh for her. Twenty-three-year-old Sarah can barely remember being sixteen and thinks sixteen-year-old Sarah is silly and dramatic. Sixteen-year-old Sarah looks up to forty-year-old Sarah who is the most self-assured. What surprised me is that these Sarahs aren't hallucinations; other people can see them.

The older people get, the less they can do about things. They seem to be stuck. They seem to be glue. (Sarah)

Sarah's mom Helen gets to tell her side of the story. Helen's chapters help illuminate parts that Sarah doesn't understand. Helen's story shows how easy it is to get stuck in a bad situation and how hard it is to see in the middle of a storm.* It also shows how attempts to make things better can actually make them worse. Likewise, sometimes making things worse can make them better.

There are also flashbacks to the family vacation. Everything seems relatively normal at first, but there are clear indications that there is something stirring under the surface. ("Can’t you just pretend to have a good time?” “Why pretend? Aren’t we doing enough pretending as it is?") Between her mother's chapters and the day-by-day reveal of the trip to Mexico, we get a clearer picture of why Sarah is so depressed.

But now it’s been so long that if I bring it up, I’ll look like a girl who can’t let go of things. Teenage girls always have to let go of things. If we bring up anything, people say we’re bitches who can’t just drop it. (Sarah)

I identified with twenty-three-year-old Sarah at first, because I didn't know if would be interested in sixteen-year-old Sarah for the entire book! Like the protagonist in We Are the Ants, Sarah is depressed and expresses repetitive thoughts. She has received so many (unintentionally) damaging messages from trusted adults, that she now feels very little control over her life. She wants to disappear and is no longer interested in the hobbies she used to love. Sarah knows that "breaking your brain is the same as breaking your arm", but she still feels shame about her situation. Sarah initially sees her problems as too small to bother anyone with, but she learns that her problems do matter. She doesn't have to be strong and deal with it alone. It's refreshing that romance was not part of this book. Sarah's potential recovery has to come from within herself with the support of her family.

Here’s why I like making things. I like making things because when I was born, everything I was born into was already made for me. Art let me surround myself with something different. Something new. Something real. Something that was mine. I don’t know if this means I could also be a competent architect. Or a car mechanic. Or a carpenter. I just like constructing new things that are real. I believe this is a side effect of growing from seed in soil made of lies. I believe this is a side effect of being born into ruins—this need for construction. (Sarah)

Still Life with Tornado deals with mental health, the many forms of abuse, and family issues. Sarah's story is much darker than mine, but I could relate to the disillusionment that springs from a confusing parental situation that's never directly addressed. I loved the concept of different Sarahs, the way art played a part in the story, and Sarah's realizations at the end. If you liked We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson, you might be interested in this book.

You can't change people with love. It doesn't work that way. (Helen)

* I was reminded of a quote from Cruel Beautiful World: "You don't know what you're seeing sometimes, when you see it .....You don't know how bad it can get."

_____________
I received this book for free from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. It's available for purchase. ...more

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Mar 08, 2016 Tatiana rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya, 2016, 2, starred-2016-done

I love to be surprised by YA authors who manage to find a new angle from which to write about the same topics, too well-trodden in YA lit. Here is a fresh take on the family-abuse scenario. Of course, this A.S. King, so some magic realism is in the mix. "Still Life with Tornado" follows King's winning formula, but this formula still works for me.

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Feb 04, 2016 Neil (or bleed) rated it really liked it

Shelves: i-loved-it-aka-all-time-faves, realistic-fiction-and-contemporary, the-book-stands-alone, books-from-authors-i-like, magical-realism, books-from-my-favorite-authors, young-adult, 2016-reads, 2016-favorites

Writing a review for this book doesn't seem original.

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Oct 21, 2016 Aditi rated it really liked it

Shelves: my-reviews, ya, contemporary-romance, penguin-books, family, friends

“There are far too many silent sufferers. Not because they don't yearn to reach out, but because they've tried and found no one who cares.”

----Richelle E. Goodrich

A.S. King, an award winning and bestselling American author, pens a heart wrenching tale of abuse, magical realism, teenage existential crisis in her new YA novel, Still Life with Tornado where the central characters of 16 years of age is a victim of existential crisis who has lost the creativity and power to imagination to create n ...more

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Oct 03, 2016 Stacee rated it really liked it

Shelves: edelweiss, use-of-the-other-f-word, someone-needs-a-junk-punch, title-in-the-story, read-in-2016

I just finished and like usual, I have no idea wtf I just read. And I love it.

Being inside Sarah's head is unlike any other monologue. It's messy and confusing and heartbreaking. We get snippets of POV from Sarah's mom, Helen, and they're even worse.

There were layers upon layers upon layers and each one is revealed so deliciously slow. We were learning things the same time Sarah did. There isn't anything I can say or try to explain that will make the plot arc make sense. It's a jumble of past ...more

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Sep 18, 2016 Carole (Carole's Random Life in Books) rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya, reviewed, first-to-read, 2016

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life.

This book surprised me. I really didn't know what to think going into it. I grabbed it just because it looked somewhat interesting. I actually try not to read too much about a book before I sit down to read. For much of the book, I had no idea where things were going but I couldn't stop reading. Things shifted in the story at a point and what this book is really about became more clear. In the end, I really enjoyed this story.

Sarah is in the This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life.

This book surprised me. I really didn't know what to think going into it. I grabbed it just because it looked somewhat interesting. I actually try not to read too much about a book before I sit down to read. For much of the book, I had no idea where things were going but I couldn't stop reading. Things shifted in the story at a point and what this book is really about became more clear. In the end, I really enjoyed this story.

Sarah is in the middle of a crisis. Nothing seems original to her and she doesn't want to do much of anything. She is about to be expelled from school since she hasn't been going. Nothing original happens there anyway. Past and future Sarahs keep popping into her life but don't always offer a whole lot of help. She spends her days following a homeless man around, walking around abandoned buildings, and trying to be original.

I really thought for the first part of the story the book was about mental illness. Sarah seems so depressed and when she started running into other versions of herself, I was sure she was hallucinating. I was wrong. This book is really about something else that starts to be unraveled as Sarah works to piece together her past. The bit of magical realism in the story was surprising but it helped to tell the story in a unique manner.

This was a really fast read for me. The way that the story was told was captivating. I knew that there was something going on and I had to keep reading to find out what it was. I liked that a bit of magical realism made its way into the story since it was completely unexpected. Sarah voice was compelling. From the very beginning of the book, I felt for this girl and wanted to find out what brought her to this place in life.

I would highly recommend this book to others. I think that it is a book that touches on a difficult topic in a completely new way. This is the first book by A.S. King that I have had a chance to read but I definitely plan to check out more of her work in the future.

I received an advance reader edition of this book from Dutton Books for Young Readers via First to Read for the purpose of providing an honest review.

Initial Thoughts
This was a really fast read for me. I had no idea where the book was going for the first part. Things shifted gears into something different than I expected. I really liked the way the story was told and I found this book incredibly hard to put down. ...more

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Jan 26, 2017 Stephanie rated it liked it

Shelves: ya, art, 2017

"Actually Sara was several human beings at once."

Sara is a 16 year old artist, because of circumstances in her past that she has suppressed, has lost the ability and the will to draw or create anything. Meanwhile, she stops going to school and wanders the streets of Philadelphia where she meets her 10 year old self, 23 year old self and 40 year old self.

Now before you assume this a result of some sort of schizophrenic break (like I did), the rest of the people in her family see all these of Sara ...more

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Dec 11, 2016 alexandra rated it liked it

Shelves: arc-physical, read-2016

3/5 ★

i love art related books, and STILL LIFE WITH TORNADO was exactly what my art-lovin'-self needed. the story follows a girl who is struggling with an 'existential crisis' and can't seem to draw anymore. in reality, i think she's suffering from PTSD. i didn't expect this book to be about tough situations, but i didn't mind that it was.

one thing i enjoyed was that there is no romance – at all. it's rare to find a contemporary YA novel with absolutely no romance, and i felt that this was more r ...more

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Jan 11, 2017 Mrs. Europaea rated it it was ok

It is difficult for me to review this one. Still Life with TORNADO is about a sixteen year old girl named Sarah who is in the midst of what appears to be some type of existential crisis.

Maybe I'm snapping. Maybe I've already snapped and I'm coming back to real life. Maybe this is some sort of existential crisis. I couldn't tell you right now whether my life has meaning or value. I don't even know if I'm really living.

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS and TRIGGER WARNING***

************************

***** ...more

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Dec 31, 2016 Kels rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya, favorites, page-turner, wordsmith-writing-hero, books-that-linger, magical-realism, tough-topics, depression, contemporary, witty, drama-drama-drama, family-issues, domestic-abuse, dual-povs, grief, anachronistic-timeline, deep-themes, face-stuck-in-book, alternating-povs, flashbacks, weird, mental-trauma

I know you wanted to let it go. I did, too, when I was you. But some things you just can't paint over.

This novel snuck up on me. I honestly did not expect to fall in love with it as much as I did. I even contemplated marking this one as a DNF for, oh, I don't know, about the first 40 pages or so. The repetitiveness of the text was a little frustrating initially, and it didn't serve to capture my interest as fast as I would have liked. But out of nowhere, this novel snatched me up and even now it still has me in its grips.

The writing here is brilliant, but it did take me a while to see that due to the deliberate ambiguity of the opening chapters. But once I got past that hump I was completely enraptured by A.S. King's prose. It's tight and even, clever, and full of meaning. The narrative is alluring and beguiling, the characters dynamic, the plot, well, the plot was a bit confusing at first, but it's compelling and intriguing and nothing like I've ever read before.

I did dock a star because at times I felt the plot wander about too much and there were just a few loose ends that I wish the author would have taken the time to explore, explain, and tie up. There's also a lot of questions I still have about Sarah's emotional trauma and how that has affected her mentally, and also how her relationship with her family is impacted by her new revelations. And don't even get me started on all the Sarah's. My complaint there is that I wish the present day Sarah could have had more interactions with them because I really enjoyed them.

Simply put, this book is art. It’s original and abstract. It's captivating and inspiring. It's the kind of art that you really have to look at and absorb. Passing glances simply won't do. It's the quiet type of art that makes you self-reflect. The type that brings deep emotions out of you. The kind of art that makes you look at the world differently, and makes you think differently.

And, well, now I need to get my hands on some more of A.S. King's art.

It’s hard to believe that some people can be so cruel to other people. But then, it’s not. I work here. I see things. I know things.
And then I look in the mirror and there I am.
Pretending. Always pretending.

...more

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Oct 17, 2016 Reign rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016-releases, 2016-best-reads, wow-book-cover

I'm not trusting myself to review this one because I really love the author that if I tried to write something about this book, I'm afraid I might blurt out a marriage proposal for this woman (that's how I love her, haha). She always put the books she wrote on a higher class of YA (at least for me). Every.Single.Time. But really, I wish I could tell you at least what this book is about, but it's many things. Like I expected, I get annoyed and won't connect with the character at first. But as the ...more

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Dec 23, 2016 Brooke rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, tears-were-shed, 2016, worth-a-reread, tlb, ya

Damn.
A.S. King doesn't play around- she is easily one of the best YA writers today; I would recommend any of her books in a heartbeat. Each one filled with magical realism elements that are unique & stand out from other books with similar concepts; characters that you don't quite understand at first only to have them completely shatter your heart at the end. That's pretty much what I would summarize her work down to: books that can crush you with one blow. Each one powerful enough to hold y Damn.
A.S. King doesn't play around- she is easily one of the best YA writers today; I would recommend any of her books in a heartbeat. Each one filled with magical realism elements that are unique & stand out from other books with similar concepts; characters that you don't quite understand at first only to have them completely shatter your heart at the end. That's pretty much what I would summarize her work down to: books that can crush you with one blow. Each one powerful enough to hold your attention to read in 1 (2 if it hurts too much) sitting; these are reminders of what I wish to aspire to. Substance; there is only substance. No filler. No bullshit.

Sixteen year old Sarah is surrounded by brokenness. Broken parents (who are only together because they made a deal to stay until Sarah leaves...among the fact that her mother, Helen, cannot bring herself to become unstuck. How can you see the remnants of the decay when the black smog is choking you?) Broken family life- besides feeling increasingly more lonely with her parents she misses her older brother Bruce & doesn't understand why he is gone; why her parents act like he never existed. Broken school-life- something happens at school that causes Sarah to not want to go back; being a (near, in her case) high school dropout is still a taboo subject I feel especially in literature so I really appreciated the approach of not being condescending towards her or making her out to be anything less than human. Yes, these things are important to me.

But the person who is the most broken is Sarah. She no longer finds happiness in art & decides to stop. This broke my heart as I could easily relate to giving up to what made me happy, being lost for a while. Sarah doesn't know the whole story of her family, only that it is different. It is like smelling burning plastic on the stove but you can never fully scrape it off; the smell of rotten decay can never be fully gone until you have escaped. Until you have escaped the person who makes you feel like staying stagnant is normal. The person who makes you feel like being stuck is as good as your life is meant to get.

Obviously, I could resonate with this story. Sarah's pain & confusion bled into me like I was seeing my own childhood being played out across the pages. Highly recommended; there needs to be more books like this.
This is exactly the kind of book I needed when I was ten years old. Then maybe I would have learned how to get rid of that armor a long time ago; I would have learned how to not become so heavy. ...more

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Feb 22, 2016 Sam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: arc-reviews, books-i-own, 2016-booktubeathon

Huge thank you to Penguin Canada for this ARC!

I am a huge A.S King fan, and I always find her books to be a gripping, emotional, and even terrifying at times, experience. Still Life With Tornado is a book about art, abuse, and what it means to feel stagnant when the world is moving past you before your very eyes.

Sarah is a wonderful protagonist who struggles with so many issues, from her parents being trapped in a loveless marriage, to having her art work sabotaged because she saw something she ...more

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Nov 01, 2016 Emelie Gaughan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-time-favorites, i-own-it, authors-i-have-met, 2016-releases

I love A.S. King and this book just proves why.

The way that she writes about her teenage characters is so vivid and true. It gives teenage life a realistic perspective which is hard to capture. We follow our MC 16y.o. Sarah as she tells her story in a stream of consciousness style, exploring her past, what is means to be present, and glimpses to her future. We unsurface secrets with her, face harsh realities about domestic abuse, and we find out what a purpose in life means and how we find it.

Ba ...more

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Feb 05, 2017 Rahaf Alghamdi rated it it was amazing

I don't know if I should give this book a 5 stars or a 4.9 stars. It isn't much of a difference i know but REALLY, IT IS.

From my nonspecific rating you can tell that i liked this book, a lot. And you may tell that magical realism owns my ass too. I felt connected to Sarah in a way, even though she wasn't connecting with herself. Or maybe thats why i was connected in the first place. She was in a very confusing time of her life, i know i would be if my past and future selves visited me. But also ...more

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Dec 13, 2016 Gary Anderson rated it it was amazing

Sixteen-year-old Sarah is searching for answers about how to live a meaningful, artistic life when nothing original ever happens. No one in her family communicates with each other, and she stops going to school. Eventually, with the help of a ten-year-old version of herself, Sarah discovers that she is a survivor of her family’s dark secrets. Swirling bits of information surrealistically combine to reveal Sarah’s past as readers simultaneously experience a literary tornado. A. S. King’s STILL LI ...more

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May 06, 2016 Julia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: young-adult, family-issues, abuse

I'm going to go ahead and say it...BEST YA BOOK of 2016 (IMHO).

There are so many things to love about this book.

Let me start with the characters. Sarah is the main character, and she begins the book by talking about originality. Sarah's art teacher professed one day in class that there is no such thing as a original idea. The thought takes hold of Sarah, and nothing seems important anymore. She can no longer "do the art." There are bigger issues than art and original ideas that lead up to Sara I'm going to go ahead and say it...BEST YA BOOK of 2016 (IMHO).

There are so many things to love about this book.

Let me start with the characters. Sarah is the main character, and she begins the book by talking about originality. Sarah's art teacher professed one day in class that there is no such thing as a original idea. The thought takes hold of Sarah, and nothing seems important anymore. She can no longer "do the art." There are bigger issues than art and original ideas that lead up to Sarah's existential crisis, but King unfolds those issues artfully, during walks through the streets of Philadelphia and brief trips back in time to a family vacation in Mexico.

You really get to know Sarah as she takes these walks through urban Philadelphia. She briefly stalks, "Alleged Earl," the homeless artist that seems to truly be original. She talks with younger and older versions of herself. She sleeps on park benches and forgets to brush her hair or take showers. She can't remember what happened at school that was so bad, but she can't bring herself to go back to school. She can't remember why her brother left their family, and neither of her parents talk about him. Her memory is coming back, though. She is remembering the things that led to her brother's departure, and the thing that happened at school.

King is so deeply in touch with human nature, and she knows her characters intimately. Each one is unique. We get a peek into their lives through her use of multiple points of view. I was touched by these people and have been feeling a bit lost since finishing. Where are my people? Where can I get a good umbrella?

This book started out with Sarah looking for Spain and Macedonia (originality and art) and needing an umbrella to protect her when life rained "bullshit." By the end of the book, SHE was Spain, SHE was Macedonia, SHE was Art!

You simply must read this book! And, when you do, just go with it. Don't worry if you can't figure it out. Just know that this book will change you, and it will make you better!
...more

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Oct 24, 2016 Rachel rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya-contemporary, featuring-magical-realism, sensitive-abuse-physical, sensitive-abuse-relationships

I felt numb. I felt like crying. I felt both of those things. Not always in art class, either.

Sarah reminds me a little of Nanette from Every Exquisite Thing. I love them both, but I can also see why most people wouldn't. She is different; yet at the same time, she is not. Maybe you're thinking: what can I possibly have in common with a teenage girl who skips school and wants to drop out of high school for no reason at all? What can I possibly have in common with a teenage girl who is crazily ...more

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Oct 04, 2016 BookWorm 221 rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016, arcs-2016

www.bookworm221.tumblr.com

Nothing can prepare you for an A. S. King book, you might think you know what the books is going to be about, you might have an idea of the content but in reality once you start reading you have to let go of all of that and just let yourself be taken along for the ride. You have to accept things that seem weird or out of place, you have to accept the roads that the characters are taking you through and you have to have an open mind, because in the end even if you’re not ...more

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Aug 25, 2016 Amy rated it it was ok

Sarah is having an existential crisis. Readers will know this because she mentions in a gazillion times. An artist paralyzed by the notion all original ideas have been taken, she walks out of school refusing to return. Along her path of self discovery she meets herself at age 10, 23 and 40.

STILL LIFE WITH TORNADO is a strange book, one I did not enjoy reading. I almost quit a few times, but after checking out the reviews, I figured I'd continue. I enjoyed A S King's (asking?) writing style, but ...more

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Oct 17, 2016 Brian rated it really liked it

In this bizarre but very well written book, we meet a young teen who is experiencing an 'existential' crisis. Sarah is 16 and just wants to experience some originality. She stops going to school and decides to spend her days following around homeless people, attending her "new" school, and spending time with past and future versions of herself. If this sounds confusing, it somewhat is, yet it somehow works. Sarah's mother, a nurse and her father's marriage is surely on the rocks due to some hidd ...more

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Nov 05, 2016 Beth rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed

This, in A. S. King fashion, is an issue book - but, also in A. S. King fashion, it's superbly balanced by magical realism. It's deliberate but never overly blatant. The structure is beautifully done. The characters are difficult but real, so real that the book almost cracks underneath the strain. This is a hard read, and a surprising one.

I don't think I'll ever reread this, but I'm glad that I read it once - and that I have another book to support for this year's Printz.

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Nov 01, 2016 Forever Young Adult added it

Shelves: reviewed-by-mandy-w, contemporary, magical-realism

Graded By: Mandy W.
Cover Story: Literally
BFF Charm: Roger Murtaugh
Swoonworthy Scale: 0
Talky Talk: A.S. King, Mofos! x 2
Bonus Factors: Portrayal of Domestic Violence, Metal
Relationship Status: I'll Be There for You

Read the full book report here.

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Nov 16, 2016 Rupali rated it really liked it

This. Yes.

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Oct 05, 2016 Brian rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2016, read-in-october-2016

I'm convinced that A.S. King doesn't write in ink like everyone else. Her words are pure gold.

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Oct 19, 2016 Nereyda (Nick & Nereyda's Infinite Booklist) rated it liked it

Shelves: arc, audiobook, audiobook-for-review, october-2016

What I Liked:
I'm confused as to what the hell I read... I received an unsolicited copy of this book and while this book was never even on my radar (I'm so out of the loop for new releases lately) I have heard so much praise on King's books that I really wanted to try it. The summary sounded good, emotional and gritty but the way the story was told lost some of that emotional aspect. For me anyway...

I love stories about people, especially young girls, finding their path. Sarah has lost her purpos What I Liked:
I'm confused as to what the hell I read... I received an unsolicited copy of this book and while this book was never even on my radar (I'm so out of the loop for new releases lately) I have heard so much praise on King's books that I really wanted to try it. The summary sounded good, emotional and gritty but the way the story was told lost some of that emotional aspect. For me anyway...

I love stories about people, especially young girls, finding their path. Sarah has lost her purpose and muse, when her art teacher makes a comment to her that nothing is original, it really sets her on a whirlwind. Suddenly, she can't draw anything, not even those cliche pears everyone draws in art class. She drops out of school because 'nothing original happens' there and is convinced that it's a waste a time. So instead, she spends her days pretending to go to school (other days she doesn't even bother to pretend), follows a homeless person around, eats eaten food from the floor and trash cans despite the fact that she has money and questioning her life in general.

Yes, it all sounds very weird, and it gets even weirder when Sarah starts seeing a 10 year old, 23 year old and 40 year old version of herself. She talks and interacts with the other Sarah's although the 10 year old Sarah plays a big part in the story and her and her mother's journey. Sarah doesn't have the best family life. Her parents hate each other and her brother left a few years ago and she hasn't spoken to him since. Her dad is an asshole and no one seems to acknowledge it. We find out early on that present Sarah has blocked an important memory [spoiler] no it doesn't involve sexual abuse [/spoiler] of something that happened with her family in Mexico, the thing that seemed to ruin everything. With the help of the past and future Sarah's they slowly help her put the pieces together. We also get some chapters from her mom's POV which I wasn't expecting, and her actions confuse me as much as Sarah's at times. If you take away all of Sarah's odd moments and the fact that she can see and speak with different versions of herself, this is actually a pretty good story and the writing was really beautiful. Unfortunately, I couldn't focus beyond all the weirdness to be able to fully enjoy and lose myself in the story.

What I Didn't Like:
I couldn't really get past the fact that I wasn't really sure what I was reading 99% of the time. It felt like a contemporary, but the different versions of Sarah confused me. Is this magical realism? Mental illness? Can Sarah see her other selfs because she's crazy? Does he have powers? Is this a paranormal book? What the hell is going on??? What made it even weirder was the fact that Sarah's mom could see all the Sarah's too. You would think that a mother would freak out if she saw a 10 year old version of her daughter, standing right next to her daughter. But no, Sarah's mom starts to cry and invites 10 year old Sarah to dinner and they start hanging out and going to the movies. Sometimes they even hang out without present Sarah, which was very odd to me. I started thinking that maybe Sarah's mom is crazy too, that's why she can see the other Sarah's, but her brother and her dad can see them too (although her dad doesn't even notice anything).

I think I liked the idea and concept for this story more than the actual execution. Despite the fact that Sarah and her mom (and brother) have been through a lot and that their dad is a huge asshole, I never really felt connected to them or really felt for them much. Sarah annoyed me with all her hippy actions and the way she kept saying 'nothing was original' about 10 times per page (seriously, I cringed every time I heard that word in the book) and I just didn't understand her mom's actions. Although I liked the way the story was told, with all the Sarah's helping her remember what happened in Mexico, I couldn't help but feeling let down by the revelation. I guess I was expecting more. At the end of the book, although I didn't hate it, I didn't really love it either. I appreciated the story and what the author was trying to do, but it all fell a bit flat for me.

Audiobook Comments:
This is the first book I've heard narrated by Karissa Vacker and although nothing particularly stood out about her performance, I still thought she did a great job. Her voice fit great with the story and made me want to keep listening despite not loving the story. I wasn't expecting for her to narrate the parts from Sarah's mother's POV and I thought it would be confusing to figure out which part she was performing, but she did a really good job at changing her voice from Sarah to her mom, which sounded older. Sometimes, the narration will make a story like this more emotional for me, but I don't think I could get over the weirdness to really appreciate it this time around.

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Jan 04, 2017 Susanna Sturgis rated it really liked it

Shelves: women, fiction, novel, art

I came to this novel on a friend's recommendation. Not only does my novel in progress deal in part with abuse and the secrets and silences that grow up around it; several of my characters are artists who work things out and communicate with imagery. So I'm curious how other writers have dealt with comparable challenges in fiction or memoir, especially when they use art to do it.

Sixteen-year-old Sarah is disaffected from the beginning, with what at first seems to be terminal self-absorption compo I came to this novel on a friend's recommendation. Not only does my novel in progress deal in part with abuse and the secrets and silences that grow up around it; several of my characters are artists who work things out and communicate with imagery. So I'm curious how other writers have dealt with comparable challenges in fiction or memoir, especially when they use art to do it.

Sixteen-year-old Sarah is disaffected from the beginning, with what at first seems to be terminal self-absorption compounded by artistic angst. A. S. King almost immediately starts dropping hints that it might be more serious than that. Sarah doesn't have much respect or affection for her father. Her mother, Helen, a night-shift ER nurse, is gone a lot. Her brother, Bruce, nine years older, disappeared six years earlier, after a family vacation in Mexico. No one ever mentions him. The clincher comes when Sarah drops out of high school and spends her days wandering the streets of Philadelphia: her parents seem unable or unwilling to realize this is serious.

Here author King draws on speculative-fictional techniques. Heading to City Hall to change her name (without knowing what she wants to change it to), Sarah meets her 23-year-old self on the bus. Before long she encounters her 40-year-old self and, most portentously, the 10-year-old Sarah who recalls what went down in Mexico. These Sarahs aren't hallucinations: other people can see them too. For the reader, these other Sarahs are both credible characters and effective literary devices for showing how one character begins to recover lost memories, piece together the clues, and find enough hope to keep moving forward.

On the basis of Still Life with Tornado I plan to seek out more of A. S. King's work. In the early pages, I did grow impatient with 16-year-old Sarah's self-absorption, which keep her oblivious to the clues that will probably be more obvious to readers intimately acquainted with a dysfunctional family or two. OTOH, at 65 I'm not part of the target audience, so this isn't a big deal. I can recommend this novel pretty much without reservation. ...more

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About A.S. King

A.S. King is the author of the highly-acclaimed I CRAWL THROUGH IT, Walden Award winner GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE, REALITY BOY, 2013 LA Times Book Prize winner ASK THE PASSENGERS, 2012 ALA Top Ten Book for Young Adults EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS, and 2011 Michael L. Printz Honor Book PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ and THE DUST OF 100 DOGS as well as a collection of award-winning short stories f ...more

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“nothing about her pain is remotely original —and yet it still hurts” — 10 likes

“But who’s to say what’s stupid and what’s not stupid when your life falls apart? Some people fall apart over TV shows. Some people fall apart over a breakup. Some people fall apart over someone eating the last bowl of Apple Jacks. I fell apart because of the annual art show. No one noticed I was falling apart before then. I” — 6 likes

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