This story contains themes of depression, suicide, alcoholism, and is also told in poems. If none of that appeals to you, I'd suggest skipping this book review.
An amazon summary, "How do you deal with a hole in your life?
Do you turn to poets and pop songs?
Do you dream?
Do you try on love just to see how it fits?
Do you grieve?
If you're Avery, you do all of these things. And you write it all down in an attempt to understand what's happened--and is happening--to you.
I Felt a Funeral, In My Brain is an astonishing novel about navigating death and navigating life, at a time when the only map you have is the one you can draw for yourself." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Avery has a lot of stuff going on in his life. He's got school, a single mother who struggles with alcoholism, a best friend (well, only friend) who he may have romantic feelings for, and he's injured at the beginning of summer break while helping his mom deliver cakes for her cake business.
Avery starts his summer with a ton of books of poetry lent to him by his English teacher. He's a budding poet and getting to read other poets works is really something. When he gets home from school, his mom asks him to help deliver her cakes, but they end up getting into an accident where his foot is pretty damaged and he's in a wheelchair for a while. Then, we get to see more of his mom and her relationship with alcohol and how she's going to go to a rehabilitation facility to help deal with her alcoholism. Meanwhile, Avery's next door neighbor Luca (best friend), and his mother, are there to help Avery with his grandpa and his grandpa's girlfriend. Luca's mom is actually in alcoholics anonymous with Avery's mom and she's Avery's mom sponsor. They're pretty well acquainted with the situation.
But, I'm going to stop summarizing there.
So there was a lot of information packed into one, relatively smallish book, but with the power of poetry, I think it's easier to weave a complex story into a more compact fashion. Not saying that poetry is easy, but just that you get more story for less words. Eh?
This story is in essence, how Avery is seeing all of the chaos going on around him, how he tries to cope with it (and fails at times), but also how he's struggling to well, grow into adulthood.
Personally, I struggled with reading the book a little bit. The poetry was in inconsistent rhyme schemes, and I'm pretty sure there's something clever about it. Like when Avery was reading the books of poetry by other authors, maybe the style of poetry at that point in the story took on that author's style of poetry? I don't know enough about poems or the poetry world to know. However, I did find it a little jarring. I also wonder if that was intentional, to kind of jar the reader during the more intense scenes to help the reader understand some of the emotional turmoil Avery was in? That's all my speculation though.
I did like the story overall, even though it was kind of bleak. Like, everything that could have gone wrong, kind of did but in different ways. It was kind of fascinating to watch Avery's life spiral a bit as he tries to find his place in the world amongst all the chaos of his life. I did find the conclusion of the book to be a little lacking, but I also wonder if that was the point. If the point of the end of the book was to prove that there are no real answers in life, we do what we can and continue on, then it did well. But otherwise, I don't really know what to make of it.
Overall, I think a good book of poetry should inspire curiosity in the world. I think this book did inspire curiosity in me, but maybe in the way that it intended.
Happy reading!
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