Member Review
Review by
Carolyn P, Reviewer
'That Green Eyed Girl' is another of my favourite things: books set in and about New York.
In the sweltering summer of 1975, Ava Winters is desperately trying to conceal her mother's deteriorating mental state, until she escapes from the apartment one morning and is hospitalised. At the same time, a strange box is delivered, addressed to 'Apartment 3b', containing , among other things, a photograph of three women, one of whom's face has been scrawled out and replaced with the word 'LIAR.' To take her mind away from her family crisis, Ava becomes determined to solve the mystery and reunite the box's contents with their owner. A mystery that will take us back to 1955, where the occupants of what would become Ava's Lower East Side apartment are two women named Dovie and Gillian. Outwardly they're just friends and lodgers but, in private, lovers. A secret they must keep in a world where revealing the truth would see them locked away. And then someone finds out...
Julie Owen Moylan's debut is a great read! A dual timeline story that shows how the stories and voices of the past echo through to the present like peeling away layers of wallpaper to find the patterns hidden underneath, and not just through the history of a physical space either; there are a lot of different little details that link the two storylines together - the realisation of the significance of that 'green eyed girl' is a poignant one. (Without spoiling, I'd say another important thread is how certain people and groups have had the ability to tell their own stories taken from them.) Ava and Dovie are both interesting narrators who you're able to empaphise with (in fact, with the exceptions of Judith - who can take a long walk of a short pier - and Ava's father - who really needs either a shake or a slap - the rest of the supporting cast are also well drawn and mostly likable), and the writing is wonderfully evocative of both time and place.
Very much looking forward to seeing what she writes next!
In the sweltering summer of 1975, Ava Winters is desperately trying to conceal her mother's deteriorating mental state, until she escapes from the apartment one morning and is hospitalised. At the same time, a strange box is delivered, addressed to 'Apartment 3b', containing , among other things, a photograph of three women, one of whom's face has been scrawled out and replaced with the word 'LIAR.' To take her mind away from her family crisis, Ava becomes determined to solve the mystery and reunite the box's contents with their owner. A mystery that will take us back to 1955, where the occupants of what would become Ava's Lower East Side apartment are two women named Dovie and Gillian. Outwardly they're just friends and lodgers but, in private, lovers. A secret they must keep in a world where revealing the truth would see them locked away. And then someone finds out...
Julie Owen Moylan's debut is a great read! A dual timeline story that shows how the stories and voices of the past echo through to the present like peeling away layers of wallpaper to find the patterns hidden underneath, and not just through the history of a physical space either; there are a lot of different little details that link the two storylines together - the realisation of the significance of that 'green eyed girl' is a poignant one. (Without spoiling, I'd say another important thread is how certain people and groups have had the ability to tell their own stories taken from them.) Ava and Dovie are both interesting narrators who you're able to empaphise with (in fact, with the exceptions of Judith - who can take a long walk of a short pier - and Ava's father - who really needs either a shake or a slap - the rest of the supporting cast are also well drawn and mostly likable), and the writing is wonderfully evocative of both time and place.
Very much looking forward to seeing what she writes next!
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