Extraordinary tale about a small indie filmmaker, Sophie Stark, told by a handful of the people who came closest to knowing her. A misfit in school and college, she comes off as just plain weird. As an adult, she is an irregular weave - obsessed, tortured, and damaged, but with occasional flashes of brilliance with her odd movies.

I don't know that I 'get' this book. It came together in the end but it took so long to get there! I think my problem was that Sophie isn't so much the heart of the story as she is the means by which the other characters tell their stories. And this seems somehow unfair to Sophie, who is truly a tragic character.

(I received a copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

Well, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark was a curious little read. The eponymous character doesn’t narrate the story. Her life is told from the perspective of those who loved (and at times, hated) her and we get a full bodied picture of this strange and creative character. One thing I got from the descriptions of Sophie Stark is that her art was more important than the people around her. She would go to lengths to get what she wanted and her destructive path often came at a cost to the people she loved the most.

The clever way in which the story unfolds is almost documentary-like. If this were made into a film you could see it being told that way which then kind of becomes art imitating fictional life imitating art which then makes my head hurt.

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is a really good read if you like your literature like independent cinema, quirky but memorable.

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North is available now.

For more information regarding Anna North (@annanorthtweets) please visit www.annanorth.net.

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