We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

By: Karen Joy Fowler

Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

The New York Times best-selling author of The Jane Austen Book Club introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize.

Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I was raised with a chimpanzee”, she explains. “I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion...she was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half and I loved her as a sister”. As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence.

In We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler weaves her most accomplished work to date - a tale of loving but fallible people whose well-intentioned actions lead to heartbreaking consequences.

©2012 Karen Joy Fowler (P)2013 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"A novel so readably juicy and surreptitiously smart, it deserves all the attention it can get.... [Its] fresh diction and madcap plot bend the tone toward comedy, but it never mislays its solemn raison d’être. Monkeyshines aside, this is a story of Everyfamily in which loss engraves relationships, truth is a soulful stalker and coming-of-age means facing down the mirror, recognizing the shape-shifting notion of self." (Barbara Kingsolver, The New York Times Book Review)

"Fowler’s interests here are in what sets humans apart from their fellow primates. Cognitive, language and memory skills all come into playful question. But the heart of the novel - and it has a big, warm, loudly beating heart throughout - is in its gradually pieced-together tale of family togetherness, disruption and reconciliation. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is Fowler at her best, mixing cerebral and emotional appeal together in an utterly captivating manner." (The Seattle Times)

"Elegantly and humorously orchestrated.... Knitting together Rosemary’s at times poignant, at times hilarious scraps of uncovered memories, Fowler creates a fantastical tale of raw, animalistic love." (O, The Oprah Magazine)

Truthful, insightful, and compelling. Loved it!

Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a story of universal truths regarding the human experience. Compelling.

Animals unite!

This is one of the best books I've read/listened in the past year - which is more of a compliment than it might sound like because I read/listen to about 20 books a month. The story was gripping and the characters were sympathetic in both their strengths and failings. I know some people were bothered by the description of animal torture (blithely referred to in our culture as "research"). I was deeply affected myself but I do think it is something we all need to hear about. Like a character in the book says, we might vaguely know that this is going on but until we are made uncomfortable with it nothing will ever change. And really, it does need to change (IMHO).

This was a tough read for me.

I was way into the book before I realized that Fern was not a mentally handicapped child! Then when we get into the gore of how animals are treated and how disposable they are (not that I don't know this) I no longer wanted to continue. Good for some not for me!

I am changed by this amazing story

I was completely surprised by both the story line and the emotional impact i experienced.
Knowledge is dangerous however. I can never claim ignorance of this type of abuse again.

A great story with an interesting twist

This is a great novel for someone who loves stories that keep you guessing. There is some adult language, situations, and humor. The narration is perfect and this novel was hard to turn off.

Interesting...

This was a very interesting book and I applaud Fowler for the twist she puts in it. My issues are that it tends to get wordy and the pacing slows in the middle. Also, the story itself lacks some focus. Is it about her childhood, her brother, her sister...? I get that the main character tells the story as if all these things are happening around her, but it is too disjointed for my liking. Good read, though. I definitely expanded my vocabulary, which I love.

Wonderful book on many levels, but far too much inner dialogue, and at least for me took away from the story

I think my title kind of sunsets how I feel about the book. It’s a great storyline and I like the back-and-forth between starting at the start the middle start the ending start the beginning middle the end middle the end of the end whatever… I felt that’s it a lot about humanity, and then it kind of gets muddled in the personalized feelings of the main character. Overall, I found the book to be depressing.

Una historia que nos hará conscientes

Me costó un poco de trabajo escucharlo, pero conforme iba avanzando en la historia, me fue gustando. Es un gran libro para hacernos conscientes del maltrato animal que aún hasta estos tiempos sigue sin parar, pero que cada uno de nosotros puede poner un granito de arena para detenerlo.

Misleading & Manipulative

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Probably not. There are many needless descriptions of cruel experiments on animals. The flimsy "story" is an excuse for the author to rant about animal rights, and she undermines her cause by stacking the deck in her favor. There isn't much plot and the characters are thinly drawn. The nararrator is annoying and comes off like a lecturer rather than a storyteller.

What was most disappointing about Karen Joy Fowler’s story?

The author is kind of misleading. It starts off as a story about a troubled girl with family problems stemming from a missing sibling. None of the characters are very sympathetic and it was hard to care about anyone. The main character is abrasive and unreliable/deceptive. She makes a lot of academic references and name drops prominent scientists and researchers, so we know that she's supposed to be very very smart.

By the middle of the book the story falters and the book turns into a long lecture about experiments on animals. The details seemed gratuitous--she could have made her point citing a few cases, rather than going on and on. It seemed like a cheap shock tactic.

Any additional comments?

Please warn readers about the many graphic descriptions of animal cruelty. If I had known about that I wouldn't have bought the book.

Nothing like it

I've enjoyed Orlaugh Cassidy in David Baldacci's Kind and Sullivan series and she did a nice job, though the characters were not all distinctive enough for me by a notch.

The story is unlike anything I've ever read our heard in its progression. Fowler throws her puzzle pieces of a plot on the table, places the corners, then places the other pieces, allowing the reader to ask questions as she meanders. Fowler gives a sense in her character that she, Rosemary Cooke, is trying to decide if she wants to trust the reader with the story. In the end, whee complete plot is revealed, answering why the main character is the only sibling who is not imprisoned and is able to tell the story. This story will "The Sixth Sense" you. You'll want to listen again, if but for no other reason than to wonder what you missed.