Green Girl works much better as a character study than a story. If you’re looking for plot, go elsewhere, but if you’d like to get inside the head of a young, insecure American woman working as a shop girl in London, then this book is a special venue for that.
I enjoyed it because I fall into the demographic that can relate to its protagonist, Ruth— relate to the confusion of the male gaze at her age. Yet, due to its thin narrative, others may not fall so in love.
The writing is artful, but also makes deliberate use of repetition in striving to capture the youth of its protagonist’s voice. This tic quickly became invisible to me, but I can see where other readers may not get over that hump. Nonetheless, I found the ruminations of Ruth’s mind to strike upon truth after truth.
She would have to escape from her life as a muse. Escape from her role as the blank slate, which everyone scribbled on.
Scattered with quotations that obsess over the French New Wave, it’s a little surprising that we see this life unfold in London, but the references feed reasonably well into the image of a young woman constructing her own philosophy from the scraps of history— grasping at something.
273 pages, read in a couple of sittings. Recommended if you have been a young, confused, reckless woman or if you strive to understand one.
3.5/5
