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Her Here
THE DEBUT OF A GIFTED NOVELIST: In an article for the New York Times, Leslie Jamison compares debut novels to the NBA draft. She writes, "Witnessing the ascendance of a debut novelist means witnessing a career when it's just beginning, being part of a moment that will ultimately matter." In Her Here, readers have the opportunity to discover the literary skills of a younger writer who trained at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has now, as Rebecaa Makkai tells us, "claimed her place in the literary world."
AN EXISTENTIAL MYSTERY UNFOLDS IN EVOCATIVE SETTINGS: Elena and Ella are a kind of female Marlow and Kurtz, one following the other through the treacherous waters of identity and memory. The immersive plotline, distinctive characters, and abundance of suspense will keep readers turning the pages, even as they slow down to savor beautiful descriptive passages that take them through the labyrinthine streets of Paris and on motorcycle rides through the villages of Thailand.
AN INTERGENERATIONAL TALE OF LOVE AND LOSS WITH WOMEN AT ITS CORE: Her Here explores how bonds between mothers, daughters, lovers, and friends can be forged and torn apart. It is also a deeply felt, intimate portrayal of young women traveling abroad and becoming themselves, with all the perils and pain inherent in that process of discovery. It is part of the contemporary evolution of the "Smart Woman Adrift" genre pioneered by Renata Adler and Joan Didion and is, as journalist Marie Solis puts it, a brilliant addition to the growing canon of "women's auto fiction fueled by writers like Chris Kraus, Sheila Heti, and Rachel Cusk, who create female protagonists with worldly sensibilities and talents for shrewd observation resembling their own."
AN EXISTENTIAL MYSTERY UNFOLDS IN EVOCATIVE SETTINGS: Elena and Ella are a kind of female Marlow and Kurtz, one following the other through the treacherous waters of identity and memory. The immersive plotline, distinctive characters, and abundance of suspense will keep readers turning the pages, even as they slow down to savor beautiful descriptive passages that take them through the labyrinthine streets of Paris and on motorcycle rides through the villages of Thailand.
AN INTERGENERATIONAL TALE OF LOVE AND LOSS WITH WOMEN AT ITS CORE: Her Here explores how bonds between mothers, daughters, lovers, and friends can be forged and torn apart. It is also a deeply felt, intimate portrayal of young women traveling abroad and becoming themselves, with all the perils and pain inherent in that process of discovery. It is part of the contemporary evolution of the "Smart Woman Adrift" genre pioneered by Renata Adler and Joan Didion and is, as journalist Marie Solis puts it, a brilliant addition to the growing canon of "women's auto fiction fueled by writers like Chris Kraus, Sheila Heti, and Rachel Cusk, who create female protagonists with worldly sensibilities and talents for shrewd observation resembling their own."
- GenresFiction
352 pages, Paperback
First published March 9, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
August 4, 2024
5 "for those of you...." stars !!
The Silver Award Read of 2023 (second favorite read)
This is one of the most beautiful, deep and sublime novels that I have ever read - this is for those of you....
-that understand that Thailand and Paris are fraternal twins
-that truth is nebulous and contextual
-that our current moment is our only compass and anything else is organza over a mirror
-that the deepest of loves leads to our most wise melancholies
-that losing ourselves can lead to both wholeness and destruction
-that kindred spirits can meet in just a minute only to dissipate
-that beauty can be found in the most impoverished of places
-that throwing yourself into anything is preferable to nihilistic oblivion
-that imperfection is the end all and be all
-that despair can lead to redemption
-that to live life artfully is the best that we can do...
Thank you Ms. Dennis for this novel that went so deep inside of me that I lost myself and was reconfigured. I am overwhelmed with the most mixed and complex of emotions...
Warm thanks to Netgalley, the author and Bellevue Literary Press for an ecopy. This was released March 2021. I provided an honest review.
The Silver Award Read of 2023 (second favorite read)
This is one of the most beautiful, deep and sublime novels that I have ever read - this is for those of you....
-that understand that Thailand and Paris are fraternal twins
-that truth is nebulous and contextual
-that our current moment is our only compass and anything else is organza over a mirror
-that the deepest of loves leads to our most wise melancholies
-that losing ourselves can lead to both wholeness and destruction
-that kindred spirits can meet in just a minute only to dissipate
-that beauty can be found in the most impoverished of places
-that throwing yourself into anything is preferable to nihilistic oblivion
-that imperfection is the end all and be all
-that despair can lead to redemption
-that to live life artfully is the best that we can do...
Thank you Ms. Dennis for this novel that went so deep inside of me that I lost myself and was reconfigured. I am overwhelmed with the most mixed and complex of emotions...
Warm thanks to Netgalley, the author and Bellevue Literary Press for an ecopy. This was released March 2021. I provided an honest review.
August 12, 2024
I didn't hate this book, but I wanted to like this more than I did for several reasons. The first is that I received a copy from the publisher through LibraryThing Early Reviewers over a year ago, and straight up forgot about it and I feel really guilty providing the review a year after publication. The second reason is that I was an Asia bum myself for two years at the same age as Ella in the book, and so the central story is something dear and familiar to me. While I did not spend a ton of time in Northern Thailand, I did spend several months on an island in the south. I was, i am sure, an obnoxious foreigner just like the people in this book, as were my friends. The events at X were VERY familiar. Still, that was the best time in my life and a book about that life should be right up my alley. The third reason is that I had just read a couple books set in Paris, and I was on an I miss Paris jag, and the summary made it seem like this would be the one to push me over the edge and just finally buy a plane ticket. In the end though, all the good will in the world could not get me over the problems with this book, and I cannot in good faith rate this higher than a 2-star.
The first problem is that the setup for this book is utterly ridiculous. An architect living in Paris secretly gave birth to a child when she was young and unmarried. She gave the baby to friends who took the baby back to America to raise her. The adoptive parents never told the child she was adopted until she was 21. That child, Ella went crazy when she learned of her parentage and took off to Thailand where she disappeared. The search has been called off after several years, but the architect (who never met the child and who is still pissed the adoptive parents cut off all contact with her) is now obsessed with finding closure. She asks Elena, the daughter of another former friend with whom she has lost touch and who had recently died, for help. She wants Elena to come to Paris, review the diaries of the disappeared girl and to use them to write a narrative that answers the open questions. Elena has lost her ever-loving mind so she abandons her doctoral studies and her excellent boyfriend Z and decamps to Paris to do this absurd thing. Mind you she has been asked to solve a mystery by writing a fictional account of events which might have happened. It is so silly. How could Dennis have thought one could rest a book on that absurd premise? Elena immerses herself in Ella's diaries and merges her identity with Ella's. She writes the narrative, and though she never seems to leave her apartment in the 17th she apparently becomes French.
The second problem is the absent Ella. She is awful. She responds to situations like no one has, ever. I cannot begin to guess why the author thought this was a path a person might take. Maybe Dennis wants us to assume Ella is mentally ill, but the actions of the mentally ill generally have as much order as the actions of the mentally well if examined (which is not to say they are good decisions, but that there is logic to them.) Ella is pretentious AF, needy, demanding and has no self-esteem. It's an ugly combination. I have known girls like that, though the girls I knew actually thought about their choices more than Ella. Even so it never ends well for them, and perhaps it should not. I get that Ella was thrown by learning about her parentage, but nothing she does in response makes any sense. She actually made me feel bad for the awful toxic gaslighting guy she was stalking, and that sucks because Seb was the worst.
The third problem was Elena. She was mourning her mother, and had lost her memory of her mother's death and several months following (I guess that is possible?) Again, it was hard to be her, and I understand that anything that offered an escape was appealing. But she acted without regard for her father or her boyfriend who were also hurting. She was just "seeya!" And then she developed a creepy obsession with a sick dead girl who wrote godawful poetry, enabled every bad choice anyone around her made, and followed slavishly after boys who clearly had no interest in her. Also, Elena ran away to Paris (the only choice she made that seemed rational) was in the city for months, and spent the time holed up in an apartment doing nothing and seeing virtually no one. If this is something someone would do? (I don't think it is.)
The writing at the sentence level was good, and there were some beautiful passages, but an absurd premise and off-putting, crudely drawn, and dull characters, and did I mention the terrible poetry, all add up to a not very good book. My attachment to Thailand and seeker types kept me interested for a while and the pretty writing helped. I see promise here and I will be interested to see what Amanda Dennis writes next even though this failed.
The first problem is that the setup for this book is utterly ridiculous. An architect living in Paris secretly gave birth to a child when she was young and unmarried. She gave the baby to friends who took the baby back to America to raise her. The adoptive parents never told the child she was adopted until she was 21. That child, Ella went crazy when she learned of her parentage and took off to Thailand where she disappeared. The search has been called off after several years, but the architect (who never met the child and who is still pissed the adoptive parents cut off all contact with her) is now obsessed with finding closure. She asks Elena, the daughter of another former friend with whom she has lost touch and who had recently died, for help. She wants Elena to come to Paris, review the diaries of the disappeared girl and to use them to write a narrative that answers the open questions. Elena has lost her ever-loving mind so she abandons her doctoral studies and her excellent boyfriend Z and decamps to Paris to do this absurd thing. Mind you she has been asked to solve a mystery by writing a fictional account of events which might have happened. It is so silly. How could Dennis have thought one could rest a book on that absurd premise? Elena immerses herself in Ella's diaries and merges her identity with Ella's. She writes the narrative, and though she never seems to leave her apartment in the 17th she apparently becomes French.
The second problem is the absent Ella. She is awful. She responds to situations like no one has, ever. I cannot begin to guess why the author thought this was a path a person might take. Maybe Dennis wants us to assume Ella is mentally ill, but the actions of the mentally ill generally have as much order as the actions of the mentally well if examined (which is not to say they are good decisions, but that there is logic to them.) Ella is pretentious AF, needy, demanding and has no self-esteem. It's an ugly combination. I have known girls like that, though the girls I knew actually thought about their choices more than Ella. Even so it never ends well for them, and perhaps it should not. I get that Ella was thrown by learning about her parentage, but nothing she does in response makes any sense. She actually made me feel bad for the awful toxic gaslighting guy she was stalking, and that sucks because Seb was the worst.
The third problem was Elena. She was mourning her mother, and had lost her memory of her mother's death and several months following (I guess that is possible?) Again, it was hard to be her, and I understand that anything that offered an escape was appealing. But she acted without regard for her father or her boyfriend who were also hurting. She was just "seeya!" And then she developed a creepy obsession with a sick dead girl who wrote godawful poetry, enabled every bad choice anyone around her made, and followed slavishly after boys who clearly had no interest in her. Also, Elena ran away to Paris (the only choice she made that seemed rational) was in the city for months, and spent the time holed up in an apartment doing nothing and seeing virtually no one. If this is something someone would do? (I don't think it is.)
The writing at the sentence level was good, and there were some beautiful passages, but an absurd premise and off-putting, crudely drawn, and dull characters, and did I mention the terrible poetry, all add up to a not very good book. My attachment to Thailand and seeker types kept me interested for a while and the pretty writing helped. I see promise here and I will be interested to see what Amanda Dennis writes next even though this failed.
March 17, 2021
This book didn’t hit for me. I couldn’t buy the plot of a woman rewriting another woman’s journals in order to find her. It was a little surreal in the writing, which I wasn’t a huge fan of. I will say that for some readers this will be a great book, but it wasn’t for me.
May 21, 2021
I will say upfront that I do not usually gravitate to any sort of missing person narrative. I'm just not interested. I feel it has been done and done and done. But the premise of this book intrigued me for some reason! Elena gets hired by Ella's birth mother to live in Paris and interpret what happened to Ella by reading her journals and rewriting them after she goes missing in Thailand. Both of their mothers were close friends, though Elena and Ella have never met, creating an interesting situation of mirroring. So throughout the book we see bits of Ella's journal writing and a LOT of Elena's invented narrative. I think the book is a little long, and I did think while reading Elena's narrative "but most of what Elena is inventing in all odds, probably couldn't have really happened to Ella -- how could Elena pretend to know this happened?" because the narrative is VERY detailed. Elena isn't writing a brief general synopsis of Ella's journals here! So I'm not sure the book needed that much of Elena's writing, though those invented parts are great. The other option would have been to include more of Ella's journals - but this book seems to be more about interpretation and filling in missing pieces from all characters here. Elena worries about delving into Ella's mind, with past missing memory of her own life and her mother's mental breakdowns. I love that Elena is a fan of older international films, studying films in school. I would have liked more of that! Elena lists quite a few films/directors I love early on in the book, but then film isn't really mentioned again. Honestly, that might be the sort of reader that this book would appeal to the most - those readers that also love older films -- the subtle, interior, intricate films! I would love to see this book as a film. An edited shorter version of this book would have been a winner for me. I will love to see what Amanda Dennis writes next.
October 31, 2020
This was very slow moving, and the way the story was written made me confused a few times about what actually happened in Ella's diaries and what Elena was writing. I also didn't like that quotation marks weren't used (and this probably was part of the confusion for me too) and I'm hoping that this will be fixed before publication. The names are also very similar which was confusing a few times.
Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
March 8, 2021
What does it mean to get inside another so you can find them? This complicated, hypnotic, and literate debut has been described as "a daughter coming to terms with the loss of her mother, and a mother coming to terms with the loss of her daughter."
FIRST LINE: "I have been up all night and now the day is gray, the narrow streets slick and silvered outside the taxi window."
THE STORY: Elena has not come to terms with her mother's death. Arriving in Paris to study, she accepts an invitation to meet with Siobhan, an old friend of her mother. Siobhan's daughter Ella, adopted and raised by a American family, has been missing for 6 years. Although she hadn't seen Ella since she was 3 months old, Ella had sent Siobhan a set of journals kept while she was living in Thailand. Siobhan offers to pay Elena generously to put aside her studies and re-interpret Ella's life using her journals as a way to find her. Elena reluctantly accepts but eventually begins to lose herself in the work.
WHAT I THOUGHT: It's a bit hard to get acclimated with the constant alternating between narrator and journals, but once engaged in the story the author provides subtle signals to guide the reader.
Using the names Elena and Ella is obviously another way to show how intertwined these two lives become, but it often causes the reader's flow to be interrupted while making sure which is which.
The language is beautiful and difficult with many esoteric references. Still the descriptions of Paris and Chiang Rai, Thailand are lovely and enticing.
BOTTOM LINE: If you are fascinated by the thought of reading an "existential detective story," don't hesitate to pick up Her Here. Otherwise it is not for the casual mystery reader.
DISCLAIMER: A copy of was provided to me by Bellevue Literary Press/Net Galley for an honest review.
FIRST LINE: "I have been up all night and now the day is gray, the narrow streets slick and silvered outside the taxi window."
THE STORY: Elena has not come to terms with her mother's death. Arriving in Paris to study, she accepts an invitation to meet with Siobhan, an old friend of her mother. Siobhan's daughter Ella, adopted and raised by a American family, has been missing for 6 years. Although she hadn't seen Ella since she was 3 months old, Ella had sent Siobhan a set of journals kept while she was living in Thailand. Siobhan offers to pay Elena generously to put aside her studies and re-interpret Ella's life using her journals as a way to find her. Elena reluctantly accepts but eventually begins to lose herself in the work.
WHAT I THOUGHT: It's a bit hard to get acclimated with the constant alternating between narrator and journals, but once engaged in the story the author provides subtle signals to guide the reader.
Using the names Elena and Ella is obviously another way to show how intertwined these two lives become, but it often causes the reader's flow to be interrupted while making sure which is which.
The language is beautiful and difficult with many esoteric references. Still the descriptions of Paris and Chiang Rai, Thailand are lovely and enticing.
BOTTOM LINE: If you are fascinated by the thought of reading an "existential detective story," don't hesitate to pick up Her Here. Otherwise it is not for the casual mystery reader.
DISCLAIMER: A copy of was provided to me by Bellevue Literary Press/Net Galley for an honest review.
July 14, 2023
A melancholy novel that never fully comes alive. There are layers of loss here - the loss suffered by graduate student Elena six years ago when her artist-mother who suffered from mental illness died, and the loss suffered by architect and Paris art gallery owner Siobhan when Ella, the daughter she gave up for adoption to friends, disappeared six years ago in Thailand. At the heart is a convoluted and hard-to-believe conceit - that Siobhan would ask Elena to write a narrative from the journals of the missing Ella that have come into her possession and that by writing that narrative perhaps Elena would be able to help figure out where Ella is or what happened to her. The descriptions of places, Paris and Thailand and weather and nature are lovely and sharp, but the narrative that Elena writes about Ella's days and her life in Chiang Rai Thailand and beyond is clunky, the writing not nearly as good as when we are outside the conjured narrative. Can one find their way through personal loss and tragedies through the loss and tragedies of another? Perhaps. A very uneven novel - what is good, is lovely, what isn't falls flat.
March 7, 2022
Great cover art! An initially interesting concept with beautifully evocative passages, the story quickly becomes suffocating and difficult to follow.
July 17, 2021
This is a hard novel to describe. It's set in Paris, where Elena has been hired by a friend of her dead mother to fictionalize her missing daughter's journals. But it's really set in northern Thailand, which is where the missing woman, Ella, had been teaching English before she disappeared, but those parts of the novel, while they are far more vivid and detailed than the "real" parts, are just Elena's imagining what Ella's life was like. And while Ella's life was a mess; she'd fallen for a self-involved and self-congratulatory American, her housemate had some serious emotional issues going on and her own issues made teaching difficult, at least Ella was out there living her life. Elena was busy not living hers, using this temporary job as a way to leave her long-term boyfriend behind as well as her graduate studies. She may be living in Paris, but she's treading water, hoping that by immersing herself in Ella's story, she'll find the way back into her own.
I was wary going into this one as it felt too insubstantial given that all Elena does is wander around moodily, but her imagining of Ella's life is vivid and takes up the majority of the book. And, to give Elena credit, she chose the right place to be aimless. I wouldn't mind being aimless in a rent-free apartment in Montmartre. I liked the meta touches in this novel, too, the way the reader is reminded that Elena is making things up, that she's writing for a specific person and that she is ignorant of most of the facts. But what else is fiction, but someone making stuff up in the absence of fact, embroidering on ideas and fragments? This is an off-beat kind of book that won't appeal to everyone, but there's something interesting going on here.
I was wary going into this one as it felt too insubstantial given that all Elena does is wander around moodily, but her imagining of Ella's life is vivid and takes up the majority of the book. And, to give Elena credit, she chose the right place to be aimless. I wouldn't mind being aimless in a rent-free apartment in Montmartre. I liked the meta touches in this novel, too, the way the reader is reminded that Elena is making things up, that she's writing for a specific person and that she is ignorant of most of the facts. But what else is fiction, but someone making stuff up in the absence of fact, embroidering on ideas and fragments? This is an off-beat kind of book that won't appeal to everyone, but there's something interesting going on here.
July 18, 2021
How I wanted to love this. Lauded by both Rebecca Makkai and my mother - "remember Amanda Dennis from down the street? She wrote a book and it's favored to be a huge hit" - I had very high expectations. Dennis is a writer - there's no doubt of her skill and talent - but she is not a storyteller. Both Elena and Ella were one-dimensional characters with few relatable qualities. While neither was "dégueulasse" by any means, they were not very memorable. Elena's rewrite of Ella's journals bordered on cringeworthy, if only because Elena came so close to feeling and becoming Ella. Siobhan's ask of Elena was even more particular since Siobhan did not keep up the relationship with Ida (Elena's mother) nor did Siobhan really know Elena separate from Ida. Elena's imagining of Ella's journey in Thailand seemed reminiscent of many young adults who go to SE Asia hoping to "eat, pray, love" but cannot cope with more mature events and happenings - a vacation is only a vacation until it becomes real life. And Elena's avoidance of real life through Ella's journey was just was escapist as Ella leaving in the first place.
April 9, 2021
An atmospheric, dreamy novel unlike anything I’ve ever read.
I was intrigued by the concept of this story right away. I’m always drawn to stories that feature written correspondence or journals, and this definitely fit that bill. Elena is hired to bring Ella’s journals to life, in hopes that an answer to Ella’s disappearance can be found in the pages. There are three voices telling this story: Elena, when she is in Paris working on this project; Ella via her journals; and Elena reimagining Ella’s life as she digests the journal entries.
The story jumps between these layered voices, and my engagement with it ebbed and flowed throughout the reading. I struggled to connect with the stilted, present-tense writing style. I enjoyed the author’s vivid descriptions of moments and places, but I’m left feeling foggy.
Thanks to the publisher, Bellevue Literary Press, for an advance copy of this book.
I was intrigued by the concept of this story right away. I’m always drawn to stories that feature written correspondence or journals, and this definitely fit that bill. Elena is hired to bring Ella’s journals to life, in hopes that an answer to Ella’s disappearance can be found in the pages. There are three voices telling this story: Elena, when she is in Paris working on this project; Ella via her journals; and Elena reimagining Ella’s life as she digests the journal entries.
The story jumps between these layered voices, and my engagement with it ebbed and flowed throughout the reading. I struggled to connect with the stilted, present-tense writing style. I enjoyed the author’s vivid descriptions of moments and places, but I’m left feeling foggy.
Thanks to the publisher, Bellevue Literary Press, for an advance copy of this book.
April 18, 2021
This is the story of Elena, who is on leave from graduate school and takes an assignment to read and rewrite the diaries of a young woman who went missing six years earlier in Thailand.
As she dives into Ella's story, Elena's life and sense of self gets mixed in Ella's and she gets more and more lost in what happened to Ella.
I was never able to get into this story, the names of the two girls were too similar and it was easy to lose track of who was who and what went on. It's very possible this was done on purpose to have the reader experience some of the confusion Elena was experiencing but it made it hard for me to really enjoy the story.
with gratitude to edelweiss for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.
As she dives into Ella's story, Elena's life and sense of self gets mixed in Ella's and she gets more and more lost in what happened to Ella.
I was never able to get into this story, the names of the two girls were too similar and it was easy to lose track of who was who and what went on. It's very possible this was done on purpose to have the reader experience some of the confusion Elena was experiencing but it made it hard for me to really enjoy the story.
with gratitude to edelweiss for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.
December 28, 2022
I really wanted to like this debut novel, but the plot was disjointed (and a bit non-existent/implausible). After I finished reading, I tried to google to understand the ending, but I couldn’t find anything.
I honestly have no idea what happened to Ella.
The writing was descriptive, but there wasn’t any character development that made me want to keep reading.
The book was trying to be artsy, but for me, it didn’t work.
I honestly have no idea what happened to Ella.
The writing was descriptive, but there wasn’t any character development that made me want to keep reading.
The book was trying to be artsy, but for me, it didn’t work.
June 9, 2021
50 pages in I was overcome with boredom along with the realization that this book is an exercise in writing. Not for me.
December 29, 2020
In Her Here, the thoughts, feelings, and personhood between PhD student Elena, and missing distant family friend Ella blur as Elena tries to piece together Ella’s whereabouts using only her old journals. Set in a combination of France and Thailand, author Amanda Dennis transports readers to these locations and introduces us to the colorful members of Ella’s life. As Elena, hired to write the narrative of Ella’s last year or so, digs deeper and deeper into her last known experiences, she succumbs her own personhood to Ella while ultimately learning more about herself.
The written narrative of Ella’s time in Thailand was my favorite part of the book, and I found her and the people she interacted with in Thailand to be relatable and believable characters. While I really loved Her Here overall, I did struggle to understand or be engaged by the first 10-15% of the book due the artistic syntax and more prosaic writing style. I quickly shed these feelings, however, as Ella was introduced and I and learned more about her experience in Thailand. Based on the description, I thought that Elena’s amnesia would be a bigger factor, and by the end of the book I don’t think it was necessary. I think ‘burnt out grad student in a stagnant relationship’ is totally sufficient to explain why Elena left the US to take the job of transforming Ella’s diaries into a story. Elena’s relationship with her own mother and behavior after her passing is also wrapped in quite a bit of prose, so it seems to fade into the background behind Ella’s more enticing story.
There is a lot to enjoy about Her Here, including beautiful descriptiveness and an interesting plot, and I am impressed that this is the author’s first work. I would look forward to reading more by Dennis.
Note: I received Her Here as a free ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The written narrative of Ella’s time in Thailand was my favorite part of the book, and I found her and the people she interacted with in Thailand to be relatable and believable characters. While I really loved Her Here overall, I did struggle to understand or be engaged by the first 10-15% of the book due the artistic syntax and more prosaic writing style. I quickly shed these feelings, however, as Ella was introduced and I and learned more about her experience in Thailand. Based on the description, I thought that Elena’s amnesia would be a bigger factor, and by the end of the book I don’t think it was necessary. I think ‘burnt out grad student in a stagnant relationship’ is totally sufficient to explain why Elena left the US to take the job of transforming Ella’s diaries into a story. Elena’s relationship with her own mother and behavior after her passing is also wrapped in quite a bit of prose, so it seems to fade into the background behind Ella’s more enticing story.
There is a lot to enjoy about Her Here, including beautiful descriptiveness and an interesting plot, and I am impressed that this is the author’s first work. I would look forward to reading more by Dennis.
Note: I received Her Here as a free ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
April 2, 2021
Her, Here is the story of Elena who is hired to find Ella, a woman who is missing and presumed dead, by reading her diaries and turning them into a narrative. It seems a dangerous task for a woman who has lost part of her own past, remembering nothing of the months that followed her mother’s death. The woman who hired her was her mother’s best friend in college and Elena hopes to learn more about her mother by getting to know her.
She is set up with an apartment in Paris, an odd choice when Ella disappeared in Thailand. As begins reading the several journals that Ella wrote and writing a story from them, he seems to channel Ella, adding details that she found through research and imagination. Sometimes she even dreams as Ella. Is it possible that in finding Ella she could lose herself?
I nearly put Her, Here down during the first chapter. Fortunately, I have a fifty pages rule, allowing every book that much time to catch my interest, so I stuck it out and fell in love with the story and the writing. The first chapter, well, it is the present tense. I dislike it intensely other than in conversation. It always feels pretentioous. Thankfully, the rest of the book takes pity on readers and is written in more natural language.
The sense of place is rich and sumptuous. Dennis describes the environment using all the senses, the softness of the earth, the smells, the sounds, the feel of the atmosphere. It’s fascinating to see Elena taking the bones of the diary and construct a living being with her imagination. I loved it.
I received an ARC of Her, Here from the publisher through LibraryThing.
Her, Here at Bellevue Literary Press
Amanda Dennis author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
She is set up with an apartment in Paris, an odd choice when Ella disappeared in Thailand. As begins reading the several journals that Ella wrote and writing a story from them, he seems to channel Ella, adding details that she found through research and imagination. Sometimes she even dreams as Ella. Is it possible that in finding Ella she could lose herself?
I nearly put Her, Here down during the first chapter. Fortunately, I have a fifty pages rule, allowing every book that much time to catch my interest, so I stuck it out and fell in love with the story and the writing. The first chapter, well, it is the present tense. I dislike it intensely other than in conversation. It always feels pretentioous. Thankfully, the rest of the book takes pity on readers and is written in more natural language.
The sense of place is rich and sumptuous. Dennis describes the environment using all the senses, the softness of the earth, the smells, the sounds, the feel of the atmosphere. It’s fascinating to see Elena taking the bones of the diary and construct a living being with her imagination. I loved it.
I received an ARC of Her, Here from the publisher through LibraryThing.
Her, Here at Bellevue Literary Press
Amanda Dennis author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
March 17, 2021
A young woman named Ella goes missing in Thailand, and six years later the mother who gave her up propositions Elena, the daughter of a friend, to uncover what happened by rewriting Ella's journals. Ella took off to Thailand when she learned the truth about her biological mother giving her up. Siobhan, the biological mother, puts Elena up in Paris on a stipend, and Elena puts her dissertation on hold and dives right in.
The book goes back and forth between Elena's stay in Paris, and the rewritings of Ella's journals. Both of them are lost girls: Ella didn't know who she really was after she found out about her adoption, and Elena has gaps in her memory as she grieves her mother who died six years earlier.
The rewriting of Ella's journals were interesting, vivid. My desire to get to know Elena better also kept me turning the page, but there isn't as much of her as I would have liked. At times things felt very slow, but towards the end I couldn't put it down, and the last words on the last page were just beautiful.
The book goes back and forth between Elena's stay in Paris, and the rewritings of Ella's journals. Both of them are lost girls: Ella didn't know who she really was after she found out about her adoption, and Elena has gaps in her memory as she grieves her mother who died six years earlier.
The rewriting of Ella's journals were interesting, vivid. My desire to get to know Elena better also kept me turning the page, but there isn't as much of her as I would have liked. At times things felt very slow, but towards the end I couldn't put it down, and the last words on the last page were just beautiful.
May 28, 2021
An unusual book about an unsolveable mystery.
Ella disappeared in Thailand 6 years ago. Her birth mother Siobhan has her journals, and hires her own late best friend Ida's daughter Elena to turn those journals into a narrative story. Siobhan and Ida were pregnant at the same time, so Elena is the age Ella would be. Elena has struggled since her mother's death, and takes the job despite her own misgivings about her mental health, her PhD program, her boyfriend, and if she can or should let herself "be" Ella to better understand the journals and write her story.
Honestly, I am surprised this book did not get more attention, but then it is also hard to categorize. With themes ranging from adoption and the wisdom of keeping it a secret, to mental health, grief, accidents, and the unknowable, it is timely. The writing is good, maybe it could have been edited down a bit, but this is a solid and interesting novel.
Ella disappeared in Thailand 6 years ago. Her birth mother Siobhan has her journals, and hires her own late best friend Ida's daughter Elena to turn those journals into a narrative story. Siobhan and Ida were pregnant at the same time, so Elena is the age Ella would be. Elena has struggled since her mother's death, and takes the job despite her own misgivings about her mental health, her PhD program, her boyfriend, and if she can or should let herself "be" Ella to better understand the journals and write her story.
Honestly, I am surprised this book did not get more attention, but then it is also hard to categorize. With themes ranging from adoption and the wisdom of keeping it a secret, to mental health, grief, accidents, and the unknowable, it is timely. The writing is good, maybe it could have been edited down a bit, but this is a solid and interesting novel.
November 21, 2021
Usually I read non-fiction or dusty canonical classics. This is realistic modern fiction, and I was enveloped.
I listened on audible, which was read by the author Amanda Dennis. Hearing Ms. Dennis share her story was particularly compelling, as she brings her world alive with her voice.
This is a painterly book of sensual description, struggle and strife, escapism, deep thinking, nuanced relationships, bravery, naivete.
Ms. Dennis draws on her own life experiences studying and teaching in Asia, North America, Europe, to develop striving characters who span the globe and reach to each other across time.
This author and this book deserve a wide audience.
This book will linger with you once it's gone, as you consider your own fictions, obsessions, distractions, and quests, and what drives them. . .
I listened on audible, which was read by the author Amanda Dennis. Hearing Ms. Dennis share her story was particularly compelling, as she brings her world alive with her voice.
This is a painterly book of sensual description, struggle and strife, escapism, deep thinking, nuanced relationships, bravery, naivete.
Ms. Dennis draws on her own life experiences studying and teaching in Asia, North America, Europe, to develop striving characters who span the globe and reach to each other across time.
This author and this book deserve a wide audience.
This book will linger with you once it's gone, as you consider your own fictions, obsessions, distractions, and quests, and what drives them. . .
March 16, 2021
A book within a book is a brave attempt for a debut novel and I applaud the author for this. I made it to 100 pages and had to skim the rest, landing at some parts to understand the story line better. I found that while the author uses very vivid descriptions of environments, moments in time, character studies, and social dynamics within the lives of expats (usually white persons' POV), the story was disjointed, bit unbelievable, and at times too nebulous for me to sink into. I appreciated the coming-of-age stories in the parallel narratives. I think the author is a good writer, but this one didn't land for me.
(Review from book club selection committee for WNBA with gratitude to publishers)
(Review from book club selection committee for WNBA with gratitude to publishers)
April 20, 2021
This is an unusual book. It's the story of a young woman who is grieving and searching for answers about her recently deceased her mother. She takes on a project in Paris of creating a story based on the journals of the missing daughter of her mother's close friend.
The basic premise of Dennis's novel is odd and stretches credibility. Although the protagonist lives in Paris, most of the book takes place in Thailand, where the missing daughter lived when she wrote the journals. The settings are well rendered and interesting. The characters are not satisfactorily developed to explain the unusual set-up, and they're not likable either. The writing style is literary, with well-constructed language, but not enough for me to give the book more than a passing grade.
The basic premise of Dennis's novel is odd and stretches credibility. Although the protagonist lives in Paris, most of the book takes place in Thailand, where the missing daughter lived when she wrote the journals. The settings are well rendered and interesting. The characters are not satisfactorily developed to explain the unusual set-up, and they're not likable either. The writing style is literary, with well-constructed language, but not enough for me to give the book more than a passing grade.
November 9, 2021
Elena meets her Mother’s long ago friend in Paris who offers her an apartment and job. The job is to find what happened to Ella by reading and re writing her journals . Ella has gone missing in Thailand but has left behind journals. Elena and Ella have never met, but Elena tries to get into Ella’s head by reading and writing what she thinks happened. Elena also worries about her own mental state while taking on this project as her Mother had mental issues and Elena is losing periods of time.
Very detailed novel.
Many thanks to Bellevue press and Netgalley for an opportunity to read.
I can only give 3 stars as I wasn’t wowed by this novel.
Very detailed novel.
Many thanks to Bellevue press and Netgalley for an opportunity to read.
I can only give 3 stars as I wasn’t wowed by this novel.
did-not-finish
February 20, 2022Abandoned at about 10%. Not because there was anything wrong with it; more because I have read several books recently that I quite liked but didn't love, and I could tell this was going to be another. The premise (a woman must attempt to solve the mystery of a girl's disappearance by rewriting and translating her journals) is really interesting, but led me to expect something more solid, plot-wise, than what I've found so far. I was hoping the journals would provide this substance, but they are very abstract and obtuse, which is of course true to the tone of many a youthful diary, but not what I wanted from this story.
March 12, 2021
Bit of an odd premise; Elena is hired to construct a narrative based on a set of journals written by a woman named Ella who's been missing for six years, the purpose being to make sense of them and try to find her.
Takes a bit to get into, but once I did "Her Here" was such an immersive read... I'm impressed by the fluidity of language, the writing style overall, and it ended up being mystery book like none other I've read.
Another singular release from Bellevue Literary Press, thank you for the ARC!
Takes a bit to get into, but once I did "Her Here" was such an immersive read... I'm impressed by the fluidity of language, the writing style overall, and it ended up being mystery book like none other I've read.
Another singular release from Bellevue Literary Press, thank you for the ARC!
March 23, 2021
I adored this novel! Literary fiction at its finest! It's layered and complex with atmospheric details and landscapes of Thailand and Pari. The architecture of the structure of this book is brilliant. It's not your traditional mystery yet there is a mystery to be solved. If you are like me and find yourself often disappointed by commercial fiction, give Her Here a go. Looking forward to reading more from this dazzling writer.
I'm on a quest to read many novels published spring 2021 and this one is the best of the bunch so far!
I'm on a quest to read many novels published spring 2021 and this one is the best of the bunch so far!
March 9, 2021
I had a bit of a hard time with this one, and, as I read, my feelings about it were all over the place. It was really hard to get into, and, at times, it was hard to follow. But there were also times when I thoroughly enjoyed it. I almost quit reading multiple times in the first half of the book but kept plugging along because of the times when it was enjoyable. Just ok for me.
Read for a committee for a book association.
Read for a committee for a book association.
July 12, 2021
I learned so much about life and self identity through this novel. Although a bit confusing, by the end I understood everything and it was very eye opening. In the story, there are three different stories being told at the same time and that’s what confused me and the story is also written in a very cryptic matter. If you are looking for a book about self reflective and one with a deeper meaning this is the book for that.
March 26, 2021
I got this book free from Library Thing's early reviewers program. It was an easy, interesting read, but a lot of it didn't really make sense to me. I had several questions that weren't answered, and I didn't really find the characters realistic. But it's a quick mysterious read with a lot of setting in Thailand, which was interesting.
April 3, 2021
A troubled young woman dealing with memory issues is tasked with re-writing/re-interpreting the cryptic diary of another young woman who has gone missing in Thailand. Can either of these lost souls be found' and reunited with loved ones? No spoilers... you'll have to read to the end of this enticingly enigmatic narrative to see what's possible
September 30, 2021
This is a deeply ambitious first novel, but Dennis pulls it off. Some might find the shifts in style and persona confusing, but, for me, this was all part of the book's design and its consideration of the act of writing itself. Dennis ranges geographically and emotionally with equal skill and the end result is a novel of great subtlety and style.
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