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The story is about a young woman named Aria and the days leading up to her wedding. Chapter one opens with Aria writing her obituary and taking pills and then continues with what seems to just be random thoughts. A couple of diary entries are thrown in. Next is a scene between Aria and Will, her boyfriend, except that now the story is being told in second person instead of first person which really threw me off.
This jumping back and forth continues throughout the novella with alternating between Aria’s mental anguish over her life choices, relating the progression of those choices, and the diary entries. It seems that Aria has been with Will for a number of years but she’s not really in love with him. She really loves Charles but he never sees her as anything more than a friend to hang out with. Eventually Will proposes to Aria and she says yes even though she knows she doesn’t love him but she can’t see a way to survive without him. She knows he has affairs with other women but proceeds with wedding plans anyway.
The conclusion of this story really left me wanting and wondering. It seemed unclear to me what had really happened to Aria in the end. There are also references throughout to the movements used in musical composition, however, I didn’t quite see how this aspect came together. There is also some philosophical discussions between characters which I found confusing and which didn’t seem to aid Aria in any way as she is struggling with what direction to go in.
Overall, this story just didn’t work for me. I think the author has some good ideas here but perhaps should have given them more time to be worked out. The book is only 52 pages and maybe should be a little longer so that the reader can really follow the author’s message. In the end I just wasn’t quite sure what the message was that the author wanted me to get from the story. Did she want me to approve of her characters choices or did she want me learn from Aria’s mistakes so that I don’t make them myself?
I’m going to give this book a rating of 2 out of 4 stars because I didn’t feel like it flowed well and it just left me wondering.
***
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