It was the title that drew me to this book. Help Me, Jacques Cousteau is the first novel by Canadian author, Gil Adamson – she has now become an award-winning author with her second novel The Outlander. Not much happened in this book, but I still enjoyed reading it. Adamson has a good voice, kind of similar to Miriam Toews in her topic matter and character choices, but not quite up to her excellence – Toews being my female author crush.
This novel didn’t really have a plot, it was simply snapshots of Hazel’s life (the main character) randomly put together not really in any order, from crossing an ocean to move from Vancouver to Australia, to watching Bambi in the theatre with her father snoring beside her. It read like linked short stories. It was described as being a book about a family of “modern-day eccentrics” on the back, which is one of my favourite book topics (I love eccentric and quirky characters), but by the end they seemed like any normal family, the difference was that they weren’t afraid to keep their crazy relatives and eccentricities out in the open. The main link between all of the snapshots is her relationship with her mother, and her mother in general. Hazel lives through her parents divorce and her mothers eventual abandonment, and she seems to dwell on the events that led to this. Adamson does capture this family well, making it very believable – it’s easy to imagine this family as any family living on your street.
But while it was an enjoyable read, it wasn’t really memorable. I did, however, still pick up her more famous novel The Outlander during my book buying binge where I spent over $130 on books in three days – I have a serious problem but its partly because I am abusing my discount at the bookstore while I still have it, I recently just quit because of other job opportunities, yay! - because I enjoyed her writing style. I easily become attached to authors if I enjoy their voice no matter their subject matter. So maybe that book will be more memorable.
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