Sometimes a book comes along that just doesn’t fit into a box. It defies all description, and can’t be defined by genre. And yet it’s so compelling and intriguing that it stays with you long after you’ve finished it. The Strange Case of Jane O is one of these books.
Blurb:
WHAT IF YOU COULD REMEMBER EVERYTHING, EXCEPT THE DAY YOU DISAPPEARED?
A young woman, Jane O., arrives in a psychiatrist’s office. She’s been suffering a series of worrying episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations and an inexplicable sense of dread. But as the psychiatrist struggles to solve the mystery of what is happening in Jane’s mind, she suddenly goes missing. When she is found a day later, unconscious in a park, she has no memory of what has happened to her.
Are Jane’s strange experiences related to the overwhelm of single motherhood, or long-buried trauma from her past? Why is she having visions of a young man who died twenty years ago, who warns her of disaster ahead? Jane’s symptoms will lead her psychiatrist to question everything he once thought he knew . . .
Profound and beautifully written, THE STRANGE CASE OF JANE O. is a speculative mystery about memory, identity and fate, a mesmerising story about the bonds of love between a mother and child, a man and a woman, and the haunting, unexplained mysteries of the human mind.
My Review:
The story is told from dual perspectives: Dr Byrd is a psychiatrist relaying his experience and thoughts about his patient, Jane, and although his telling of his side of the story might feel a bit like he’s reading his case notes, it’s not quite a clinical as that; Jane’s viewpoint is seen through letters that she writes to her son for him to read when he’s older, the purpose of this being twofold – for her to record on paper what she’s experiencing, and for her child, who’s now barely a year old, to know in later years what happened to his mother and indirectly to him, when he was young.
Jane’s seemingly bizarre experiences of lost time, conversations with people she knows are not there, and her insistence that certain events have occurred or are currently occurring, baffle her doctor, and all of those around her. And while Dr Byrd continues to try and figure out what’s happening inside Jane’s head, the police are less patient and tolerant of her behaviour.
As more and more strange things happen to Jane, the reader is drip-fed hints and gentle nudges as to what is possibly happening, and while I started out having no inkling as to what that might have been, eventually I did (sort of) work out what might be going on. By about half-way through the book, I found the entire premise fascinating. It was so well thought out. To write something like this is no easy task … in fact, I’d imagine it’s something of somewhat mammoth proportions: to have everyone saying and doing everything in exactly the right time and space! But it works on every level and I was completely immersed.
Thank you to Compulsive Readers for a truly compulsive blog tour!
jansbookbuzz.com 
This has me intrigued. I will be adding this to my list of books to read. Thanks Jan. Shelley
LikeLike