The Girl Who Didn't Get Married by Mark Ross; Bookish Madness

 

The Girl Who Didn't Get Married by Mark Ross; Bookish Madness

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Books like any other arts and entertainment medium offers a means of escape, information, deep thought, knowledge, relaxation, and fun.

Mostly it can be a good thing but for some it can be a detriment especially if they have trouble separating fantasy from reality. Sometimes, what they read becomes more real than the world around them and they identify with the characters so much that they can't separate themselves from them. That is the conflict facing Emma Jenkins, protagonist of The Girl Who Didn't Get Married by Mark Ross, a psychological thriller about a bibliophile who is put into a destructive situation and copes by using her very active literary fantasy life.

Emma is engaged but her fiance, Christian calls it off the day before their wedding. Apparently he had something on the side with Dana Martin. Police officer Jared Evans interrogates her on the day of the wedding that never was to inform her that Dana was found dead inside a hotel room. Witnesses saw someone who looked like Emma leaving the hotel. She had the opportunity, means and certainly a motive so it doesn't look good. As Jared investigates Emma, Emma does her own investigation to clear her own name and confront Christian. She is also caught up in her favorite mystery novels and psychological thrillers identifying with characters like Amanda Chapman and Claire Rosen so much that she not only interacts with them but actually becomes the characters.

The Girl Who Didn't Get Married is a strong insightful psychological thriller about a woman who is on the cusp of losing her sanity right when her entire world is falling apart around her. 

Emma is someone whose delusions are getting in the way of living her life.

There are chapters where she talks to her favorite literary characters and they offer advice on her current predicaments. Whole chapters are told from those characters’ points of view not Emma's so the Reader is required to pay attention to whether Emma, Amanda, Claire, or one of the other characters is on the scene. 

It can get very confusing to follow especially when chapters jump from one point of view to another and where they purposely contradict each other. For example Amanda does things that Emma doesn't remember doing or has no control over. 

There are strong suggestions that Emma identifies with these characters because they act in ways that she wants to. They are brave, confident, self-assured, seductive, alluring, strong-willed, and are able to manipulate situations in their favor. Reading about, talking to, and becoming these characters becomes a wish fulfillment for a woman who feels like she has no sense of self-worth or identity and feels like a cypher in her own real world. Someone who things happen to rather than making them happen for herself.

Emma's transformations from character to character are the highlights of the book more so than the plot. The plot is suspenseful and mind twisting. There are some interesting detours and revelations that require the Reader to read closely and even go back to review them again just to be sure.

However, some plot points can be discombobulating. One in particular will have the character scratching their heads in confusion and torn between whether they loved or hated it. It requires some deep thinking and a potential suspension of belief but it also resonates with what we know about the characters and the information in which we are given and can infer.

The Girl Who Didn't Get Married is a compelling look at a troubled bookworm’s fractured mind. It's a bit dramatic but is also intriguing and sometimes scary to imagine how quickly that could become us.