I'm Fine and Neither Are You by Camille Pagan

2.5 Stars

This book is supposed to be about the masks we put on every day, to the world at large, our co-workers, our friends and our loved ones.  The pretences we make so that we appear to be "doing just fine thanks", the perfection we make our lives out to be on Social Media.  How we are not honest with anyone, least of all ourselves.  For me it was more about a whiny, entitled woman who wanted everything everyone else appeared to have without examining what she did have.

Penny just about drove me around the twist, how her husband (whose name I now find difficult to remember) had stuck with her for 11(?) years of marriage I cannot begin to fathom.  She plays the martyr card about the state of their marriage, how she has to do everything - including support the family whilst he does everything to avoid growing up.  Poor Penny is struggling to juggle work and motherhood and having a social life and having a marriage.  I know this is a real struggle for many people (not just women - men struggle with these things too) but in Penny's case if she just stopped being so selfish and got out of her own head things would improve exponentially.  Unfortunately it takes a cataclysmic event affecting her best friend Jenny to shake her out of herself.

As you can probably tell by the above I really, really did not like the main character at all.  The writing itself has a good flow and there is a dry wit lurking in there which did bring a smile to my face at times.  It also deals with some genuine 21st Century issues, especially the subjugation of self and the need to appear "perfect" to absolutely everyone at all times.  It also manages to give a little kernel of hope as Penny and husband work through what is damaging their marriage with each other.  The problem for me was that I really thought they would have been better splitting up and probably seeking psychiatric counselling from a professional rather than muddling their way through.

The juxtaposition between Jenny and Penny is nicely handled and the aftermath of "the incident" does illuminate how little we can believe what we read and see on Social Media.  I haven't re-read the blurb for this book so I can't remember if the nature of Jenny's trauma is flagged up so I am trying my best not give it away here.  Suffice to say it does throw up some parallels with some of the issues facing the US Medical System at the moment.

Ms Pagan is clearly an accomplished writer but this novel just wasn't for me.