Grace Williams Says It Loud

From the book cover

This isn't an ordinary love story but then Grace isn't an ordinary girl.

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Emma Henderson's Grace Williams Says it Loud made the 2011 Orange Prize short list.

Grace Williams is a 'spastic'; she was born with developmental challenges and various physical disabilities including a cleft lip, an over-sized tongue that sometimes hangs outside of her mouth causing excessive salivation, and one leg longer than the other. At the age of six, Grace contracts polio, resulting in the paralysis of her right arm.

At the age of 11, Grace is placed at the Briar Mental Institute. Grace's love story starts shortly after she arrives at the Briar and meets Daniel, a charismatic epileptic who lost his arms in a car accident.

I was disappointed by this book. It lacks a climax and Grace's narration is very detached throughout 75 per cent of the novel. There are novels where a detached narrative works, but Grace Williams isn't one of them.
Don't get me wrong, Grace is a very observant narrator. She does a great job of giving the reader a unpolished look at the routine degradation of living in a third-rate institution between the late 1950s and the mid-1980s, but something is  missing.

I think I expected more love story. It would have been nice to have more time spent exploring Grace and Daniels relationship. I was really yearning to see them away from the institution. I was hoping they'd move out on their own into some kind of independent living program or maybe Grace would get pregnant.

Either of the above scenarios would have help to move things along. As it is, this story really drags. I had to enact my 'you start it, you finish rule.'

2.5/5