Dementia Patient’s Memoir Capitalizes on Unreliable Narrator Trend

As I turned the final page of “Forgetting to Remember: One Woman’s Tale of Mental Decay”, the latest and thank goodness last memoir from author Emma W. Livingston, I found myself wishing that I could forget to remember the lump of excrement that is this book.

While I lean towards more amiable reviews and prefer to offer practical critiques, I doubt the author will remember a single thing I write, so I’ll just lay it out bare. The pages from this book would be better used in a latrine.

Throughout the entire memoir, the author heavily relies on the whole ‘unreliable narrator’ trend, where we, the reader, learn not to trust the narrator early on in the story, and this then becomes the main source of entertainment. It’s an overdone trope and one without merit. I understand that the whole “should we trust the narrator thing” is fun for the reader, trying to guess what is true and what isn’t. I read “Girl on a Train” too okay? But seriously, it’s tired. And despite the obvious cliche of this fad, the author doubles down, depicting herself as a character without any wit or basic mental functioning. It’s like keep it together for a fucking second.

I mean how trite. It’s pathetic the way the narrator fumbles around from scene to scene forgetting what was said a moment ago and falling into random pits of anxiety-induced rage and paralyzing fear. It’s totally been done before!

I for one cannot wait for the memory of this memoir to drift from my mind like Ms. Livingston’s basic awareness.