When you know the author

Ever read a book and felt like the author was trying to speak to you through the words unwritten? Or am I alone in constantly wondering what an author could possibly have wanted to share with me through his/her story? This goes back to my whole belief that art is an intimate sharing of one's personal desires, sometimes without one meaning to do so.

Last week one of my (dare I say?) most creative/thoughtful/intriguing friends gave me a book he wrote: The Bridge. Here is picture I took of it because the covering and the covers were so sensibly made:

My thoughts going through the first few pages: "This is totally his style of writing." 

And as I read through the rest of the story, I kept going back to the fact that the entire narration felt very much like something only he would have come up with. Usually when reading books by different authors I start to notice their particular accents and tones of writing, but I can never be sure what kind of person they were because I never met them. It was a very different experience reading a friend's work and realizing that, yes, this is his style. 

But I ramble (as I usually do), and it's about time I summarize the story without giving it away.

Summary

Told through seven days, we follow the main character as he lives a rather bohemian life. The focal point was flashbacks to a particular interaction the character had with his childhood best friend, which occurred on a bridge (finally understood title after reading that part). Through two different tellings of the same flashback the reader starts to question who exactly the main character is. 

I actually feel like I can't really explain how much I enjoyed this book without spoiling it... Really do hate it when that happens. Here are my general feelings when reading it though:

• This is totally his style of writing
• So much thought clearly put into this
• I'm so confused
• Wait, what?
• Ahaha
• I feel like I've just been told something without being told it

The afterword should have been part of the book in all honesty. Without it I would have been at a greater loss of the story than I was after reading the afterward, at which point I was still rather confused. I seem to enjoy getting confused.

I'm actually rather upset now that I can't exactly get my thoughts about the book written down properly. And just on a whim I added this book to my Goodreads book shelf, after adding the book to the book list that is. I just realized, this is the first book I finished this year! Book goal of 30 books by the end of this year, I'd best get on that!