My Name is Mina

My Name Is Mina
David Almond

'My Name Is Mina' is very difficult to describe what it is about, and that's perhaps one of the best things about it.  In summary, it is a diary that Mina, an incredibly imaginative girl, keeps and records all her daydreams, hopes, wishes, fears, and discoveries, and has been written as a prequel to 'Skellig' which is definitely now on my very long 'to read' list!

I loved Mina as a character, as I thought every aspect of her was thoroughly explored in the novel in a creative and imaginative way. Almond has captured the thoughts and feelings of many young and frustrated people who have a love of literature and managed to pack them into one person - the result is a very powerful a strong character, and although slightly mad we can all connect to her in some way or another.

The postmodern element of the novel was both a positive and negative for me. I loved how the book ignored pretty much every single rule of the conventional novel - even the way the writing laid out on the page was different, with massive words on some pages, some pages black with white writing etc, pretty much exploring every possible way of having an impact upon the reader. I also liked the playing around with 1st and 3rd person narrators and how Almond has manipulated the story to try his ideas out.

However, the downside of the postmodern element of the novel was that I finished without the character really getting anywhere - I didn't feel any particularly strong or overwhelming emotions at the end of the story, and I didn't feel satisfied either. There was no real drive to read 'Skellig' based on the end of the book - instead I am simply curious as to what happens next.

That being said, I did enjoy the refreshing break of reading Mina's diary and her wild and unrestrained thoughts that simply spilled out over the page and came straight from the heart - definitely a worthwhile read as long as you don't expect too much from the ending.

Rachel, Yr 12