Meike's Reviews > Hurricane Girl

This short novel tells the story of a young woman who is assaulted by two men, loses her home, and has to undergo brain surgery - and the whole thing is somehow wickedly hilarious. With crisp sentences, dry humor and excellent psychological writing, Dermansky repeats what she has achieved in Very Nice, and it's captivating to follow. At the beginning of the text, protagonist Allison Brody has left her abusive movie producer boyfriend and moved from L.A. to her own beach house in North Carolina, which is promptly destroyed by a hurricane. Traumatized and now broke and homeless, Allison stands in the debris of her attempted new beginning when she has a faithful encounter with a cameraman who arrived at the scene to report for the news...

Dermansky shines when she writes about the movements of Allison's mind, first when she gets stuck in a dangerous situation with the cameraman, which causes her to both doubt her judgement and wonder how to act correctly, and then when she gets out of brain surgery with hazy perceptions and episodes of disorientation, thus becoming an entirely unreliable narrator. Generally, the novel ponders what messes with Allison's head, both literally and figuratively, and how she struggles to maintain agency over her own life, with her insecurities, natural disaster, and male violence trying to take it away from her.

A compassionately rendered, smart, and entertaining text that proves that literature does not have to feel difficult in order to be of high quality.