Ordinary People by Judith Guest Review

Ordinary People

by Judith Guest

An ilovemys(h)elf Review

Publisher: Penguin Books

Edition: Paperback

# of Pages: 263

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Recommend?: Yes

I was walking in the library, glancing and running my fingers across all the different spines of all the different novels, my ride was waiting for me, and I had no idea which book I wanted to pick up.

And there it was, sitting on of the shorter shelves, with its bland cover and bland title.

Ordinary People.

I didn’t know that it was a novel. I’ve never watched the movie but I knew that it was an Oscar win for best picture a couple of years back.

Ordinary People.

I know nothing about this story, and never intended to read this book; however, something urged me to check it out, take it home, and read it.

My first attempt to read this book was unsuccessful. I had only gotten to about 30 pages through and I decided that I just wasn’t in the right mood to devour this particular story. I wasn’t feeling… well. I felt emotionally shut off from everything. And the fact that there was such an overwhelming, intoxicating atmosphere to this story didn’t help my situation.

I put it down for a few weeks.  

2017 came around and I picked up the book that someone had recommended me at school, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, it was just right as I wasn’t feeling like I was at the bottom of a well anymore. I listened to Malala Yousafzai’s memoir and considered it a good, nice read. (Not as good as her actual story, but good enough).

After those two reads, I decided to pick up Ordinary People, hoping that it wouldn’t make me feel as downtrodden as it had initially.

I realized then that books don’t change for people. They stay the same, and are always the same.

It was almost as if I could feel my soul crush under the emotional weight of this book, as if I could feel my entire body being submerged into the sorrows of each and every character; their sorrows became my sorrows, their happiness, my happiness. I was an ordinary person living an ordinary life reading about ordinary people living their ordinary lives, and the experience was absolutely, enchantingly, extraordinary.

Ordinary People's Judith Guest

It’s rare when I get to say that a certain book was an experience, that I looked forward to the time that I could cuddle up in my bed and read 30 pages a day.

Ordinary People is a book that is not afraid of being ‘mediocre’, that decided to look at the lives of one grieving, mourning family, and turn the outcome of their sadness into something completely indescribable. Ordinary People is devoid of clichés and over-worn axioms. This is a novel of complex simplicity and extreme beauty; the story grows on itself, never forgetting the emotions of everyday people in our everyday world, and successfully implementing that concept of unique banality into the all the characters present in the novel.

Many people read fantasy and magical-abstract fiction to completely escape the reality, the truth of today. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I always find myself slipping into a reverie of reality, I always find myself craving a fiction of truth.

As you can obviously see, I am not that good at writing actual reviews of the books I so deeply love. Instead, I write out my stories, I write out my un-edited, plain, (and just for the heck of it) ordinary thoughts.

Ordinary People directed by Robert Redford