Customer Reviews

Claire's Head

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For about 150 pages this is a wonderful read. A powerful depiction
of life for migraine sufferers, the novel operates as a mystery
with the principal character searching for her sister, compatriot
in suffering from crippling migraines. But then the author regurgitates the same information over and over again, we learn
every detail and mood associated with migraines, page after page
after page. The novel is too long and would have benifited by
a tighter editing. By the second half of the book I just couldn't
care anymore and I was seriously starting to develop a headache
myself. There is no distance in the telling of this story, you
feel like you are in the protagonist's head the whole time, and
after a while this is not a very pleasant place to be. And
after you start to figure out the rational for the search for
the missing sister, you stop caring. Bush is not a great prose
writing, but in the first half her story-telling is strong. There
is just too much of it in the end.

Claire's Head is a stunning depiction headache pain and treatment, desperation, and hope. The novel is an examination of the relationship that someone with migraines has with him or herself and with others. Even if your headaches aren't migraines, the struggle is probably familiar.

Yes, the descriptions of the headaches get old, The repetition might be annoying, but that's the point. Frequent disabling headaches are bothersome and do interrupt the plot - whether it is the plot of fictional characters or real people.

If you have a hard time telling your loved ones what your headaches are like, pass this book on to them. There's no way anyone can deny the reality of the pain after seeing it spelled out so well in this novel.

All that said, the story itself was not believable or particularly interesting! But reading struggles so similar to mine was engaging enough to make it worthwhile.

i am a migraine sufferer, so when my partner bought this book for me, i was intensely curious. i delved right in, but like the reviewer above, although i found the first half to be well written, it became an incredibly mundane, draining, and finally, disappointing read.

although bush's account of how painful and all-encompassing it is to suffer from migraines rang reasonably true, her prose quite literally became poisoned by it, through to the pointless ending that left me feeling empty and unsatisfied. i suppose the ending was intended to leave the reader with a sense of hope and peace, but i found it hokey and hollow. all that ridiculous searching for this?!!

i also agree -with the other reviewer- that bush would have benefited from better editing. if bush's intention was for the reader to indeed find themselves inside claire's head, then she succeeded. however, she may not have considered the place she created is so overwhelmingly claustrophobic, that the reader just wants to get out, but is left with no way of doing so, that is, unless they abort the reading entirely. i had hope, so i read to the end, and was left with an utterly disappointed 'that's it?'.

the best things claire's head has going for itself is it's first half, and the fact that in and of itself, it is a groundbreaking novel.

I'm very surprised at the lukewarm reader reviews of this book. I was riveted - it was a classic quest story but with a truly innovative twist. The relationship between the three sisters was very finely drawn; each came through as a clearly separate individual, but the special link between Claire and Rachel, which was what motivated Claire's search, was very telling - how could the reviewer above have missed it? It was classic older-younger sister - hero worship, emulation, protectiveness - in addition to the fact that they both suffered the same debilitating headaches - they were, in a sense, mirror images of each other - they had to find each other to have any chance of pain relief. One reviewer above suggested the relationship between Claire and Stefan should be 'beefed up'. For what reason? It was a beautiful, subtle and very realistic relationship, and made a great foil for the later emergence of Brad.

One reviewer above suggested that the fact that the pain was not life-threatening presented a 'problem' with this book! But the fact that it's not life-threatening IS the whole point! Duh! If your pain is life-threatening you can plan for your death, await the pain's inevitable worsening. There is a clear downhill trajectory. But for Rachel and Claire there was no relief in death to look forward to and no clear way ahead, no guidelines as to what course or direction it would take - hence their constant feeling around for new or old triggers.

Yes, the descriptions of pain were repetetitive - but again, that was the whole point. The descriiptions had to be repetitive because the migraines themselves were repetitive. At first I too got a bit irritated with the constant descriptions of the headaches, but the more I got into the book, the more I realized how important this repetitiveness was because it helped you to really understand, get inside the head of, Claire and Rachel, and you could feel how all-consuming their pain was - how their whole lives revolved around the pain.

As for the ending, it was perfect! It was an ending of poetry, hope and resolution. It kept me guessing all through - I thought it was going to be a tragic ending. But it was profound and beautiful.

A wonderful, haunting book. Normally I would four stars (5 is for perfection, an exceedingly rare event)but I feel I need to balance the unjustified criticisms above. Thank you Catherine Bush - keep writing!

I found the mystery plot kept me going to the end. Bush does a great job of showing how chronic pain, particularly migraines, controls peoples' lives and its effects on those close to them. After reading the book, I feel more sympathetic toward people with such disabilities.

But, I felt the book had a number of weaknesses. The main one is that, aside from her migraines and parents' bizarre deaths, the protagonist Claire is not interesting. And her motives to search for her sister Rachel didn't come across to me. While we are told Claire is driven to hop on these planes and her actions support this, I didn't feel the compulsion from her. Rachel is a more intriguing character and might have made a better protagonist.

I found the conflict between Claire and her boyfriend Stefan too subdued. Bush might have beefed it up more. I sympathized with Stefan, finding Claire and her migraines tedious. More conflict between the sisters might also have spiced up the story.

While the book brought home the seriousness of chronic pain, an intrinsic problem with the subject matter is that it isn't life and death. The stakes didn't seem quite high enough for a novel. Aside from finding her sister Rachel, Claire didn't seem to have much personally to gain or lose from the search.

There were a lot of flashbacks, many of them involving people I didn't connect with, since they aren't present in the story (Claire's dead parents and absent Rachel). The climax scene is also a flashback, rather than a new event that leads to Claire's change. This is probably why the ending doesn't ring true and readers are left with a sense that nothing happened. Claire experienced the event some time before. Why the great understanding now?

While reading, I became increasingly annoyed by the author's frequent use of brackets and could see no reason for them. Rachel's diary entries also contained many brackets, which suggests this is Bush's writing tick and not a style feature relevant to the story.


In short, the book provides an excellent portrait of migraines and chronic pain and there's a basis for a good story, but it needed more editing and revision to become a compelling tale.