I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this and I'm glad it was more of an autobiography because I was really invested in the story of her life and then then the sections of the study, instead of it being all about the study.

I will say that Susannah was absolutely correct in saying she would have rather done this NOT as a memoir - I feel like she could have done so much more with what she had to say if she didn’t feel like she had to write it as a typical memoir is. Yes, she was studied, but she didn’t even truly know the depth of it until she was older, and even then she never found out everything because it wasn’t preserved. The parallels between the study and the way we live now with technology always monitoring us were super fascinating, and I felt like that was more of what she was trying to explain in a way that isn’t as potent in a memoir. Because the similarities between her fairly covert and emotionally detached participation in the study and the way we nonchalantly accept being data mined and observed today are so extreme and so unable to be ignored.

I was really interested in the premise of this book. It felt like a real life Truman Show, with psychologists studying and manipulating our heroine for 30 years. In reality, it read like an extremely detached memoir of a mostly ordinary (rather depressing) life. Yes, she was studied from an early age but it was mostly being watched from the other side of a glass while playing at preschool and having to answer a bunch of questions every few years.

Toward the end of the book, Breslin says that when her book proposal was accepted they stipulated that they wanted a memoir instead of the journalistic piece she envisioned. That makes sense now but I didn’t particularly enjoy it as a memoir because she writes with such complete lack of emotion that it felt off putting and I had no emotional connection to her. I started out in the same area of California at the same time and was even a similar child, but her detachment in telling her story meant that it was like reading an incredibly long web article or Wikipedia entry, except with an excruciating amount of detail like what her coffee mug looked like.

In the end (no spoilers really), everything just felt pointless and empty. Breslin is a good writer but I’m just sort of sad after reading this.

I read a digital advance copy of this book for review.

This one will become a classic. It was well written and well researched. Everyone will be talking about this book in the future.