Sophie Stark

I freaking devoured this book. It was so good! The writing, the suspense, all of it. And while it’s hard to really love Sophie Stark, I did find myself feeling like I understood her at least, by the end.

“It’s hard for me to talk about love,’ she said. ‘I think movies are the way I do that.”

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is a collection of stories about Sophie Stark, told from perspectives of her lovers, coworkers, friends and her brother. They detail the rise and fall of her career, and help us get a glimpse into why Sophie is the way she is — driven, intelligent, dedicated, and perhaps, incapable of love (unless it’s through a camera). We also learn bits and pieces about these people in her orbit — how they got there, how she made them feel, why they stuck around or didn’t.

It’s a really well-told story — getting the viewpoints of everyone around Sophie allows us to get the best picture we possibly can about such a mysterious person. It also allows us to bond with these other characters, since Sophie herself remains largely unreachable. We see how Sophie hurt them, which she does, over and over, and how they loved her anyway. It’s a fascinating book.