My Name Is Yip: A Novel

In 1815, Yip Tolroy is born mute and utterly bald. He will never speak, nor will he grow a single hair anywhere on his body. He will, however, find himself swept up into adventure. When the gold rush hits, his curiosity (perhaps foolish, certainly insatiable) will sweep him away from his life as a shopkeeper’s son and the village oddity.

My favorite thing about the book was not the story itself but the way in which it was written. Crewe delves into the style of the time by employing ampersands and unconventional capitalizations. Some may have a hard time parsing the text, but for me, it brought the book even more to life, showing the unique voice of Yip and of the times. It took me only a little while to read it fluently, and in my opinion, those who set the book aside because of the style alone will miss out on an excellent and well-told story.

The one problem I had with the style of the book was how short some of the chapters are. A few are barely two pages long, and I felt they could easily have been combined with another. That’s a small quibble, though, compared to my enjoyment of the book as a whole.