This Is All: the Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn

This Is All: the Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn
Aidan Chambers

While the size of This Is All can seem intimidating (weighing in at a bit over 800 pages), one quickly forgets the heft as Cordelia begins to tell her story. The premise is that 19-year-old Cordelia is pregnant and writing a pillow book to give her daughter on her 16th birthday. A pillow book, as defined by wikipedia, is a "collection of notebooks and notes which have been collated to show a period of someone or something's life". Cordelia is also a poet so some of her favorite poems (and ones of her own) are included as well. The story mostly sticks to Cordelia's relationship with her boyfriend, and first love, Will.

In general, it is a good story, if a bit longwinded at times, but in that sense it makes it more real that a 19-year-old girl is writing it. There are times when the formatting gets creative, such as in one part of the book where it is divided into two stories (one on the right side, one of the left) and the reader gets to choose which one to read first. In a later section of the book, the main storyline is peppered with short unconnected stories and while that is an interesting choice, it seems to facilitate skimming the stories in order to get back to the suspenseful main story. Another possible issue is that one has to wonder what 16-year-old wants to read a detailed account of her mother’s sex life, no matter how well written.

It takes a little while to get into This is All, but by the end it's difficult not to get attached to Cordelia. If you've ever felt the thrill and desperation of teenage love, then there are many things in this book to relate to or live through vicariously.