falon
this is easily kings best book in my opinion. it isn't overly convoluted with boring side plots or confusing elements like his other books. it has his best-written and most endearing, memorable characters. there's so much to think about within this book. it was so engaging and i wanted to keep reading, not a feeling i usually have with his work. it was also my favorite actual writing of his by a long shot. there was a couple weird issues i had but overall definitely my favorite king.
i really enjoyed the concept of this, as survival horror and isolated settings are two of my favorite tropes. there wasn't much about this i didn't like, i just wish i'd been able to get to know melissa as a character more. everything just happened around her and i wish she had driven the narrative in a stronger way. that being said i think most of this was incredibly well done.
this is a strange book to discuss. i understand what the book was going for in its message, and i do think it was successful in some aspects, however the overwhelming gratuitous grossness made it so hard to remember the message of the books. i decided on a four because this is certainly one of the most memorable books i've ever read, and it illicited such a strong reaction from me, but i do think it was over the top to a detriment at some point. i mean i can only read about human shit consumption so many times.
some of my dislike of this was definitely personal preference. the childish writing style, while i understand its purpose, drove me up the wall. i also figured out the twists relatively early on. also, nothing about this felt particularly horror. i didn't absolutely hate this but if i didn't have the audiobook i absolutely would have dnf'd this book.
this book had so much to say i feel the actual story got drowned in its own dialogue. the first half to three quarters were very propulsive and edge of your seat, however the back half tried to fill in too many things in such a short period. the writing, however, was gorgeous and i do think the book said what it wanted to say successfully, i just think the story got lost amongst its message.
The writing of this was gorgeous but I just don't know if this really did anything for me. Despite the fact that fiction with this sort of tone usually appeals to me, I didn't connect with almost any of this. I liked a lot of the ideas but I think something about perhaps the format or the characters left me wanting more. I feel like maybe I should reread this because thinking back on it, this was something I should've loved.
The writing of this was gorgeous and for a story spanning this long of a life I think it kept its pace up well. This story just didn't land all the way for me because of Circe herself. The narrative felt like it was contradicting her characterization. Maybe it was intentional? It seemed like i was supposed to find circe to be a strong character but she opened herself to anyone that wanted her until the very end, and seemingly just happened upon someone who didn't take advantage of her rather than a real choice. Maybe that was just my interpretation but I couldn't really connect with her in the way i wanted to and in a book that spans one characters entire life and doesn't have necessarily the strongest secondary players, I feel i should've connected with her more.
I had really high hopes but nothing about this really worked for me. I didn't connect to either of the two main characters. So much of August's personality was told to us but then we were shown her acting very opposite (or honestly just being really bland) and I really didn't vibe with how manic pixie dream girl Jane was. Nothing about their romance felt unique to me besides their circumstances, obviously, but the whole subway thing wasn't that interesting to me to be honest. The missing uncle plot line didn't work for me. Like I said, nothing I really liked about this:(
honestly, i hated every moment reading this book. the main character was so blah, the writing drove me insane, it felt so slow and so many things just felt illogical. like all of the police work was absolute bullshit and the things about this book i was excited about were really minor parts of the plot. the two is really just bc i didn't see the plot twist coming, but even then the plot twist scenes took forever and were rushed through with a villainous monologue. like what even was this book lmao
I really didn't like,,,anything about this book. There were no real twists or reveals that were interesting; pretty much every plot point or “reveal” can be guessed from the moment they're hinted at. The characters were all such bland, flat archetypes, the structure of the story didn't make any sense to me and all of the aspects of the cult were so stereotypical and cookie-cutter. There was nothing unique or interesting, the messaging while positive is so obvious and blatant and everything just felt over the top and contrived.
I really thought this book would be a new favorite and it just...wasn't.
Firstly, the good things about this book. Frederik Backman is clearly a skilled writer; this man knows how to put a feeling into a words, a fleeting moment captured in a way that seems to hold all of the meaning in the world. So many of these passages about parenting, love and loneliness were so beautiful and really moving. However, the actual story and characters is where this whole book went wrong for me. Everything was just far too outlandish all the time, from the way all of the characters interacted with the police to people reacting to a hostage situation. It wasn't outlandish in a fun way either; I was always irritated with how over the top every character had to be at all times. The tone was constantly switching from deeply emotional to campy and it made it hard to be invested in the characters. The characters are really the main problem I had with this book; I know that they're all mostly supposed to be unlikable, but I never got attached or invested in a single person in this book. They were written in such a way that they were so much of one character trait that they didn't feel like people, rather caricatures. The themes of this book and the general point the author was trying to make felt so heavy handed at times that it grated on my nerves. Also, there was a lot of attempts at humor that felt so distinctly boomer-y (cough the entire character of London cough) Overall, this book had so much potential but it never took off for me.
This was really just okay for me. I knew exactly what this book would be saying and what the quotes I was supposed to pull from it were going to be before I even opened it; that isn't necessarily a bad thing and I thought I might end up loving it anyway. However, the writing was really flat for me. It felt like it didn't have anything to it, and Nora as a character was such a blank canvas it made it hard to relate to her. I liked the general format of the story and it had some nice things to say, but I knew what every beat of the plot would be and exactly the message the book was trying to tell me, and it didn't do anything else to make it impress itself upon me in a super meaningful way. I understand why this book would mean a lot to people, but it just didn't emotionally affect me. I still had a good time reading it and it didn't do anything wrong, by any means. It just didn't do anything to impress me either.
3.5
Of course, since it's Roxane Gay, this is a stunningly and fiercely written essay. Gay writes about the collective trauma of last year briefly but in better words than I've ever heard. The only thing about this is that I wish it was longer, maybe fifty pages more. I thought this was going to go far more in depth about the actual writing process; it wasn't what I expected but I still was moved by what I got.
1.5
This book had a lot to say about trauma and violence that I thought was actually really interesting and semi-well done but the actual plot, characters, everything else that makes a story? Non-existent. It's like she scribbled down the plot points and what the characters were supposed to be like, her thoughts about trauma and sexual violence and how she wanted the character to think, mashed it together and published it. The story was so poorly written that I could barely tell what was happening because events would get one line to a couple of paragraphs maximum.