kirisuna
2.75 stars
I was so excited about this one, and I can verify this was a super unique read. But a lot of it fell flat for me.
The writing utilizes very specific stylization such as large, frenetic paragraphs with no punctuation beyond commas to represent a sort of stream of consciousness of either emotion or observation; em-dash notation for alternating lines of dialogue; and non-traditional chapter breaks. I feel like it was done very intentionally, but for me didn’t come across entirely successfully.
Also, even tho I understand that we saw many different random people’s last moments and circumstances in order to drive home that the MC was death and was ever present, the watcher of passing for all, I felt like so many fragmented stories took away from the main arc. I think they were only sprinkled in to detract from the main “Old Woman” twist being Dalia. But after a while they just detracted from the overall work rather than adding to it.
I did appreciate that it began with the reaping of her brother, and ended with her own reaping at 90. That was an incredible twist that took me by surprise and honestly totally wrecked me. There were other moments where I teared up here and there but that one shattered me and I was bawling. But, honestly? I was also angry. Travis was willing to bend the rules for Dalia when she was ready to call it quits, but if he truly cared for her why wouldn’t he have intervened the night Layla got sick? He politely excused himself when he could have just said something. Suggested the bath or noted she seemed off and should get checked out. Anything. Because he knew. He knew it would crush her. It would make her kill herself. But he didn’t stop it. If he was going to stop it anyways, why couldn’t he have saved her? And then Dalia wouldn’t have had to live with that mistake and wanted to end her life in the first place.
Also there were a few non-sequiturs that honestly just felt out of place. A scene earlier on where he writes about a deer protecting her fawn and then running off when he was killed anyways. The end chapters about the nymphs. I did not understand those, and they may just have gone over my head. But I felt like they weren’t well integrated.
Overall, this was a very sad work that made you think. If you like those types of things, you may like this. For me, it was a miss.
2.75 stars
I was so excited about this one, and I can verify this was a super unique read. But a lot of it fell flat for me.
The writing utilizes very specific stylization such as large, frenetic paragraphs with no punctuation beyond commas to represent a sort of stream of consciousness of either emotion or observation; em-dash notation for alternating lines of dialogue; and non-traditional chapter breaks. I feel like it was done very intentionally, but for me didn’t come across entirely successfully.
Also, even tho I understand that we saw many different random people’s last moments and circumstances in order to drive home that the MC was death and was ever present, the watcher of passing for all, I felt like so many fragmented stories took away from the main arc. I think they were only sprinkled in to detract from the main “Old Woman” twist being Dalia. But after a while they just detracted from the overall work rather than adding to it.
I did appreciate that it began with the reaping of her brother, and ended with her own reaping at 90. That was an incredible twist that took me by surprise and honestly totally wrecked me. There were other moments where I teared up here and there but that one shattered me and I was bawling. But, honestly? I was also angry. Travis was willing to bend the rules for Dalia when she was ready to call it quits, but if he truly cared for her why wouldn’t he have intervened the night Layla got sick? He politely excused himself when he could have just said something. Suggested the bath or noted she seemed off and should get checked out. Anything. Because he knew. He knew it would crush her. It would make her kill herself. But he didn’t stop it. If he was going to stop it anyways, why couldn’t he have saved her? And then Dalia wouldn’t have had to live with that mistake and wanted to end her life in the first place.
Also there were a few non-sequiturs that honestly just felt out of place. A scene earlier on where he writes about a deer protecting her fawn and then running off when he was killed anyways. The end chapters about the nymphs. I did not understand those, and they may just have gone over my head. But I felt like they weren’t well integrated.
Overall, this was a very sad work that made you think. If you like those types of things, you may like this. For me, it was a miss.