kitsqueak28
I like this author in general, and follow the SoL videos. I picked this up (at an airport, no less) to see if this cool thinker had the s me thoughts on flights as I do. It was alright - quite a nice set of thoughts. I've often has the same kind of thoughts when present in airports. The photos accompayning it were underwhelming or maybe my edition with its basic paper quality made it look so. I feel like in this world of reels there are far better travel musings to read and pictures to look at.
Really immersive, and just shows you the lengths to which men will go to protect their fragile manhood: violence (even in reenactment), possessiveness of a woman's body, glorified ideals of a pure and untouched ethnic line, etc. etc.. Humans have been evolving for tension of thousands of years and yet people still keep their base, animal behaviours so close to the surface. The author does a great job of depicting a real creep of a man and his coercive hold over ‘his' women. Revolting, but an absorbing read nonetheless.
It took me a long time to get into this book. But this is one of those books that gets better once you push through the kind of slow first half. Oh, and yeah, you also have to be prepared for a lot of description in painful slow motion of people sitting, getting up, standing, and yes, eating. For someone who cares very little for food, this was excruciating, like watching a video at-0.50 speed. Anyhow, I started liking it more towards the middle, when Piglet stopped sounding like your everyday trad wife and started getting a personality of her own. Not that there's much personality - none of the character were really nice or likeable, least of all the two at the heart of the story. I'm not sure what made me want t6o push through, but in the end, I found this to be quite a telling commentary on a few things: eating and food as performance; the pressure of a good wedding ceremony, the expectations of a marriage's success or failure all hinging on that one day, the expense and pomp and show on a ceremony that is meant for two people in love but is somehow not about them at all. Many thoughts like these struck me. By the end, I wanted to tell Piglet that being single isn't so bad after all. Anyway, it's a decent book, and it's even more delicious to read when you're feeling hungry yourself.
I think I would have loved this book at 13. Or 17. Or even 22. But in my 30s, these things are getting kind of old. Cliched, stilted writing. Romantic soppiness. Female characters who can do nothing but flutter their eyelashes and cry and cold themselves into their strong, sensitive, stoic man. A male lead who has no personality apart from the colour of his eyes and a sad back story. A setting very much like a stage setup, with everything neatly and conveniently just there when needed. Copious amounts of money and alcohol.
Emily Henry is a good writer in a way. She builds a comfortable world and draws the reader into it.
But in another way, her characters are not likeable. They are mere outlines of real people, stripped of their normalcy.
Gus and January have got to be the most flat characters I've ever read. They have nothing to define them except that January always cries at the drop of a hat and Gus always bites his lip. Not to mention the cast of extra characters that are just described for their own sake and have no place in their lives except to be their cheerleaders.
I've read Archies comics fanfiction that was more readable than this tedious drivel.
My review is just based on three points:
1) The main character reminded me of someone from my own life who is (sometimes hilariously) miserable and constantly dissatisfied with everything, and the deadpan narration from her POV added to the dissociation the character feels on a day-to-day basis. I'm sure someone in the throes of depression will relate to it.
2) Jillian herself is a fairly touching portrayal of a single woman just trying to get by, with a dead-end job and a young child to care for in a difficult, unhelpful society. I think more people will relate to Jillian than not.
3) Have you ever seen something so ugly and terrible that you can't tear your eyes away from and just want to keep watching it to the end to see how it unfolds? That's what the experience of reading this book is.
I will admit it gave me pause for thought. The realisation that many people operate like Megan, on auto-pilot. That many people have a dampened, deadened inner narration. That many people struggle to make sense of the world. It also gave me ideas for my own writing.
I will definitely be reading more Halle Butler again.
Troubled Blood will go down as being one of the most forgettable Strike books to me. Somehow, I found this the most onerous read to get through. Firstly, I kept confusing it with the previous one in the series; perhaps the characters were far too similar. What's more, I did not enjoy the slow undoing of Robin's marriage, Joan's death or the cringeworthy exchange between Robin and a contractor at her work. To add to the discomfort was the gratuitous violence of the killer and the details of the killing and the sexual/physical exploitation. All of it was far too much for me. I really only kept reading because I like Strike and Robin and I loved the theme of seeking solace by the seaside.
Strike books are an escape from the serious and often desultory day-to-day, but I do wish this book had had more to offer by way of escape than just criminal violence.
This book was meant to be about a library and the love for reading. While it did have a great premise and so much potential, it didn't quite hit the mark for me. All the characters, except for one or two, were either poorly written or just not very nice people. The plot seemed forced. For the first part of the book I was just wondering what happened to the characters to cause their grief and sadness. It felt more preachy and like forced positivity. The ending seemed contrived. Despite all that, the book was a light, easy read that had me sitting up all night to reach the end of, so it moved faster than I expected. I guess I've come to the conclusion that I dislike heavy themes couched in cherry, positive tones with miserable people trying to make the best of a terrible situation, a la Fredrik Backman or this author.
P.S. Was there ever really any elaboration on the books and why they were chosen? If so, it went over my head completely, because I didn't catch it.
I did not enjoy this book and struggled to complete it. Even though the story was promising and had so many perspectives that could have been explored, every character was one dimensional and every incident was too on the nose for me. The characters were completely unlikable; there was not a single character that you could sympathise with, not even the boy to whom the incident happened. Dialogues read as if they were a script that had to be memorised and retold. The mother in this book finally fell into the same category as all Indian mothers do, blaming herself for her deficiencies in parenting and defaulting to the role of the person who had to keep everything together. The author leaned heavily into stereotypes to work out the complexity in the fabric of American society, introducing new complexities from the Indian landscape into the mix, and thus defeated her whole purpose in writing this book.
I liked this one more than I thought I would. And not just because it's an important observation in the MeToo movement. Its relevance extends way beyond MeToo. It's about men and the extent to which they will go to prove themselves witty, funny, hilarious, likeable. It's about women and the extent they will go to protect themselves, even if it is from some harsh truths they should face. The two main characters are absolutely, frankly unlikeable. The reader is meant to have no sympathy lost on the guy implicated in the allegations. Funnily enough, the woman friend defending this high-spirited man is just as detestable. It's not just because she makes excuses for him. It's because she turns those stories around in her head to fit a comfortable narrative she chooses to hold onto; she retells those stories and reframes them in the way that leaves no room for argument. Ultimately, all the women introduced are victims, tainted in one way or another, whether they be the victim or a viewer of the passive violence. It's not because they enable him because some of them don't - I just can't put my finger on why. The fact that such a man is allowed to run around unchecked is the worst part of it all.
Anyway, distasteful characters or not, it gave me a lot to think about and gave me a starting point for conversations with men and women in my life about what constitutes a creep. Is it just the actions he does towards women? Or is it the sense of entitlement and accomplishment that he carries with him while interacting with them?
It took me forever to get through this book and I lost the plot a number of times along the way. For the first time in my life, I had to actually keep “notes” while reading for pleasure. Frankly, it wasn't until the second half of the book that I found the motivation to finish it. It does make some important points on disability and race relations, especially at a fraught junction in history, during the depression of the '30s. This will probably be on required reading lists for high schoolers in the years to come. In my small, humble opinion, however, I still think it meandered senselessly for a long time. Out of respect to my aunty, who gifted me a copy, I will keep this book and re-read the parts of it I really liked. I think it would make a fine read with better editing.
Absolutely average. I love cats and enjoy stories about animals observing things, but I was pushing myself through this book. There were some interesting details about Indonesia but I found the voice and narrative almost painful to get through. The cats' voices were too human and not cat enough, if that makes sense.
This story had so much potential but it was just so difficult to read. And not because it was too sad - it did make me tear up a little. But it was more frustrating because it was so damn pretentious and so difficult to follow. I would have given up on the reading of this if I hadn't found an audiobook to narrate the rest.
When are we going to get over writing neurodivergent people like they are robotic and unconnected to any kind of reality? ND people definitely have a different perspective on life but this stilted, rambling, rubbish way of communicating is not it. It honestly gave me a headache after a while.
Kids and their trauma – ooh! Potential! But if you don't know how kids work or think and you don't know how to stitch a neat narrative together, why write anything? This book is a horrible attempt at stream of consciousness from a child's eyes, sometimes sounding 9 and sometimes 45. So many plots and subplots jumping around with no way to figure out which is which. Horrible.
There are very few movies which I'd accept are better than the book, and this one definitely is in that category.
I didn't think I'd like this book as much as I did. I found it really moving. I liked the flow of the words and the editing, juxtaposing life-affirming incidents against a darker reality. It made me smile and cry. Relationships with parents are contentious as an adult, especially when you've had a mother who controlled and disciplined you a lot - don't I get that! But it's also sad to see how someone who was once a complete person slowly starts melting away until you can see the raw, bare insides. There's a horrible beauty in it. And it's heartbreaking. I will probably read this book again, or some parts of it, when I have to be reminded again of what parents mean to us as children and how we can support them as adults.
I really loved the reading of this book and felt a deep peace while reading it. The story doesn't rush or gallop. It unfolds slowly. The main character, Tsukiko, reminded me so much of myself. She is aloof, has few good friends (she has like 2 good friends), tiptoes around her family, prefers thinking about what she's experiencing rather than experience it. Her friendship with the elderly gentleman wasn't written in a forced, contrived way and is intuitive. I was with her until she fell in love with the old man (heh) - I had been relating their relationship thus far to the one I have with my own dad (nice person to hang out with, best friend almost) - but of course I had to abruptly change my perspective of it! Nevertheless, the way Tsukiko's happiness is found in the little moments and the small interactions really resonated with me. I'm realising that more and more, people in their 30s are being forced to face the truth of their loneliness. Books like these helps one know we aren't alone.
I hated this book for many reasons and yet kept turning the pages greedily to the very end. And, a week later, the themes in the book still leave a mark on my mind and make me feel at turns impressed, disgusted, terrified and frankly a little sick. That's not to say that this book wasn't worth reading - it was. It's a powerful tale of how fame and popularity work in today's world.
And because I can't seem to get my thoughts together to make a proper critique of this novel, I will just bullet point my impressions of it:
Why I liked it–
1. It was interesting and hard to put down.
2. It brings up some valid discussions about race representation in the world of authors and awards. Are diverse people really represented more than white people? Are those who graduate from expensive universities and privilege really given an opening into the publishing industry? It seems to work differently in India but maybe in the US these are valid questions.
3. Psychological states and inner workings are described really well.
Why I hated it–
1. Those who aspire to get into the world of publishing (like me) will be in for a rude shock with how the landscape has changed today. An author's accolades seem to rest on how good they are at marketing a book on Twitter, Instagram and other social media. Everything is a popularity contest. June's job doesn't end once she writes the book.
2. June's decline into madness with following social media and blocking her real life out was a chilling reflection of how most people live today, which is absolutely terrifying to someone who values in-person relationships and conversations and stays off social media for the most part.
3. The characters themselves were so unlikeable. Now I'm not sure if Athena was a self-insert by the author or if any of this reflected the author's real-world experience, but if so – yeesh. I'd stay away from that person. Both the characters are toxic as hell. Athena leeches off people for their stories. June outright steals those stories and crafts an image for herself to hold her head up in the public eye. It's all so fake and dramatic. Which leads me to the last point.
4. The plot is so contrived. It's a page turner, but the ending is SO predictable and frankly so anticlimactical. It's dramatic to the point of being histrionic. It's a huge letdown but also, you can't help but stay glued to the pages, like watching a house burn down.
In conclusion, I'd want to be a writer like Kuang but I wouldn't want to write this book - if that makes sense.
