Kayla Savard
It committed the cardinal sin of being extremely boring. The characters were pretty bland, and not nearly as charming or charismatic as I would imagine given the description, the initial murder was boring, the continuing mystery had zero tension and was just...boring, and the writing itself also was just doing nothing beyond the bare minimum.
Clearly I am in the minority, but I didn't laugh, I didn't gasp, I didn't even crack a smile at any point - I just kept glancing at the page number, counting down until it was finally over.
Man, SO close. This would have been a five star book if it didn't have that “final reveal” at the end that made little to no sense with everything we'd read up until that point. Still think it's worth reading as it was a truly delightful and charming murder mystery, with very charismatic characters and some lovely relationships, but I really really wish the author hadn't pulled the reverse UNO card on the entire story at the very end.
I had such a hard time rating this book because I vacillated wildly between being touched by the interactions between Betty and her father, being extremely put off by bullying Betty endures (both from her classmates and siblings and mother and teachers and random strangers), enjoying the writing, being absolutely disgusted and full of hatred towards Betty's mother for the very graphic and traumatic near-reenactment of her childhood rape onto Betty on her 9th birthday, complete with holding her down and thrusting against her, connecting with the story deeply due to a large amount of parallels between this story and my grandmother's life, being again disgusted and full of hatred towards Betty's mother for her horrificly brutal killing of a bunch of kittens by beating them to a pulp, hating Betty's grandfather, hating Betty's oldest brother, hating Betty's nearest sister, hating the teachers, hating the neighbors, etc., etc. One nice father just can't make up for all of that emotionally (especially when I also feel like, as nice and whimsical as he was, he was either willfully or ignorantly blind to all of the terrible things happening in his house and to his children).
Strangely though, with everything I know about every person around Betty (and my strong feelings towards all of them), I think a huge area of weakness in this book is the fact that somehow, after 450+ pages, I barely know who Betty is. We are seeing through her first-person eyes, but rarely gaining any insight into how she feels about the things that happen around (and to) her, and only very rarely see in action how it impacts her as a person.
Basically there was a lot of strong feelings inspired by this book, and while the feelings were mostly negative, I have to give credit to it making me feel those negative feelings so strongly. Because of my own personal life experiences, and those of my grandmother (who, like Betty, was part Native American and stood out more than her siblings and peers, was closest with her father but never told him the worst things she went through, had a mother with major childhood issues that she took out on my grandmother, and many, many more parallels), I feel glad I read this just because of how much it made me think of my grandmother – and it certainly made me grateful to my grandmother that she didn't continue the cycle of “My childhood was bad so I'm gonna make sure yours is too” onto me or my dad, but I also can't imagine recommending this to anyone because I have no understanding of people's love of this book separated from those myriad of personal connections.
It certainly moved me and got stuck in my brain, and will sit on my shelf and bring up strong feelings when I look at it, never to be read again.
I'd say 3.5 stars for the first half, and 5 stars for the last half. This book definitely took a while to get going in a way that I didn't really experience with the first two, but the second half of this book was probably my favorite chunk in the series so far! I absolutely adore Dalinar; he is by far my favorite character, and he really has time to shine in this one. I think, even though I wasn't super into the first half of the book and think [b:Words of Radiance 17332218 Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) Brandon Sanderson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1507307927l/17332218.SY75.jpg 16482835] is better paced overall, I still like this book equally, if not more, purely because Dalinar wasn't around nearly enough in WoR. My second favorite character coming into this book was probably Shallan, but I have to say I did not love the multiple-personality storyline here very much. As for the more grand scale plot stuff, I absolutely loved the explorations and reveals about the world (and beyond). Any mysterious magic or setting is just so interesting to me, and there was plenty of that to chew on here.Very excited that I am almost caught up with these books and then can impatiently await the next one alongside everyone else!
Giving up at ~65%. I was going to try and complete this, but I know that I would only continue flipping through the pages and basically just pretend to read.
I didn't like this at all, from the very first page. The prose is very stylized (as in, by the end of the second page I'm pretty sure about 15 or 20 semi-colons had already been used) and choppy, and it nearly completely obscured my ability to absorb anything cohesive. On top of that, the narrative floats from mind to mind without warning or any clear difference in how characters think (since everyone's brains are just full of semi-colons and sentence fragments), and it made it impossible for me to care about anything that was happening (or appreciate any beautiful lines or ideas that may have been buried by the surrounding mess).
Just a warning to potential audiobook listeners: the narration is atrocious, and the voices Cassandra Campbell gives the characters are so cartoonish and distracting.
Now for the actual book: I honestly didn't mind all the naval gazing (or rather swamp gazing) that goes on, and the way those parts are written, but that is about as much as I can say for what I enjoyed. People throw the label “Mary Sue” around way too much, and often apply it inaccurately to any female character who has any skill at all – but Kya's picture should be pasted into the dictionary next to “Mary Sue”. She magically raises herself in a swamp from the age of 6, doesn't go to school or start learning to read until she's 14 (but then learns to read after a couple of hours of being show the alphabet), somehow has never had a serious injury (she had a huge puncture wound from stepping on a nail, but magically was fine after just sticking her foot in some dirty swamp water) or illness, and seems to also have no real emotional or socialization problems despite barely interacting with people for most of her life. Oh, and of course she's extremely beautiful (but she doesn't know it, of course), she's innocent and pure (not like the other girls) but extremely mature, she has real interests like fish and birds (instead of high heels and clothes like said other girls). And that is all just when she's a child – it somehow gets worse when she's an adult!
Additionally, I found the teenage romance portion to be very...creepy. I just really hate the Born Sexy Yesterday trope, and that basically makes up the entirety of the “romance” origin story we have to go through. This extremely beautiful, wild teenager can't read, doesn't go to school, doesn't have any friends or family or connections outside of Jumpin' and Mabel, is extremely innocent and naive because she has no experience in the real world – and this older boy, basically the only person near her own age she's ever spent any time with, swoops in to teach her how to be a person, while thinking about how stunningly beautiful she is, and telling his dad that Kya is innocent and amazing (unlike other girls who are loose and shallow), and then they get naked (while she is shy and he is leading her, obviously). No thank you.
Overall, the characters were bland, the dialogue was clunky, the plot was mediocre, and no amount of pretty scientific descriptions of marshes were going to make up for the complete lack of realism in every other aspect of this book.
4.5 stars.
This was such a strong continuation of the story, with a huge amount of plot momentum propelling us forward, more additional layers and insights into this world and its people, and some excellent character work focusing on Shallan. Adolin, Pattern, Sebarial, and Eshonai were also very well built-upon (in Adolin's case) or introduced (for the other three). I definitely missed Dalinar's more in-depth involvement, though I do know that he is a focus of the next book, which I am very excited for. Kaladin, while still giving me the highest highs of excitement with his triumphs, and the lowest lows of anger and betrayal when things don't go well for him, did re-tread some emotional ground throughout this book, which knocked some points off of my enjoyment. It was clearly purposeful, as he gets involved in a clearly-wrong plot to kill the King and betray Dalinar's trust in him, Shallan confronts him about his attitude and judgement issues, and he got majorly punished by the universe with Syl's temporary loss -- which all leads to him finally snap out of his wishy-washy feelings in regards to his gifts.
I am extremely invested in this story and I am in it for the long haul, that is for sure. Can't wait to pick up the next book!
3.5 Stars I'm coming right off of [b:The Way of Kings 7235533 The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1) Brandon Sanderson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388184640l/7235533.SY75.jpg 8134945] (as this was a recommended detour before I continue on with [b:Words of Radiance 17332218 Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) Brandon Sanderson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1507307927l/17332218.SY75.jpg 16482835]) so I can't help but compare the experiences. That is probably unfair to this book, but it did happen and it definitely didn't inspire the same level of intense insta-love that I felt through WoK. I was entertained and it was an enjoyable reading experience, but that is about all there was.The main feature that keeps this from being great in my eyes are that the characters feel a little thin and underdeveloped across the board. Their moments of growth felt like that happened so quickly, and thus their arcs felt a little cheaper and less moving overall. Honestly my favorite character was easily Nightblood, because his level of depth was similar to many of the other characters but since he is just a semi-sentient sword with a taste for blood and a very child-like, yet morbid, sense of humor, my expectations were not that he feel like a fully-formed human the way I do expect that from the other characters. Overall it was a very well-paced, lighthearted story (with quite a few laugh out loud moments and a handful of very fun and quippy characters with a lot of page time), and it made for a fun weekend read.
I am a little speechless about how much I loved this book, which makes writing a review consisting of intelligible words a little hard, but I will make an attempt.Things I Knew About This Book Before Reading It: that it was a highly recommended fantasy series that was still in progress (but with an author that is good at keeping to a schedule), and that the only nitpick-y negative said-recommendations mentioned was that the prose isn't great. That's all I knew. I didn't read a summary, or even a single sentence description, I just knew I wanted to try out fantasy for the first time since I was in High School, and this was what I landed on.Things I Discovered After Like Three or Four Chapters: I really love the prose, so that negative was non-existent for me pretty much immediately. I clicked with it so quickly, and I honestly said “Ah, this is so well written!” out loud quite a few times throughout the book. But here is the meat and potatoes to my voracious enjoyment of this book: the characters. The characters! I am definitely a character-focused person, so if I connect with the characters I could easily read a thousand pages of them just sitting around a fire talking to each other, and these characters are so real, sympathetic (in the “I care for them so much” kind of definition), and delightfully intriguing. I literally love everyone. Shallan was definitely an early favorite, and I look forward to diving deeper into her character in the future, but the stars in my eyes by the end of this book were definitely for Kaladin and Dalinar. Their character arcs were so strong, I absolutely loved reading the intricacies of their experiences and feelings, and I think (with no knowledge of their journeys in future books) they are the best Good Guy characters I've ever read. They are both just so excellent, and I don't think I've ever been so excited to read about two characters meeting for the first time. The Fantasy Stuff: You know, the magic, and the maps, and the new words, and the history lessons. I ate it UP. There were dreams-that-weren't-dreams, and intense time-travel visions, and potentially-friendly invisible hooded figures, and powers, and storms, and lots and lots of gems. And honestly I could have read way more of Shallan just sitting in the library reading history books, so that I could also read them. Mainly, I am a total sucker for people unearthing some deep ancient power within themselves while having creepy but intensely profound imaginings, so this was all right up my alley. The Plot: This book is definitely more character focused, partially as at the beginning a lot of the characters barely know more about what is happening than the readers do, so there isn't some change in setting, or dramatic event, happening every other chapter. Personally I loved the pacing of that, because I was so into the characters that even little hurdles and triumphs in their stories felt impactful – and by the time huge blows or major victories were occurring, I was so into it that I was pacing around my living room in my anxiety and excitement while holding up this 1000 page hardcover book. And the closing chapters really blew my mind with connecting a bunch of little details I had been ruminating on throughout the entire book, and supplying me with the best kind of reveals: somehow it never occurred to me that this was the answer even though everything make SO MUCH SENSE now. So in conclusion: I literally made myself read a book I didn't like in the middle of reading this book, for the express purpose of slowing me down because I just didn't want this book to end. And even though I finished it, thankfully it kind of won't end because I am picking up [b:Words of Radiance 17332218 Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) Brandon Sanderson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1507307927l/17332218.SY75.jpg 16482835] from the library tomorrow. I am also already excited for the day that I've made my way through the available books in the series and I can come back and re-read this book to (I'm sure) appreciate it in a totally different way. Onward!
This book just didn't do it for me. Right from the start I wasn't into the short, choppy sentences, nor was I into the very bland and uninteresting “character building” (literally in the first real chapter, after like 4 paragraphs, the main character just blatantly thinks "I made a mistake and I need to make amends" -- and that is the way that we discover that she has made a mistake and needs to make amends. How riveting!), nor did I enjoy the choice to flip-flop between first person and third person throughout the entire book.
Probably for a good portion of this book though I was feeling it was a solid 3 stars. It wasn't blowing my mind, and as I said some things immediately didn't click with me, but the creepy, ghostly atmosphere was definitely there, and I was curious and entertained enough by the plot to want to keep reading. But then it all fell apart for me as the creepy, ghostly atmosphere turned into more of a cheap Halloween costume atmosphere.
1. This ominous figure, who we are randomly following for intermittent chapters, turns out to be Jack's brother. And it turns out that he killed Jack's (kind of estranged) husband. And then even later we find out that this brother also killed their mother and the pedophile. Maybe this all would have been meaningful if his story wasn't so weirdly tangential.
2. And then we figure out Jack is Merry. This reveal didn't bother me so much until the end, when I realized that she actually remembered her childhood. I had this whole idea that she was so confused and didn't know anyone or anything about the town, or the murders, because she had blocked it all out, or because there was some satanic ritual done on her to make her forget. But no, nothing like that, she just knew the whole time, so...why does no one know her? Why is she constantly confused about the various roles and personalities of everyone in the town, when she used to live here? Maybe I'm just stupid, but I really don't get it, and it felt clunky and underdeveloped.
3. The thing that really made my enjoyment drop down was that nothing was nearly as ghostly or witchy as I wanted, and expected from the title, and the cover, and the blurb. The recent murders weren't anything spooky or witchy, just some over-the-top psychopathic (and annoying) teenagers. Really? The older disappearance of two girls, mirroring the original burning girls, also just normal murder and a runaway, as was the priest from 30 years ago found in the cellar of the church. That friend of Poppy's that died? I think just a murder, though I'm not sure if that is ever explicitly confirmed. Creepy cellar with mysterious coffins? Just a family trying to keep up appearances. And apparently the absolutely horrifying actual ghosts of the original burned girls? Just some friendly, neighborhood ghosts, trying to help out. How appearing in a graveyard, naked with no head or arms and on fire is "helpful" I don't know, but okay. Basically, the further along this book went, the more mundane it became, and even the actual extremely scary ghosts were just trying to be nice.
In the end my complaints piled up, and this one just flopped.
Wow, I loved this! Every fifty pages I kept thinking “Okay, I should really stop reading so I can cook/eat/sleep...” — but I just kept going, and ended up devouring it from start to finish in one sitting. A truly delightful world filled with wonderfully endearing characters (who wouldn't be won over by an amorphous blob who aspires to be a bellhop), and a reading experience that somehow feels nostalgic as soon as you start reading. The whole experience was like drinking a deliciously cup of hot chocolate on a snowy day, and I am so happy to have been temporarily transported into such a warm and inviting place.
Certainly not terribly written, but overall very underwhelming. Though the book wasn't short, by the end I was wondering what had actually filled up all those pages: the characters are not particularly deep (and in general I couldn't really tell you who these characters were as people outside of some very broad and heavy-handed traits), character relationships seem largely foundation-less and unexplored, the plot wasn't complicated or surprising, and in general I felt like nothing happened - and when something did happen, I didn't care.
I would say my main issue was the failure in the writing to get me invested in any of the character relationships. Victor and Eli's dynamic, both as friends and as rivals, should have been the backbone of the book (according to the plot) - and yet in practice, it was pretty much non-existent. Why were they friends to begin with? Or really, were they even friends, or was that just something I was told by the back cover? Because in reality, we meet Eli for one scene, Victor will randomly think something to the effect of “There was something tweaked in him, just like me!” while they have largely emotionless interactions, and then they are trying to kill each other. There isn't any foundation of actual caring between them, so when they “switch” from being friends to enemies I was completely apathetic.
On the topic of the powers, and the lukewarm philosophy topics that they inspire, again, I didn't care. I didn't connect whatsoever with the religious angle (which, as far as I could tell, was Eli's one-and-only character trait), the general “Becoming an EO changes something about your morals and humanity” idea wasn't nearly as fleshed out as this book seemed to think it was, and certain moral questions I definitely would have like to seen explored (mainly the extremely non-consensual nature of ever single thing that Serena does with her power) were never touched.
Overall there was just not a lot of substance, and I spent a good amount of reading time hoping to get to the end already.
I would have probably given this 2 stars based on my enjoyment and for the “story” (or lack there of) but given that the story is a translation and re-telling I suppose that wasn't really up to this author. As for the other elements, it was just not my thing at all. I found it much too long for what it was, with a lot of the page count taken up by repetitive character beats and near-identical scenes, the characters weren't compelling or three-dimensional, and overall it was just a very dense, underwhelming reading experience.
I will give props where they are due though: the use of language and world-building was effective, and the blending of real history and fake history was interesting. Also liked the plentiful and specific food descriptions.
3.5 stars. Totally solid book with a likeable protagonist and some thought provoking ideas. The book may never reach any soaring heights, but also never drags on or gets lost in pretension or self-congratulation. Basically, I feel like I could recommend this book to nearly anyone and be assured that it will be an entertaining read for them — but I also wouldn't expect this to become anyone's new favorite book that totally blows their mind.
The prose, imagery, and poetic nature of the setting was what really got me to 5 stars by the last page. Honestly, I don't think I am much of a fan of mysteries, because 99% of the time I end up feeling like the mystery/plot-twist distracted me from appreciating the details in the lead-up. Obviously that is the entire point of a mystery, so this is my own personal hurdle to overcome, but once I'd finished the book all I could think was that the “mystery” was rather unimportant to what the book was actually about. As I rated this 5 stars though, I found that there was much more to digest, which made up for that rather disposable (imo) element. I really look forward to re-reading this book already knowing the answers, so I don't have to be distracted away from the more philosophical/thematic ideas.
Buyer beware though: this is not a character book, and clearly wasn't meant to be a story where you connect with and deeply understand the narrator. In the end that didn't end up negatively impacting my experience because eventually I got it, but for like 75% of the book (when I didn't connect with the narrator and I had no idea what was happening because the mystery hadn't been solved) I was definitely having a hard time because I kept expecting to understand who he was as a fleshed-out character, instead of just accepting that he was more of a vessel for observing and meditating on the book's themes.
Basically: this book has a lot of elements that I normal wouldn't like, and yet somehow does it all so well that I ended up enjoying it much more than would have expected at the start.
I will admit that I am predisposed to disliking Shakespeare, so take this with a grain of salt, but I did not enjoy this story. My complaints mostly consist of me not caring about the characters, being unable to connect with them because they don't act like people, the villains being over-the-top comical villains who cackle and deliver mustache-twirling villain monologues about how evil they are, and the plot itself being stuffed full of “shocking” moments with no emotional weight attached to them – and don't even get me started on the "honor killing" of the rape victim. Not a fan.
Pretty disappointing, especially given the positive reviews. There were about 40 simple ways that this book could have been improved, from thematic balls that were dropped between the two timelines, to the lack of successful world-building, to the failure of emotional resonance. Basically, good idea, bad execution.
2.5 Stars - but honestly the more I think about it, the more frustrated I am.
This book was...interesting. It was an enjoyable enough read through the 90% of the book where I didn't know what the main thesis was supposed to be (which isn't even a positive really), and though I often found it hard to empathize with the main character in the way that the narrative seemed to want me to, I was willing to keep trying to force myself to have an open mind. Then the last two chapters of the book happened, and all of a sudden even the smallest of details that I previously liked were unimportant, or even thematically contradictory, and instead of enjoying the ending all I was thinking was that it was a badly structured and messily characterized book full of superfluous threads that didn't actually add up to anything impactful.
See, here's the crux of the issue: the narrative, with all the knowledge the ending grants, wants you to like the main character so badly, and wants you to agree with her POV so much that every “enemy” she has is a caricature of a mustache-twirling bad guy [who all gleefully murder people's pets, and then say things like "You shouldn't be sad your dogs died, they don't have souls and you're evil for mourning them"...like, who in the world would actually say that to someone who just lost a pet?!], every ally she has supports her no matter what [To the point of smuggling her out of the country when they find out that she is a serial killer. I do not understand why their devotion to her is this over-the-top.], and anyone in between those extremes are mindless drones who, according to our main character, are brainwashed robots who can't think for themselves.
A large majority of this book is spent on astrology, and I'm really grasping to understand the point of this in the end. She writes “serious” letters to the police saying that people are dying because of where the planets were when they were born – but am I, the reader, actually supposed to take her seriously? If it was intended to be taken seriously, the narrative majorly fails at convincing me of that. Similarly, the other majority of the book is spent talking about animal rights – but again, in kind of comical terms that made it difficult to suss out whether I was supposed to just suspend my disbelief and agree with her, no matter how ungrounded her assertions were, or whether she was purposefully written to sound unhinged [ It seems clear in the end that the author did actually mean for her to be the only "sane" person - all culminating in the scene in the church near the end, where she is standing up and yelling "Murderers!" at the entire congregation. Problem being is that I wasn't thinking "Yeah, you tell 'em" - I was thinking "This is weird, but kind of funny if you imagine actually witnessing this?".].
And in the end, it is revealed that she was the murderer, or was acting on behalf of the animals, but not consciously because she forgot immediately afterwards, but not really because she remembers all of it in great detail now and she was premeditating each murder in depth. Also murdering animals is evil, but her murdering people is fine? And all of her friends and acquaintances are totally okay with all of this, and they all help her escape and live a happy life.I couldn't help but think that the book would have been much more sympathetic and narratively coherent had the murders actually been committed by the animals, and the "twist" was that you were reading a bizarre dark fairy-tale all along - where animals conspire to seek revenge, the movement of the planets really did preordain everything, and it turns out that all of this woman's out-there ideas about Animal Conspiracy Theories were actually accurate. Instead we got a "who done it!" "twist" where the answer only made me retrospectively realize the amount of meandering and pandering that took place in the lead up, all to culminate in a straight-faced assertion that this woman's actions were somehow justifiable because...eating meat is bad.
Basically, any strengths this book had were revealed to be major weaknesses, and any nuance was ironed over in favor of drawing everyone in starkly black and white moralistic lines.
Everyday I order coffee and pie while I read or finish homework, imagining that I look mysterious and adult sitting in a booth all by myself.
While reading this book, I was often struck by how very personal to my own story as a teenage girl it felt, and it is all boiled down in that quote. It could be a line out of my own diary at fifteen - being called “mature for your age”, feeling like I got along better with adults than with people my own age, being swept away in the romanticism of the taboo and depressing, feeling as if no one understood my hidden depths, and more than anything thinking that I was already grown up and in control.
All of these hallmarks of adolescence, which feel so singular to yourself in the moment, are the exact kind of emotional foundations within Vanessa's character that are ripe for potential abuse once you mix in the fact that you aren't actually as grown up and prepared as you thought. In Vanessa's story, unlike mine, someone unfortunately did notice her in all those ways she thought she wanted, but in the end was ill prepared for. In the book's flashback chapters, there was no point that Vanessa seemed to care for Strane as a person (in fact, she notes on several occasions how unattractive she finds him), but rather is groomed into a strange possessiveness towards him – where she feels disgust one minute, jealous the next, wanting, and then repulsed. As she grows older, she continues to seek him out, even while not wanting him to touch her. She is a victim, but one that deals with that reality by drawing out the unhealthy relationship for over fifteen years in order to convince herself that there's no way she could actually be a victim. Even in her adult form, she not a clear-cut sympathetic figure – she acknowledges (in an observational sense at least) her potential to become exactly the type of abuser she endured, she lashes out with cries for help just as often as she returns to comfort her abuser, she continues to both belittle her own experience and the experiences of the other girls, and I'm not truly sure she has understood any of those behaviors in herself by the end of the book.
Because of that deliberate stagnation in her character growth, this is much more of an “it's about the journey” type of story, but works extremely well as an emotional dissection of the murky waters of sexuality, consent, victim-hood, and cycles of abuse. All the questions her experiences bring up are laid out for you to contemplate within yourself, but are left open ended and without conclusions drawn. Why is the lure of a younger woman/older man trope so strong (both internally for a lot of teenage girls, and externally in pop culture)? Can you feel like you had autonomy in an abusive situation? Do you have an obligation to tell your story, no matter how bad a light it sheds on you? The answers are that there aren't really answers at all, but examining the questions and the emotions behind them is still worthwhile.
Sidenote: Why is it always an English teacher? As I discussed with my friend while reading this, the English teacher at my high school had that friendly vibe that made you feel like a peer instead of a child (and who every person had heard substantial rumors about, and who we all still talk about amongst ourselves over a decade later), it feels like it's always English and Literature teachers. At her school it was the exact same situation. I guess there is something much more alluring and accessible about roping someone in over classic literature than over the quadratic equation.
I read this book for a miniature book club, and that is the only reason I continued past the first two chapters — and while there was a run of chapters and characters in the second half of the book that I really enjoyed, and therefore I'm glad that I read it, overall it is just not my style.
For the pros it definitely makes for a great in-depth discussion piece, sometimes the flowery language serves the story well, and there are certain characters (mainly Remedios the Beauty and Meme) that are genuinely intriguing and entertaining.
The cons however include the fact that the pacing is extremely choppy and bizarre — to the point of being introduced to a character in one paragraph, they get married at the end of the paragraph, and then half a page later they're dead. You really never get a chance to spend much time with each character, and they generally don't act like human beings in any sense of the word (a “highlight” of this bizzare behavior that sticks out to me was when one of the characters is eating dirt, throws up green liquid and leeches, sees her brother laying in a hammock and is overcome with the need to have sex with him, and then they break off her previous engagement to marry each other in the next paragraph).
As a person who likes to connect with characters, the format and style of this narrative felt so remote and unengaging most of the time unfortunately, and even though the process led to great discussion with my reading partner I think it is a major issue for the book that I would never have continued reading it on my own.
2.5 Stars
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did. Though the writing is lovely (reading a lot more like a very long journal entry rather than actual scenes, in part due to the lack of dialogue) the actual relationship and plot of said relationship felt very flat and ultimately very cliché to me. I guess I am just kind of over books (and really, all media) that feature an LGBT couple who have a brief affair in their youth, eventually spend decades apart, and then everything ends with the tragic death of one of the pair.
I feel like the only reason this book is highly rated is because the author met Ted Bundy before he was a known serial killer, because there is nothing in the content of her actual writing to justify how often this book is recommended on non-fiction/true crime lists.
On very basic levels, this is just not a very well written book. The structure is choppy, the writing style bland, the perspective lacking in any real depth or emotion, and the level of detail very shallow. The thing with non-fiction is: you still have to be a good storyteller to do the facts and reality justice, and this book just is no where near the level it should be at given how often it is referenced.