but my favorite part of this was the food descriptions.
unfortunately, the rest was extremely repetitiveof course i want to read about magic fox girls.
but my favorite part of this was the food descriptions.
unfortunately, the rest was extremely repetitive. we have two perspectives, one of a fox girl and the other of an aging investigator, both of which sound interesting and aren't. each perspective just follows its respective protagonist as they go from the same place to the next, looking for the same thing, unchanging in themselves or in the plot. i waited for this book to pick up and it never did.
the writing was also strange—a lot of moments where something would happen, and then it would be rhetorically referred to as if it didn't. a character spots another character, and then 2 sentences later, when he starts speaking to her: "he'd managed to find me after all." like, no, he just saw you. we just talked about that. "she'd used her patron's name, hoping it would open doors. which it had." okay, why did we have to say that then. it resulted in me going back and rereading a lot of paragraphs and getting frustrated.
the ending and romance came out of nowhere, after hundreds of pages of sexual harassment, but there were parts of this i enjoyed.
i just wish there were more of them.
bottom line: more foxes, more food, less weirdness.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
i so appreciate that her stories were published and we get to read from an incredible voice, even if she was gone far may diane oliver rest in peace.
i so appreciate that her stories were published and we get to read from an incredible voice, even if she was gone far too soon. these stories brilliantly explore race in america, and capture a searing image of a bygone era that is not in the distant past.
bottom line: i'm grateful these stories are finally being shared.
just a few pages into this i already felt like i couldn't catch my breath.
i read two jesmyn ward books in one month, and this one was so excellent i fjust a few pages into this i already felt like i couldn't catch my breath.
i read two jesmyn ward books in one month, and this one was so excellent i felt like i had to go back and lower the rating of the other one. the evocative, emotional, propulsive way she writes is so one of a kind.
this book doesn't have the magic aspect of the others i've read by her, and i think it's stronger for it. in its place is an unforgettable love and bond between the characters, who are full and rich. this book is hard to read and even harder not to.
i would follow the lines of a family for 300, 400, 500 pages. i've followed them for 800+! 240 pagei love family dramas.
this one just felt too short.
i would follow the lines of a family for 300, 400, 500 pages. i've followed them for 800+! 240 pages doesn't feel like enough to see the full dimensions of their dynamics, the traces of family they carry, to develop full characters i'll remember forever.
while there are moments of this that struck me, in truth there just weren't enough moments for this to stick with me.
i was so excited to read this book, which is so many of my favorite things: women who spy! family drama! historical fiction about an under-discussed gi was so excited to read this book, which is so many of my favorite things: women who spy! family drama! historical fiction about an under-discussed geopolitical moment!
its purpose — to show WWII and the era leading up to it from the british- then japanese-ruled malaysian perspective — is excellent.
unfortunately, the way this book conveyed it undermined the message.
so much tragedy occurs here. violence of every type, deaths of multiple main characters, colonization, war, labor camps, comfort stations, racism, sexism, assaults, murders, torture. it's wrenching and difficult to read.
that isn't a con of this book, obviously. all of those things really happened, and the forgotten stories of the people that experienced it deserved to be told.
it's the fact that these don't feel like real people, or real stories. our characters kill people without regret. they see untold horrors and don't feel them. they keep unforgivable secrets, commit crimes, experience trauma, and give none of it a second thought. characters change from page to page, and motivations, development arcs, and things we hold to be true aren't consistently upheld.
there is nothing that will allow us to ground ourselves in order to really feel these stories as they deserve to be felt. a character who can't pick up a stick in one paragraph is running across a camp and doing his own stunts in the next. 4 people we've been following for hundreds of pages die within one chapter. these people do terrible things without the painful justification that would allow us to feel it alongside them.
bad things happen for no reason, to people who don't feel real—nor does their suffering, keeping us on the outside as one horrible scene after another unfolds.
bottom line: i am glad this story is being told. i wish it was better equipped to be shared.
if i five star a book by an author, i will read everything by that author until i'm down to grocery listsif i five star a book by an author, i will read everything by that author until i'm down to grocery lists...more
had me at "a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic"!
and it is haunting, in a lot of ways! well written, draws from the inferno and spirihad me at "a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic"!
and it is haunting, in a lot of ways! well written, draws from the inferno and spiritual sources, filled with the kind of english class-esque lengthy descriptions you can draw a bajillion themes or motif sor symbols out of.
so in that way, yes, haunting. what is not haunting, or particularly memorable, or effective: this as a novel. our narrative and our characters leave Something To Be Desired, namely believability or entertainment value or the kind of feeling of being drawn in as a reader.
but 1 out of 2 ain't bad.
bottom line: not the best jesmyn ward book, but still a jesmyn ward book....more
a book told through museum wall labels??? this sounds like a dream...
but unfortunately the format was the coolest part.
this book's medium outshone itsa book told through museum wall labels??? this sounds like a dream...
but unfortunately the format was the coolest part.
this book's medium outshone its story. it is a very cool idea to talk about the concept of a wealthy 20th century woman as a glowing object, intended to be owned and to look pretty and nothing else, through museum labels, emphasizing the concept of the object.
but i wish it were only done partially: perhaps each chapter begins with the label, but in some way there is character development or relationship dynamics or themes of any kind. in other words, that there were something preventing this book from being dry and literal and repetitive. but alas.
i will follow this author though!
bottom line: sounded too good to be true, and was.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)...more
major historical events told through the eyes of women living on the edges of them...chef's kiss.
there is a lot to want to look away from in this bookmajor historical events told through the eyes of women living on the edges of them...chef's kiss.
there is a lot to want to look away from in this book—white saviorism, privilege, treatment of those with disabilities, the culturally palatable forms of racism, colonization—but most all of it is deftly and wisely handled, commenting on itself even in the moments in which the characters embodying it seem unaware.
at some points it gets a little ahead or behind of itself in this attempt, but most of the time it's impressive in its rendition of both this subject and what it is to be a woman, to be a mother, and to be flawed at both.
there is no other word for being able to convey so much, make the reader feel so extensively, and say so little, in such a smallshort books are magic.
there is no other word for being able to convey so much, make the reader feel so extensively, and say so little, in such a small amount of time.
this book in particular is the embodiment of showing not telling, to an almost confusing extent. how am i feeling all this? you will say. what happened to make this happen to me?
and the answer is claire keegan did.
a few short weeks ago i had no idea keegan's works existed and now i am wholeheartedly struck by them. i never want to read anything else.
if a book is under 300 pages, categorized as lit fic, and looking pretty, i'm sold.
on top of all of those signs of perfection, this is also about charif a book is under 300 pages, categorized as lit fic, and looking pretty, i'm sold.
on top of all of those signs of perfection, this is also about characters who center their lives about interesting things i know nothing about, which is the best possible subject there is.
this book is full of art and cities and friendships and love and womanhood and motherhood and fatherhood and family and WOW.
this was just striking and cozy and unputdownable, and i found its slower and sillier moments very forgivable for that reason.
Breaking: Girl Who Doesn't Really Like Historical Fiction Reads A Historical Fiction Book And Doesn't Really Like It.
i still read like 1 historical fiBreaking: Girl Who Doesn't Really Like Historical Fiction Reads A Historical Fiction Book And Doesn't Really Like It.
i still read like 1 historical fiction book per year because i'm obsessed with proving myself wrong, and i was excited about this one because it's literary-y...
Loading...
