you like one book by an author and suddenly you're reading their entire backlist.
it is so crazy that this novel, which to me is the embodiment of the you like one book by an author and suddenly you're reading their entire backlist.
it is so crazy that this novel, which to me is the embodiment of the forgettable 2010s edgy-books-about-nihilistic-children lit fic epidemic, is by the same author as my most pleasantly surprising read of the year.
but it's a testament to the power of personal growth.
this is not necessarily a bad book, but it's both about a topic i find uninteresting and overdone and extremely uneven in quality.
if i hadn't loved a very different book by the same author, i would say, "i might give this author another try." but i obviously am going to because at this point i love her regardless, so.
bottom line: even and especially the biggest wedding people fans can skip this one.
this is very stylized fiction with a protagonist that has the author's name and chapters randomly in verse or footnotes and several astonishingly litethis is very stylized fiction with a protagonist that has the author's name and chapters randomly in verse or footnotes and several astonishingly literary sex scenes.
i'm telling you these things because they really paint a picture i wish i was aware of going in.
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
if you want me to read a book just make it a short one with a beautiful cover.
the writing was very descriptive and visual, which i enjoyed, because agif you want me to read a book just make it a short one with a beautiful cover.
the writing was very descriptive and visual, which i enjoyed, because again this book is very short. it's not something i would have been able to bear in a longer book, but it worked here.
unfortunately, not much else did. this was a fairly plotless book (which i usually like), but it was combined with these over-the-top and almost garish dramatic scenes that didn't mesh with what was otherwise pretty and slow-moving.
that mismatch made what would have otherwise worked for me — lightly sketched characters and story taking a backseat to theme — fall flat.
i feel like i'm either going to love this book or hate it entirely. let's find out!
i find agustina bazterrica's books really obvious. the ideas are ini feel like i'm either going to love this book or hate it entirely. let's find out!
i find agustina bazterrica's books really obvious. the ideas are interesting, but they aren't complex and they don't go any deeper.
case in point: this follows a religious cult that exists as a small safe place in a world that has been destroyed by climate change. when things happen like "our protagonist seeing a bee for the first time in years," we think, oh, perhaps the world is not as destroyed as we thought. perhaps the cult is taking advantage of these helpless women, who have not seen the outside since it was a dystopia.
or we would think that, if we weren't immediately told.
there are a lot of moments like that.
this was also my crowning complaint with tender is the flesh, and a pervasive issue in the short story collection that came before it. these books are short and dark, but without any sort of complication or depth, they're still somehow uninteresting.
bottom line: get even shorter and we're talking.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
there have been books i haven't wanted to pick up, and books i've questioned whether i want to continue reading, but thislowkey how it feels currently
there have been books i haven't wanted to pick up, and books i've questioned whether i want to continue reading, but this is the very first one i kept forgetting about.
in the middle of a chapter, my mind would wander, and i'd look at my phone or google something or — and this happened multiple times — just move to another book, only to see it open a few hours later and realize i'd been in the middle of a sentence.
this happened at least a dozen times.
this book never held my attention because it asked more from me than i wanted to give it. depth did not belie its crypticness and confusion, and it took a good deal of energy without much payoff.
in other words, i found it really boring.
to me, lit fic about an obsessive woman losing her mind is the height of entertainment usually. but neither of these women (both allegedly artists) ever really do or create anything, or have unique voices from each other (every chapter was a rush to figure out whose perspective i was in until a name i recognized).
discombobulating.
bottom line: threatened to drive me insane.
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
for starters, you would not believe how many quotations there are in this book. it’s giving when you would fthis may sound juicy, but don't be fooled.
for starters, you would not believe how many quotations there are in this book. it’s giving when you would finish an essay but be wildly short of word count and just perform in text citations like a madman till you got there.
this unfortunately also means that most of the very interesting ideas here are other people’s.
this is like reading a book-length version of one of those essays in The Cut where the whole time you’re just thinking “how did the editor convince a human being to publish this.” except it's fictional (or is it?) so in that way it's guilt free.
there's something about it that feels alarmingly self-insert, like writing justin bieber fan fiction in which he falls in love with a girl with your hair color who goes to your school.
bottom line: i had a hard time putting this book down, but i also had a hard time enjoying it.
new years resolution: finally read more from the authors i'm always saying i need to read more from.
i just probably shouldn't have started here?
this bnew years resolution: finally read more from the authors i'm always saying i need to read more from.
i just probably shouldn't have started here?
this book has been underread and out of print for large swathes of its 25-year existence, and unfortunately it's pretty clear why. 427 pages is just too many to make the fairly obvious point that people are shallow and easily swayed in high school and that that instinct remains.
(427 pages largely in a collective perspective of a high school class. 427 pages describing the same relatively inane events over and over. 427 pages with moments of brilliance few and far between.)
i've read all of joyce carol oates' short stories, and i think where are you going where have you been is one of the greatest of all time, and i...probably shouldn't have picked this for my first of her full novels.
bottom line: my oates quest will continue...but maybe after some recovery time.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)...more
i reach my mid-twenties and suddenly i'm interested in books about being a mom...biology is a hell of a drug.
this was a very, very honest book, but noi reach my mid-twenties and suddenly i'm interested in books about being a mom...biology is a hell of a drug.
this was a very, very honest book, but not a very reflective one.
i didn't know going into this that it's by the sarah hoover who is married to tom sachs, whose ill-advised job posting for an "executive assistant" involved 24/7 nannying and pooper-scoopering and so on led to his being exposed as a pretty sh*t boss among other things.
i just thought it was by a sarah hoover, a pretty common name, exploring the realities of post-partum depression and pregnancy and childbirth and mothering in a misogynistic society.
i had no awareness that her version of all of the above was that of the 1%, and that there were only about 3 days between nannies when that process didn't involve constant, live-in help.
post-partum depression (and all of the other issues mentioned above) are under-discussed and critical, but there was just no self awareness here. every time i would begin to root for sarah, she'd include another crazy moment of unrecognized privilege: crying over how much she hates the 15 minutes a day she makes herself spend in her baby's company, refusing to go into one of the world's best hospitals where her husband is paying the cost of a fancy hotel for her private room, writing at length about how her sister's horrifically traumatic stillbirth affected her.
this isn't to say that wealth can buy your way out of subjugation or trauma or mental illness, but that an acknowledgment (or god forbid, a single grain of salt) would be nice.
i'm complaining a lot, but i didn't hate reading this book. it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
and i thought all of that before i learned that she repeatedly lied and used her sister's trauma without permission.
bottom line: this is a necessary book. it's just that it shouldn't have been sarah hoover writing it.
normally i write a mini-review for every short story when i read collections, but i just wrote the how is this literally a rachel cusk cover...
anyway.
normally i write a mini-review for every short story when i read collections, but i just wrote the same thing for every one. here is that thing:
these are all interesting, or about interesting topics, but my appreciation ends there. without exception, i found the writing clunky and the characters flat. i thought the treatment of serious topics, again and again, was a bit one note. i wanted to dig deeper into every single one of these, and i remained at the surface.
it wore my patience, let's say that.
bottom line: wide-ranging in subject matter...and only in subject matter.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the arc)...more
this set of novellas should be used sparingly. to punish some of our nation's worst criminals, or on people who think buttered popcorn jellybeans are this set of novellas should be used sparingly. to punish some of our nation's worst criminals, or on people who think buttered popcorn jellybeans are good.
i'm aware that that's a redundant statement.
every ali hazelwood book is - small girl big man - small girl quirky, big man serious - big man pining, small girl unaware - big man f*cks small girl without a condom
this girl is said once to be tall, but she is also said to be small-boned (?) so it's the same as ever.
also the pervasiveness of the "i'm on the pill" / "can i come inside you" conversation within these 3 novellas is disturbing. i really really really would prefer not to know strangers' (read: authors') sexual kinks, but you read the identical sex scenes in this AND the love hypothesis AND love on the brain AND the first novella AND the second novella and do the math.
i unfortunately already have. i have done not only the math, but near identical rant reviews four times. (i am debating rereading the love hypothesis, probably discovering i now hate it, and making it an even five.)
feel free to read any of those to reconstruct my suffering alongside me.
bottom line: ALI HAZELWOOD WHAT HAVE YOU MADE ME BECOME.
---------------- currently-reading updates
i'm just hate reading at this point
---------------- tbr review
what do i have to do to get more ali hazelwood. i'll do anything.
as long as anything doesn't include sending an email or trying very hard. i'm only human
Merged review:
this set of novellas should be used sparingly. to punish some of our nation's worst criminals, or on people who think buttered popcorn jellybeans are good.
i'm aware that that's a redundant statement.
every ali hazelwood book is - small girl big man - small girl quirky, big man serious - big man pining, small girl unaware - big man f*cks small girl without a condom
this girl is said once to be tall, but she is also said to be small-boned (?) so it's the same as ever.
also the pervasiveness of the "i'm on the pill" / "can i come inside you" conversation within these 3 novellas is disturbing. i really really really would prefer not to know strangers' (read: authors') sexual kinks, but you read the identical sex scenes in this AND the love hypothesis AND love on the brain AND the first novella AND the second novella and do the math.
i unfortunately already have. i have done not only the math, but near identical rant reviews four times. (i am debating rereading the love hypothesis, probably discovering i now hate it, and making it an even five.)
feel free to read any of those to reconstruct my suffering alongside me.
bottom line: ALI HAZELWOOD WHAT HAVE YOU MADE ME BECOME.
---------------- currently-reading updates
i'm just hate reading at this point
---------------- tbr review
what do i have to do to get more ali hazelwood. i'll do anything.
as long as anything doesn't include sending an email or trying very hard. i'm only human...more
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