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my rating |
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14
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| 0143136399
| 9780143136392
| 0143136399
| 3.81
| 7,016
| Aug 20, 2020
| Jun 15, 2021
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really liked it
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**spoiler alert** It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, tou
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on sexual assault, rape, bigotry, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), domestic violence, mental illness, & others. There is seldom that tickles that delightful part of my brain like an Irish story. The setting is both nostalgic & freckled; a place I have known & yet, not a place I possess in tangible terms. The landscape of this story has all the facets of a tale as old as time, a mystery, a romance, a hero, a monstrous family lineage, & the truth. The mere fact of being able to transport the reader to the place of their softest dreams is not enough. The author who presents the delightfully troubled Irish geography must also ensure his characters are flawed, not tropes of the familiar & overbearing cartoons, but neighbours to the eyes that greedily roam the pages on which they live. As with many of the books that I love, I came across this one by chance. The plot of this story was unknown to me, the synopsis rang an indistinguishable bell & before I knew it, I was devouring the tender beige pages as though the end of the story would be ripe with justice & reprieve. In essence, this is a story about a family living in the Irish countryside. There are two (2) families; the family of wealth & land ownership that allows the family of their workers to inhabit the cottage that sits crookedly on their land. The members of each family intermingle in a devilish dance, at once rivals, lovers, enemies, & friends. Readers find within this book the story of growth, development, despair, & hope. Each character encounters the worst version of themselves through their own choices; their lies colour their skies & yet, the clouds remain white, unscathed by the dirt gripping their thumbs. While reading this story I wondered whether I would recommend it. It would be untruthful to state that I dwelled on this question, rather, it was a passing thought as I quickly stepped through the series of events that took off from the page. Now, as I ruminate, I believe that this book worked its wonders on me because I was unaware of what it was. Sure, I did understand that a mystery was to unfold & a girl ran away from home. I also understood that people kept secrets & they put their noses down. I acknowledge that, if this had been made clear to me, I would have expected something from the story. Instead of going into this book with notions of what I hoped to find, I allowed the author to share his tale. One does not always have the opportunity to follow the piper & in some cases, this musical trust leads to the reader’s disappointment. However, I often enjoy allowing a book to do what it does best, regardless of the outcome; I enjoy being told a story. I find it impossible to touch on each of the characters in a way that would be sufficient. I read this book rather quickly & then when the end was near, I slowed to a deranged limp; I could not go on. Whereas the beginning of the novel saw me intrigued by the economic & social status of Moll’s family, I was rather disenchanted with her son & nearly missed the love that cloistered the conclusion. By incorporating such varying chapters, all via the segregation of the religious texts of these same people, the author both prevented & allowed the reader to find interest & lack thereof, in different sections of his story. Though the beginning held the most intrigue for me with the author’s introduction of Moll’s sudden & unexplained departure, the tone of the story allowed for the mystery of her disappearance to remain semi-unimportant. Certainly, there was value to her vanishing act. However, the reader will find that the scenario that plays the first fiddle in this plot is the scene. The motive of the story is to be alive. No character hounds another for answers though their anger sometimes leads them astray. Readers who appreciate this approach will find themselves in good company. Yes, the characters are flawed & it can be frustrating watching them hover so close to the scene without divulging themselves but, this is the beauty in being told a story, none of which the listener has any control over. Suppose for a moment you had your eyes closed & the soothing voice of your favourite narrator began by describing a small house, a laneway, & a girl who left one morning while her parents slept, without uttering a word. Your eyes might be peeked; your brain eager to piece together the intention & the unfathomable result of such a choice. Such is the result of a good story. I will admit that though I am a great lover of stories, neutral as the receiver of such gifts, my vivid imagination grants me a space among the grass of the laneway & the window panes as Moll got up one morning, earlier than the dawn, & took the bus out of the county, a transit that led her out of Ireland altogether. It is no secret that judgment ensues. Surely, there must have been a serious reason for leaving & I was correct. Moll is in love with the matriarch of the wealthy landowners, & the matriarch is in love with her too. The reader is only given the key aspects of the truth moments before the story comes to a close & I wonder whether or not they find this beneficial or not. Speaking of my own experience, I think this was beautifully done. The purpose of the narrative is not to sit & rumble judgements about Moll’s fit of anger or her having a son with a man she was never in love with (romantically speaking). Neither is it the reader’s role to berate the characters who could not shelter their child nor protect Alexander from the driver who killed him. What is the role of the reader if the author has intentionally kept away the truth? Nothing is more valuable than a listening ear. One did not need to know that Moll loved Alexander for the security he brought to her; the tenderness he showed her in gentle reminders; to understand that love comes in many forms. The reader might be angry & annoyed that Alexander walked Moll home every night without encouragement or that he fell in love with a person who could not give him what he deserved. Yet can the reader say with certainty that this is what Alexander wanted? I find myself unable to truly critique the work I have observed. I reflect on the characters & their transgressions but, not from a perspective of disappointment. Rather, I feel inclined to care about the characters. Reading this book reminds readers of the delight of storytelling. From my personal, & delicately intimate point of view, reading this story reminded me of sitting with my family as they began their tale; once a dark & silent morning, perhaps a rumbling sunny afternoon, within the deepness of night & dreams, a story was weaved & there I sat within the particulars of a movement that swept me away. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Jan 05, 2024
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Jan 05, 2024
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Paperback
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13
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| 0802162045
| 9780802162045
| 3.58
| 13,468
| Feb 01, 2022
| Jun 27, 2023
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it was amazing
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**spoiler alert** It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, tou
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on animal abuse, the death of a loved one, fertility, abortion, the sexual abuse of a child, the death of a loved one, grief, parental abuse, neglect, & others. Veronica is a woman with a story to share. As is often the case, her reflections stumble; the narrative that is presented to the reader reeks of a solemn manuscript, kept ripe in the confines of an archival system long since abandoned. Maneuvering her way through four (4) decades of peril, amorous sentiments, confusion, equations, & lore, Veronica presents the reader with a series of events unbound by logic. Her life story is plausible as much as any fairytale or decrepit fable; the reader longs for a settled story & they find one hidden between the shadow boxes of new walls, built around a childhood sheltered by curious, strange, eyes. This is not a book that I feel many readers will appreciate. Fans of Literary Fiction & afternoons seated on uncomfortable ground peering deeply into new wounds; this story will hold rubies & gems for readers who appreciate stories for what they are—tales to be told & intrigue to behold. I would not be quick to recommend this book to casual readers. That is to say, readers are perhaps more likely to feel a sense of enchantment towards publications that follow a patterned logic but which are quite hollow of the morbidity of secrecy. This book follows the narrative of a woman who feels inclined to share. This is not a book that contains a tale both otherworldly & trite. Readers will be asked to hang their inhibitions at the door & settle themselves into a room caved in with harrowing memories & distrust. Should readers find themselves immersed in this book as I have, they may be uncomfortable with the tide that wipes clean their memory of any valid semblance of time. I find myself now, seated uncomfortably longing to pull the blinds down & attempt to regain the sentiments I held while reading this book. Yet, here I am without much to invest in this review. Rather than feel that memory has failed them, readers might be inclined to conclude that this story resides within the book & not within the mind. As a consequence, one needs to return to the apartment in the drumming heat of Rome to illustrate the complexities of a life destroyed by tedium. In essence, this story is riddled with what might be complete lies. The main character opens the story by inviting the reader to believe that her brother has died. One soon learns that this is a habitual event. Under the all-seeing eye of a matriarch who does not seem invested in the well-being of her children, but rather more engaged in the societal perception of what it means to be a mother; the main character & her brother wallow in a childhood absent of stimulation. Their days are passed inside an apartment without access to the outside world. Having a patriarch who fears illness & pollution, they meander their days in a space that grows walls. The walls do not grow on their own. One might be inclined to look into the metaphorical significance of each of these events; are the walls that their father builds meant to create individualized space within a collective entity? Why are there so many walls & how does the patriarch gauge where to build these walls? None of the philosophizing done by the reader comes to any secure conclusion. We wade back & forth through a series of recollections that engage the reader to wonder, question & prophesize what all these things might mean. Rather like in real life—the one experienced outside the confines of the book—none of the questions one has, are granted a reasonable answer. Moments pose shade to the healthy development of the main character. Inappropriate encounters shape her into a neutrally traumatized individual, one rather disinclined from sharing with a room of people whose ears are deaf to her existence. Perhaps, I felt inclined to listen to so much rambling because within each section of recollection, there was a simple facet of truth. I do not need the narrator to be honest with me, I am rather disinclined from caring whether or not the story is altogether fabricated; the point is to be present. Veronica met me at a point in time when the summer nights felt long & my life was changing. Tomorrow is certain to bring a series of new challenges whereas outwardly, the waves have nestled still to the depth of the river. Perhaps, because my mind was accepting of the banality of recalling a fraudulent painting & the worried rambling of a story that had yet to be written, I found myself absolutely immersed. This story does not need the reader to accept it as truth, rather the story is a story & that is all there is. Veronica suffers as much as anyone else & perhaps more so because her existence is sheltered between words written clearly but whose meaning is altogether lost on the stable mind of the observer. Each character in this book felt like a stranger waiting to make their way to centre stage. The antagonists—the villains & predators—malevolent winds gusting brutality against the windowpanes of Veronica’s childhood home. In this way, I believe this book to hold a secret that it does not wish to speak; something undoubtedly dull, common, & magical. Readers might find themselves struck by the discussions of infidelity & love or, they may become stuck in the parables that guide them down city streets into disparaging apartments housing unknown people, dead to the story at play. The beauty of this story is that it will hide itself from the desired recall of the brain; where it hides, I cannot begin to know. One may be sitting, casually enjoying the autumnal breeze, only to find themselves pondering the rejection of Veronica’s writing. One may find oneself perusing the events thrice only to regain a semi-smidge of valuable information. Why was Veronica unable to write a book review? Why does she remember her interactions with the author who does not remember her, time after time? Why is Veronica so tender with her brother while their relationship seems to foreshadow distrust? Why does Veronica remember her father so vividly as a man she misunderstood in all ways, even as a human being? The recycled perception we have of Veronica is the same one she shares with us. She lives authentically via a lifespan that paves the way for us to walk several steps behind; she is too far away for our questions to reach her with any severity or urgency, simply as whisperings in the wind. Should readers be inclined to spend some time with Veronica they will find that she is unlike anyone they wish to ever meet again. Her recollection is plagued like a deathly disease with shallow emotions & trite structuring. Yet, she is also fully engaged in a horribly boring narrative that she is in love with living. I am not sure that I am in any position to fault her for that. Ultimately, what I found to be the most endearing was Veronica’s commitment to herself. Teetering the line between the end & the beginning, Veronica colours her world in ways only another artist could do, yet, I trust that she understands this & she knows that I do too. This story flowers pathways paved in cement with uncomfortable silences & shadowy leaves of dying trees; every single breath between a new train of thought is a station to an unknown location yearning for the passenger to break free of the tracks. Like glue, the reader puts as much effort into keeping this story together as the narrator & for that, we are bound together like staples & straw; mangled by our own romantic perversion to recognize the person unknown. To navigate through this story is to forget & recollect all at once. Veronica is a person all her own, her parents are people who live down the road & her long life is one that another might hope to live. I deeply appreciated sharing the space that the author crafted. This book is grim & illuminates the strange sentiment of insecurity that exists in all of our memories of a time when walls were built around us to redirect the life we were living. I will come back to this sequence again & I hope once more, to be met with Veronica as she settles in spiky blades of grass to convince me of something that might be altogether too earnest to be real. Thank you to Edelweiss+, Grove Press, Black Cat, & Veronica Raimo for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Aug 25, 2023
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Sep 03, 2023
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Paperback
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12
| 
| 1643752995
| 9781643752990
| B09F5YHL4N
| 4.26
| 4,387
| Jul 26, 2022
| Jul 26, 2022
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it was ok
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**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, theref
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on substance abuse, terminal illness, grief, graphic depictions of violence, racially motivated bigotry, parental abuse, fertility, & others. Beginning in the late 1970s, the matriarch recalls the event that became the stone that broke her grandson, Ever. In this introductory way the reader is welcomed into the thoughts &, sometimes, written dedications from members of Ever’s family; waltzing us through cataclysmic events that shaped him to be the man sitting in line waiting for the gift of a safe home. Regarding Ever, one never truly knows him; preferring to keep the main character & ultimate study of this generational account a mystery sulked in the lore of his people, Hokeah allows the reader to come to their own conclusions. I will begin with noting the aspects of this book that I enjoyed & will do so firstly by stating that I had been eagerly anticipating this book for months. The cover art stands on its own as an aspect of great beauty & power; a sliver strangling the skin of the man who wishes to be all that he is; broken down by the actions of those who were not enough themselves to allow him to see his wish fulfilled. The story behind the cover art does not disappoint. Presenting the inter-generational accounts of a single family as they divulge precious moments in the life of Ever & culminating in his final appearance in the story, in a fashion eerily similar to that of his father’s last months on earth. I find it difficult to review this book because I find myself standing at something of a mental crossroads. On the one hand, I very much appreciated the narrative that was being presented in this book. The writing style was dissociated to the point of leaving me feeling exceedingly disconnected from the experiences as though I really were a friend of a friend & someone had been telling me Ever’s story. However, in that same breath, I do not enjoy that presentation in literature. I would say this is specifically something I seek to avoid because it is very difficult to present readers with a story—at once overwhelmingly moving while steadfastly realistic—& keeping them at arm’s length, asking them to become emotionally involved with a person they cannot begin to know. Working through chapters wherein family members recounted specific events in Ever’s life, ones they were privy to knowing, left me initially intrigued because I felt that there might be a connection to the man we were beginning to know. However, at some point in the middle of the book, I grew tired of the seemingly random recounts & wondered when we might, once again, regain traction & return to the essence of the plot. I acknowledge that my feelings towards the general format & presentation of this book are exceedingly personal. Many readers who do not mind sustaining such a casual distance will be fine with this approach. As well, readers who do not find the jumble of casual accounts off-putting, for lack of realistic details that they might provide, might also enjoy this read. That is not to say that I do not trust Ever’s family but, in essence, they are not him & therefore cannot accurately account for the person he became. I feel this principally in the chapter that explores his mother’s memory of the moment when he enlisted in the Army. For the entirety of Ever’s childhood, his parents were both physically abusive & entirely neglectful. I cannot think to care that Turtle felt worried about the behaviours of her 20-year-old son when the time had long since passed for her to present herself as a parent worth commemorating. She remained in a house with a partner who literarily beat their child senselessly, leading him to evoke distressing behaviours. Not once did she think that it would be to her children’s benefit to leave the abusive home. It’s important that I highlight that I am in no way saying that it is an easy feat to leave an abusive relationship or home. I have first-hand experience of the difficulties that surround these environments. However, because I have that first-hand experience, I am also, unfortunately, lacking in patience to see children placed in situations in which they do not belong nor should they ever have to live through. Coming across instances such as these, wherein the actions of a character are reinforced by the deliberate repetition of a cycle, I find it most difficult to swallow my annoyance—please do better for your children. Yet, in that same breath, I understand that when you are that person—when you are Turtle, in this case—breaking the cycle of abuse seems practically impossible. In the end, she maintained her relationship with her father who was a violent alcoholic & absentee parent for the majority of her existence. Why? I cannot begin to assume her many reasons for doing so. Nor would I want to appear insensitive towards her choices as, again, I have a leg to stand on in this situation as well. Hokeah has written a story that appears personal while retaining an air of unawares, as though the premise simply came to him by a rain cloud. Much of what transpires within the chapters lingers in the mind due to the lacking depth that would expound this story into the hearts of every reader, not just those who find themselves within the pages. I do acknowledge that one is able to propel a profound story into the minds of many a reader, with simplistic & distinct prose however, this was no such case. This book might have done well had the chapters included someone worth rooting for; someone who had emotional depth without being out to lunch. Saying this I acknowledge that the grandmother figure was indeed very emotionally driven yet, neither of her children took her seriously. I appreciate those amongst our species who are able to be vulnerable & gentle—to be soft is the utmost strength & I admire that, innately. However, no character within this book presented themselves in ways that might lead the reader to feel that they were to be trusted; that this character truly had their act together. Even within the first chapter one is left feeling that there is a distinct detail within the story that is missing. Why is Lena so transactional with her children? Why does she need to sway them with money to spend time with them? Were her feelings towards Ever having a sickness in his soul accurate? Perhaps the sickness is the experiences that haunt our memories without granting us the reprieve of a window in which to filter fresh air; cloistering the confines of our strangled mind. Perhaps the sickness was a lack of health; a morphing malaise running through the blood of all those sliced at the knees by figures meant to love them. In all, I wanted more from this book. I wanted the writing to sweep me away. Instead, I found myself longing to skim the majority of the chapters. It is not enough to simply present events that are relatable, familiar, common, or otherwise communal; one needs to swindle the reader into the story, leaving them feeling that there is little disconnect between their own lived experiences & the tenderly swaying emotions of the characters. Those present in this book were strangers; hidden figures in an otherwise troubled river of water. I am left feeling that something intrinsic was missing from this story to rivet me to the core with floundering feelings of fondness for a book written well. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Aug 12, 2022
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Jun 08, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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11
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| B00LRXCFCU
| 4.26
| 16,289
| Sep 04, 2014
| Feb 03, 2015
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really liked it
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**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, theref
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on abuse, child endangerment, Hebephilia, Pedophilia, death of a child, sexual abuse of minors, physical abuse of minors, psychological distress, mental illness, religious extremism, terminal illness, the suicide of a minor, & others. Alongside the content warning, I would like to highlight that if you are someone for whom reading repeated instances where both graphic descriptions & dedicated insinuations are given regarding the abuse of minors, is overwhelming, triggering, debilitating, or other; this is a book I would encourage you to put aside. The subject matters approached in this book deal entirely with the actions taken by sexual predators as well as those undertaken by others systemically protecting these actions. There is very little of this story that does not impart mental reflection on the realities these minors were forcibly subjected to throughout a great many years. Therefore, please be kind to yourself & do not pursue this book or my review if you are not in a position to be faced with this matter. Odran Yates is a priest in the Catholic Church in Ireland. He narrates a series of events over the course of multiple years in his life which have shaped him to be the man lying face-down on the earth, wondering if things could have been different, had he only been someone else. He is surrounded by people bold enough to put thought into action regardless if these choices are good or bad. The reader meets Odran in a compromising position, one that leaves our roaming eyes with that same reflection; had Odran been anyone else, had the circumstances been anything other than what they are, one might be left with feelings of pity for the poor soul who was meant to drown in the waves that fateful summer day. Yet, I cannot feel anything but anger towards Odran. This is a book that has left me feeling cheated. I feel annoyed at myself for wanting the main character to be a good person, for his actions to have carried through & formed a unified front with his inner monologue. However, time after time, Odran proved to me that he was incapable of being honest, of seeking out the protagonist in himself, the one he diligently wanted me to believe he was. Instead, he was the best friend of a repeated & prolific child predator; a man who wanted to sit in the graces of this child abuser because he couldn’t face himself in a mirror to come to terms with the reality of his position, one of a lonely whimpering, rain-drenched leaf at the bottom of a mildew rotten sunken ship, shot down for the war crimes it sought to inflict. Why do I feel so much annoyance? This is not a question without an answer for I know myself distinctly; understanding that in books I wish to see the change we have avoided in reality. How dare Odran walk back into Aidan’s life after he deliberately allowed someone he knew to be a child sexual predator to roam the boy's house at night? How dare he lie to the face of his own nephew who had to deal with the physical & psychological repercussions of such levels of abuse, only to admit to himself due to the words spoken to him by the perpetrator, that he is also the villain in this story. How dare he. Yet, how like reality this fictional work is, indeed. So riddled with nuisance as to whom we are meant to trust, whom we are to want to see succeed. I can say confidently that I feel no shame in admitting that they should all burn for such unforgivable things, as those that the children have had to endure at the hands of barbarically inept human beings as the adults in this scenario. Why should I feel conflicted about my sentiments towards Odran? He is, after all, the root cause of the abuse his nephew suffered. I should feel more care to see a four-leaf-clover fly away in the wind than to watch him punished in my field of vision for what he deliberately allowed to happen. However, that is not what this story is asking of the reader. It is easy to point the finger, that is all that happens throughout this story. When it mattered to speak out, everyone whispered. When it mattered to listen, the ears of the deaf were more attentive. How can this be? However difficult it is to admit, everyone is part of the problem while many are simultaneously a victim of the system. If one is to take Odran’s experiences as a primary example one might wonder when this character was ever meant to revolt against everything he had known. This is a character who had the deaths of his brother & father diminished to darkness in his memory for the level of traumatic upheaval they caused his psyche. However, they nibbled at him still for how could he completely forget what had happened when he was living in the imposed constraints such a tragedy caused his family, within the actions of his religious extremist mother who threw him at the first religious figure she saw because her son was evoking ‘normal’ teenage emotions. This is not to say that I do not believe that Dissociative Amnesia played a part in Odran’s life, I very much believe that to be the case. However, he was constantly reminded of things he wished to forget — so to say — by the behaviour of his mother. Yet, can we blame her? There was a time when people wanted to trust that religious figures were honest, truthful, & kind people. This is not something we can say is innately wrong for, haven’t we all, at least once, sought in wish or desire, to trust someone? Certainly, we cannot look upon the centuries of religious abuse of power as indicative that these figures of supposed God’s voice, were in fact playthings for the Devil himself, can we? This is a difficult question to answer, just as there may be one rotten apple in a tree, one needs to examine the trunk to determine whether or not the entity is rotten to the core. So too have religions throughout all of humankind been privy to both honest & dishonest, kind & unkind, people. The Catholic Church was meant to protect its believers, it was meant to give them a reason for being; guiding them with chorus & community into the welcoming hands of their Lord. Yet, these same figureheads found themselves riddled to the brim with child predators. Why is that? Again, we find ourselves with an impossibly difficult question to answer. One may say that the victims of abuse at the hands of religious figures were suppressed because it seems impossible that a person who proclaimed themselves vocationally inclined in the field, was at once a man of God & a man who abused children. Therefore, one may note that perhaps this was a field of work wherein such barbaric peoples felt comfortable; felt that they could hide in plain sight for who would ever question a person who said to hear the word of God from the Man himself? However, one might also note that for those same reasons, the Catholic Church has highlighted itself as being the epicentre for child sexual abuse because people cannot believe that this would be the place, of all places, where a predator would feel safe to act on their impulses. By this I mean, we might regard the high number of cases brought to the forefront by those brave children, as being believed because it was impossible that a man of the cloth should be such a horrible person therefore, he should be evicted from the community. Is believing in the goodness at the core of religions bad? No. Is being part of a religion, a community of peers seeking to pray for salvation & grace, bad? No. However, hosting a community of repression & silence, fostering a feeding ground for people who prey on the vulnerability cultivated in wanting to believe in a higher power, is devilishly wrong. 95 Theses & I should think one of them wrung true to the core of the fact. With these questions, we are brought round to the essence of Odran’s story. Who is at fault for his negligence? It is at once his own fault for deciding that he did not have it within his person to face the facts; his esteemed lifelong friend was a sexual predator, & he was a bad man & Odran ignored this because he did not want to experience confrontation. This leads us to the fault that lies at the hands of those who raised Odran to be the way that he was. The people who thumped him into the ground until he was forever quiet, forever silenced. This is the priest who molested him, it is his father who experienced serious levels of anger & violence, & it is his own mother who willfully ignored the world around her for the security she sought in organized religion. Our species have been pondering the question of ‘nature versus nurture’ for centuries, if not longer. As with this story, we could be pointing fingers at others forever. What is troublesome is admitting to ourselves, as Odran had to do at the conclusion of this story, that one is responsible for one's own actions, to an extent at least. How easy would it have been for Odran to randomly break the mould he was fitted for upon his birth? How likely would it have been that he would seek to do this because he could not go on as he was? It is impossible to say because he never did either of these. The reader is faced with the difficult decision as to whether or not Odran should be believed & whether or not it is worth their time to trust that this character is remorseful for his neglect. With that, I will say that this made the reading experience extremely difficult for me. I remain steadfast in my sentiments against those who abuse children; a stance I shall never falter from holding. However, as Boyne wrote onward, I could not help but feel frustrated at his ease; crafting dimensional characters who would be remembered as that kindly, mousy friend, & who would be recalled as the person who unbelievably was the perpetrator of their own experiences on to others. These are the markers of a stellar writer & one who enamoured me in the narrative at once. I wanted to be led through the timeline, I felt intrigued & interested, I wanted to believe that Odran never knew a thing. Yet, just as Tom refused to speak his truth, choosing instead to repeat the offences done to him in his childhood, so too did Odran recycle the actions transferred to him & so, the finger-seeking blame needs to become ten or twenty. Specifically, when children are involved, it is difficult to say that it was in the hands of one person for aren’t we loath to forgive a parent we deem neglectful, a figure we simply couldn’t believe to be abusive, an adult we thought we knew. Every character in this book plays the villain; every person partakes in the final form that these people have become. What I found to be the most troublesome aspect of this book are the questions it has left me with. Boyne’s writing swept me into a world that was riddled with ghouls at every turn yet, I wanted to believe that there would be an archangel come to save the day. How can someone write about reality in such a way as to have me hoping against reason that, this time it will be different? I appreciated the stance the author took at introducing a character who was set apart yet, one who mutilated themselves in their own lies; a character one could be enticed to believe, trust, & hope for. Poor Odran with everyone offering him sandwiches when he wasn’t even hungry. Poor Odran whose father drowned his young brother in a murder-suicide. Poor Odran who finally made a friend only for this person to be a blatant mentally deranged ghoul. Poor Odran who is so like the other passengers on the train so as to melt into the fabric on the seat becoming who he was, no one man at all. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
|
Jun 15, 2022
|
Apr 18, 2022
|
Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||||
10
| 
| 4.22
| 72,618
| 1995
| May 02, 2019
|
it was amazing
|
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, theref
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on suicide, euthanasia, physical deterioration due to illness, & others. The narrator without a name writes to us on papers hidden in a bunker, assumedly kept there to house the invisible puppeteers that rule the world she walks through; ignorantly holding inventory of the bushes, water streams & void of life that crosses her path throughout her daily journey. Yet, at the end, when she has learnt to read, write & reflect on everything that has transpired in her life—desolate, solicitous, hollow, & muted—the narrator has no ill will for the questions that have exceeded the roster of a human’s ability to carry things left unsaid. In this book, the reader finds a story from the perspective of a person without a name as she recalls the years of her life spent in a world that she cannot understand nor are there clues to explain it. This leaves this review a difficult one for me to embark on writing. Where is there a solid place to start when critiquing a piece of work that has at once beautifully painted a landscape that the mind automatically fills with the normalcy we see in our own, yet reminds us swiftly & without qualms that everything we cherish is no longer available to us in this realm? How does one put into words what Harpman has exceedingly done with the human vernacular; communicating in such stellar fashion the empathy one feels for familiarity in such extreme & unfathomable situations? As always, I shall attempt to start at the beginning, as there seems no other place to commence. The narrator of this book is introduced to the reader as she nears the end of her memoir. Having found herself in what we come to recognize & know as a bunker of sorts, she sits within the rooms known to her throughout the later years of her life as a home, & recollects the events that led her to where she is. Having been taken from an original place that she cannot call to mind, alongside 39 other women, the narrator grows to the age of about 14 or 15 in a prison cell. Though it seems that Harpman has described a prison cell, the likes of which I cannot truly call to mind, she has given the reader sufficient details to understand that the place in which all these women live is nothing but scarce & demeaning. This is the first point of praise that I would like to give Harpman. Her uncompromising & unfaltering ability to describe a world that appears—for all intents & purposes—desolate, while simultaneously giving the reader the ability to illustrate a world that is large & overwhelming, is superb. The words employed throughout this book & the prose designated to craft the story are exquisite. I have no doubt that Harpman recognized that one does not need to put forth eternally long & tongue-twisting words to describe what the catatonic emotions & experiences of all the characters within this story were. A true talent with words resides in the mind of the individual who can purpose vocabulary in such a way as to enthral every person with ease. The women who reside in this prison cell have lost most of their memories of the lives they led before their captivity. The reader gleams moments of small reflection upon which the characters seem to hold fond feelings; a marriage to a kind man, children that they loved, the hopes they held for career growth, & the social rules they abided by. The impoverished recollections lead the reader to immediately feel a longing for further information & details, both of which are never granted to us. So much is said with so little. Imminently we are given the opportunity to feel nostalgia for all the darkened memories we hold in our own minds. Just as the women in the prison cell, so too do we hold things in the recesses of our minds that we cannot quite call to the forefront. Suppose someone asked us what life was like prior to this very instant & suppose they asked us to describe in colourful details everything that transpired; how would we go about doing that? Each of the women believes that their experiences or abilities to recall their past lives—the lives they led before being imprisoned—have been altered by force. They do not believe that they have simply forgotten what they experienced by the sheer distance of time but, that someone had been poisoning them; their memories forcefully shadowed into places their minds cannot reach. We are never given confirmation or a refusal of these assumptions as it does not ultimately dictate the weight of the plot for the reader to be explained everything in formulaic reasoning. Suffice it for the reader to know that the happiness they felt within their bones has been stolen from them, replaced with the singular existence they share in the cell. 39 women reside in a prison cell & are prevented from touching, crowding together & are simultaneously permitted no privacy when using the toilet. The employment & threat of violence has kept them submissive to this way of life, one that is contrary to what has come to be known as necessities of human existence. The narrator herself has grown into her teen years without being caressed or coddled; never truly developing a longing for human contact she retains the inmate impulse to seek out the reciprocity of another person. When the cataclysmic event takes place, one that we are never granted an explanation for, the women are free from the cell yet are never free from the imprisonment that took them away from what they loved. This particular aspect of the story is one that I pondered very deeply. Being a person, myself, that does not feel the longing for closeness with another human being—not being drawn to touch or being held, rather not enjoying that practice—I wondered how long I should be able to go on in sustaining that if I were taken at this moment, to live in a cell where I had no free will to choose whether or not I could hug someone else. The narrator saw her formative years drift by in the environment of prevention & control, therefore she knew no different. The adult women, on the other hand, knew what it was like to share in an embrace or to hold someone’s hand; closeness represents a variety of things that are intended to offer comfort & love to another. Would anyone of us be able to see ourselves living solicitous within a group? Many of us do that right now, in this life, where nothing is dictated to us or forced onto our lives such as to the women in this book. Many authors have sought to explain the experience of a person who feels alone among many & I have found it to be personally enjoyable when I find authors who seek the opposite. I appreciate it when someone with the talent for words & crafting of stories, writes about people who are individualized; when a story explores the solitude of a person who is not lonely because they enjoy themselves & they seek not the necessities that others feel drawn to possess. I find these stories oddly comforting & rewarding to read. The human condition is vast in its experiences. I am glad that mine can be found in the pages of a book without the author attempting to elicit sympathy for something that does not pang me. This is not to say that I can speak to everything that the narrator experiences as I found myself feeling a longing to find her bunker & a small hope that someone might suddenly come upon her before her time was up. Why would I feel this way when logic tells me that she is certainly alone in this life? What was it about a nameless person that drew me to feel such a connection? Does reading about a negative situation lead one automatically to sentiments of forlorn sorrow? Does one need to connect with a character in a story to feel empathy for them & their situation or is it enough to recognize the depth of the human psyche’s abilities to understand? Can the reader truly begin to imagine what these women must have felt upon coming upon the other bunkers which housed the prison cells of 39 people each time, all of whom were dead & decomposing? Can one truly understand, without living the experience, what it must be like to wander without purpose or knowledge of where one is meant to go? I have an inkling that this particular part of the story is something many individual readers may relate to. The narrator did not know her world & the reader may feel sorrow for her yet, how much do we know & understand our own world? Some people have gone to the moon & yet, for many people, the universe resides cooped within their property lines. Does this make either situation bad or good? I suppose that it depends on whom you ask & at what point in time, during their lives, you seek them out to ponder the question. In reality, this book merits a full study; deconstructing each experience, the placement of every bush, the defining of every singular thought, yet, I think that every person should be drawn to this story if only to find a part of themselves within the plot. A nameless entity is not unknown, though we cannot put it into words. The narrator, though she does not have a born name—a government identifier, a religious nomenclature—is just as much an individual human being as Anthea, the person she loved. The love that is able to blossom within the relationships that the women share encourages the reader to reflect on their own experiences. Though the world may be bleak & though we cannot always call to mind the things that have brought us happiness, there are always unheard words in the heart, in the mind, that can leave us settled & comforted. When all is said & done, I find myself left in silence; a droning quiet that permits me the time to reflect on every instance that is shared between myself & the narrator. I should hope to find myself reading this story again when the time is right, just as the narrator came across her home when she least expected it, so too do I hope to remember the deliberation & contemplation that was elicited within me upon my first read. Philosophical works do not need to feel overwhelming, though they often leave one feeling debilitated. How can one possibly contemplate every single detail in a single sitting? There is so much to question & connect; too many instances of detail & depth. Without these stories, I should find myself very much resembling the narrator; alone with my thoughts that limit the awareness, I hold of the world, residing in the crevices of my mind. Thank you to Edelweiss+, Transit Books, & Jacqueline Harpman for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! Special praise for Ros Schwartz & her superbly enthralling translation of the original French text into English. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
|
not set
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Apr 18, 2022
|
Apr 18, 2022
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
8
| 
| 3.89
| 1,839,935
| Dec 1847
| Jan 29, 2003
|
it was amazing
|
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, theref
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on physical abuse, child endangerment, psychological abuse, substance abuse, & others. This is my second time reading this book. As younger generations become made aware of the Classics—the books that hold the entirety of literary weight on their shoulders—I have heard many conflicting opinions about what this story is truly about. Having read this book several years ago I felt it was my responsibility to revisit the pages of Brontë’s controversial work; reminiscing about the horrendous characters that plague the pages & the detailed actions of their terror upon everyone who crosses their paths. I would be loathed to say that this is a romance. I cannot begin to imagine why anyone would call upon the characters of Heathcliff & Catherine as models of true love & longing. That being said, I can appreciate that a great many novels found in the romance genre portray less than healthy relationships as well as detrimental views on what should & can be expected of a partner. Therefore, I must acknowledge that the same people who view torrential relationships as the epitome of romance might very well regard the love found in this story as something that would transcend the ages. Many people have read this book. It is required reading for University courses & is highly referenced in popular culture. In that same breath, the simple act of recognizing a piece does not lead one to an understanding of its moral or plot essence. For this reason, I will begin at the start. This book is riddled with antagonists. It is a story that leads the reader to question whether or not it is appropriate or wrong to seek to sympathize with any one of the slew of characters. When Heathcliff is introduced into the story one is automatically filled with despair. This is a child that was, assumedly, abandoned by their parents to a life of begging on the streets of a city in the hopes of securing food for survival. When Mr. Heathcliff (Sr.) brings the child home he is abused by the eldest of the two biological children in the home. Physical blows are commonly employed in a fit of longing to degrade Heathcliff into recognizing that he is beneath everyone else. His genetic makeup is referenced often enough that the reader can deduce that the ‘gypsy’ child is not ancestral to England—his skin holds more melanin than everyone else in this story & it seems, everyone else in the town. At no point is Heathcliff given a fighting chance. The Patriarch does express fond feelings for his adopted child but does not treat any of the children with an exuberance of kindness which might leave them with the class & gentility to treat another person with respect. The epitome of the relationships of everyone under Wuthering Heights’ roof is the exemplary character & brute ability of one to surpass the other. Though we read about Catherine becoming friends with Heathcliff, there is no clear demonstration of goodness amongst anyone in this story. This fact is highlighted as we move forward. As adults, once the violent children find that their characters have been unmoved by the passing of their parents, their loved ones or the change of the times. Of course, there are instances wherein we are privy to their desire for peace, both amongst each other & within themselves. It is rare enough that a person might be filled to the brim with evil. Yet, Heathcliff cannot speak to Catherine about his growing love nor can Catherine pause her insistent idiotic monologues for long enough to observe that she is not alone in her feelings towards Heathcliff. There are so many instances within this book that left me riddled with irritation. Most of the secondary characters felt like wet noodle versions of whole people. I suppose this can be expected when they are paired to be contrasted to behemoths such as Catherine who pushes her husband to the brink of death by pursuing a romantic relationship with Heathcliff; & just as Heathcliff physically abuses everyone under the roof of his house throughout the longevity of his adult years. The facts which might leave one with sentiments of sadness towards these characters soon evaporate, never to be found again. Yet, I have loved this book since my first time reading it. Enough praise cannot be given to the author who is able to include fully dimensional characters who all hold so much hate in their hearts yet perpetrate such hatred in unique ways. To marry the sister of your enemy knowing it would cause them pain, to scam them out of their estate; to watch that same person cry out into the night because they feel an inch of remorse for the absence of the person they did love. That is not to say that I would want to be the Catherine to Heathcliff; I’d rather not die of hysteria because I cannot find it in myself to manage my own emotions & spew hatred & malaise onto everyone in my environment. But, I can appreciate that reading about Heathcliff feeling the absence of Catherine might lead one to want to believe that what he felt was love & not, shall we say, selfish regret for what he cannot possess. Every time I think about this story, I am led to want to read it again. The imagery plays so powerfully in my mind & with every reading I have come to find new things to grasp; further understanding & depth within a story of antagonists who played the game of chess against themselves in a bid to overthrow another player who was in the midst of a solitary game themselves. For those who have claimed that it is not enjoyable to read about horrible people, you are correct. There is little pleasure to be derived from reading about repeated abuse, selfishness, willful ignorance, greed & violence. However, if you can look past the simple evil that is presented & seek to place your mind within the gloomy moors you might find much to be appreciated. The writing style is one which I have cherished deeply; reading a story through a verbal retelling is wonderful & I truly appreciate the involvement of secondary & tertiary characters who reveal the hidden quirks of those primary characters we assume ourselves to know & understand. I am certain to revisit this book again in the future. How can there be so much to long for within the actions of those who seek to repel any ounce of tenderness? I have found there to be an abundance when the author evokes visceral writing. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Mar 06, 2022
|
Apr 04, 2022
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||||
7
| 
| 1640095195
| 9781640095199
| B097B1K1GJ
| 3.70
| 3,519
| Mar 01, 2022
| Mar 01, 2022
|
it was amazing
|
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, theref
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on parental neglect, sexual assault of a minor, substance abuse, mental illness, suicide, & others. It is very rare that one finds oneself reading a book that could be deemed a classic piece of literature. I wonder how often readers of Hemingway, Hugo, Proust, Steinbeck et alt. knew that the books they held in hand would find themselves as highly praised works of classic literature. Without seeking to prevaricate the core of this review I want to highlight that the story that Kauffman has written is most certainly one that will transcend ages & see itself diligently succeeding through the test of time. Down a rural road, nestled in vast farmland, sits the house of the Shaw family. The seven (7) Shaw children lead the chapters in this book by way of transitions that jump through time & categorically significant events until the reader finds themselves utterly devoted to the well-being of each member of the family. This is not a book for the faint of heart. Comparing Kauffman’s writing to that of Steinbeck, specifically, was not done in earnest. The plot situates itself in the heart of a book that requires stints to ease the flow of the burden, in this case; the ways in which trauma & the development of life hurdles itself at each individual person. Every character in this story was flawed; everyone held secrets that ate at their essence. Relationships were strained & afflicted by the malevolence of misunderstandings & words left unsaid. This is a short book, one which you might see yourself reading in a single sitting. I had to actively pace myself because I wanted the weight of what was being said to truly seep into my subconscious. The prose in this book was exquisite, morose, elegant, aerial & profound. There is no way for me to render into words the orphic text. In the opening chapter, we read about Jim, the patriarch, as he holds his youngest son in a race to ensure that his wife has not been found hanging from a tree in their garden. We learn that Marie, the matriarch, is dealing with something which might later become known as Bipolar Disorder. Though I am not in a position to comment on the authentic representation of Bipolar Disorder (Bipolar I Disorder, Bipolar II Disorder & Cyclothymic Disorder), I think it is important to highlight that the author does not necessarily explore the complications that the disorder causes on the person in question. The main protagonists of this story are the children. When we read chapters from the points of view of the parents it is not to reinforce some third-party agenda but to complete our understanding of who these children grow to be as individual people. The inclusion of emotional mania within the story in no way seeks to reinforce any particular subjective understanding of the illness nor was it superficially riddled into the plot as a character arch. Marie is a three-dimensional person, as are all the characters; her illness is not detailed at length because the majority of the story sees the repercussions of the changes she experiences to her mood, energy & overall ability to function through the eyes of a child. I certainly appreciated the narrative that this book sought to present which is that people who live in a ‘bad’ way (i.e. outside the norm of abilities to function) can still be ‘good’ loving people regardless of the outer circumstances in which we meet them. I have put both descriptors (bad/good) in quotation marks because they might leave a great deal up for interpretation. I am not saying that having a neurological or psychological disorder is inherently bad. What I am saying & what the book seeks to address is that the consequences of such a disorder as the one that Marie experiences, leave the children in this story feeling that the events which transpire around them, subsequently all that is out of their control, are ‘bad’. The lack of parental presence from their mother because she is unable to leave her room; the lack of facial muscle strength due to medications seeking to address the root cause of her illness; the confusion felt as a young person who knows only to trust & seek affection from a parental figure but has had to learn that violent outbursts, aggressions & fear are emotions that said person is also teetering through. The ‘good’ person is the one that they remember when Marie finds herself in a space that does not bog her down. To be good is to share love; to decorate Christmas trees; to share cookies & play games; it is writing out a final declaration of love before leaving. It was very difficult to work through this book; the subject matters so close to home. Every single character in this story was so much themselves that I felt at times, as though I were sitting around the table listening to them share stories, rather than being a third-party surveyor who lives outside of their fictional reality. Kauffman has introduced a group of people who are so profoundly well-thought-out, complex, interesting, decisive, intriguing & fully fleshed-out as to make them feel familiar to the reader. I became so invested in each of the characters & felt so very deeply about their experiences that I did not want this book to end. My single qualm is that I flew through this book. I was sad & I felt attached & I was moved; this is a beautiful book. Thank you to NetGalley, Catapult, Counterpoint Press, and Soft Skull Press & Rebecca Kauffman for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
|
not set
|
Mar 03, 2022
|
Mar 03, 2022
|
Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||
6
| 
| B09969JBFG
| 3.56
| 66,042
| May 10, 2022
| May 10, 2022
|
liked it
|
**spoiler alert** I teeter between concluding that this book sought to reinforce that either good people can make bad decisions or, that every person
**spoiler alert** I teeter between concluding that this book sought to reinforce that either good people can make bad decisions or, that every person in this story was a bad person disguised by the guilt that kept them in line throughout long periods of time. This book is written in three (3) parts, each of which is separated by the advancement of time; the plot moves forward towards the culminating event which is the anticipated wedding between Ruby & Gabe. On the bride’s side, we have Eli (father), Annette (mother), Sarah (step-mother), two half-brothers whose names I cannot recall, Veronica/Ronnie (grandmother), Lee (grandfather), Ari (paternal uncle), Sam (maternal uncle), Connor (cousin). On the groom’s side, we have Rosa (mother), & Amanda (aunt). As well, there are an array of tertiary characters such as Connor’s paternal grandfather, father & mother, some past love interests for Sam, Owen, some past love interests for Ronnie, etc. There were a lot of people in this story. I highlight the number of characters who made appearances in this book not because I found the number obnoxious but rather, for opposing reasons. I really enjoyed the number of people who came through the pages & brought to the story some form of authenticity. Weiner truly did her utmost to ensure that every character that we knew by name was more than the physical description they were given. These were people who, though for some, we saw only through the eyes of another & in very small doses, were granted enough substance for us to believe that they were living a full life. This is something I want to praise very highly because it was the main reason I kept reading for as long as I did. This book is centred around a handful of people & Weiner writes a chapter for each of them. They have their first-person point of view expressed from a personal standpoint & by so doing we are able to fully grasp their feelings & reactions in a genuine way. I will admit that this method of approaching character dialogue did render the chapters very, very, long. As someone who seeks to finish a chapter before putting down a book, this was a bit of a negative aspect as there were so many pages per chapter that the reading segments really dragged on. This leads me to my next point. The redundancy in events was excruciating. Due to there being an obscene number of active characters in this story, I will keep my critique centred around a few specific people. Eli, for example, continues to ramble about the possibility of Gabe being his biological child in every chapter he narrates. This is a man in his 50s yet we have to read about him questioning the biological connection between him & this other person for the entire story. I highlight his age here because having had, what we can assume as being, a great deal of life experience, one would think that Eli would simply do the math & deduce that Gabe was not his child. Given the fact that we know Gabe grew up with an impoverished single parent who relied very heavily on the support of her family to raise her child, it’s not far-fetched to assume that Gabe would have told Ruby had he been a premature baby. This aspect would have increased the difficulties that he & his mother encountered while she was trying to provide basic needs for her child. As this was never brought up, ever, & because Gabe is a solid four (4) months younger than Ruby—why do we have to continuously read about a situation which is pointless to dwell on? Also, if Eli was worried that Ruby was having incestuous relations with a person that could possibly be her biological brother, would it not be more important to tell her rather than focus on the ego wound that would ensue from saying that Eli slept with someone else during his relationship with Annette? I admit that I wanted to like Sarah’s character from the very start. She seemed to be well-rounded & held a hopeful view of life. How very unfortunate for me when very early in the book her true colours began to shine through to an extent that made me confused. First of all, Sarah has been married to Eli for 15 years & he uncharacteristically is going through a difficult time emotionally. How do we know this? Because Sarah repeatedly tells the reader that Eli is not as attentive to her & her needs as he was throughout the bulk of their relationship. Are you telling me that the basis to which you calculate the well-being of your life partner is by their ability to be there, uncompromisingly, for you & not,… say, their general overall behaviour towards themselves, their hobbies, their employment, etc? Why is him not being able to emotionally hold the bag for you the reason you’re going to ask him to sleep in another room? Is Sarah so incompetent as a person that she cannot be patient & kind towards the man that she describes as being the ideal partner? I suppose one might regard this situation as a breadcrumb amongst the loaf. One might say that Sarah is using this marker as an outward example so that the reader might better understand why she’s so frustrated & why she subsequently jumps at the occasion to have sex with a person she knew when she was 18. I think that’s a load of bull. You do not just abandon the person you claim to love because they’re having a rough time, for the first & only time in over 15 years. Let me highlight that this emotional time was taking place during a pandemic so, one might be in the right to assume that many people were going through difficult times. The fact that Sarah cannot comprehend that Eli is an emotionally complex person, such as herself, & might be struggling to express his emotions, is frustrating, to say the least. I really lost full interest in her character when she throws her marriage out the window when Eli does not come out & tell her what is bothering him the first time she asks. We never see her attempt legitimate conversations with him. We read about her wanting to have sex with her husband but never sitting with him while he’s outwardly displaying sentiments of distress. For whatever array of flaws Eli does have, he is a family man & obviously wants to be in the family he has. He deliberately denounces having an affair & yet Sarah cannot comprehend that someone she loves might be sad so, she goes out & decides to do whatever she wants, to serve her own self-interest, rather than put forth any level of effort to be present in the life of someone she’s invested 15+ years with. Wild. I want to give Sarah the benefit of the doubt when it comes to Owen. As someone who has never been in love, I will admit that I cannot possibly speak of her total & all-encompassing infatuation with a person she knew for over 15 years ago, for a couple of months. Yet, I find myself confused about the entire ordeal. How little must you have to go on to spend your entire adult life thinking about someone you knew for all of 5 minutes, eons ago? Again, maybe I’m just not getting it so perhaps many other readers will come to this point in the story & state that it was wonderfully well done & that love never leaves the heart. I appreciated the way Weiner approached the topic of children; adopted, biological & surrogate (in any way). I appreciated reading a story in which the main focus, throughout all the mass hysteria, was to ensure that every child had a fighting chance to be the person they were & not be bogged down by the issues that the adults were encountering. This is a very important piece of the plot & a very valuable part of the story. Though I admit that Connor’s storyline was dramatic & incredibly sad, the fact of the matter remains; we saw a person (Sam) sit with himself & seek to provide this child (Connor) with a healthy life in every way possible. It’s important that these dramatic storylines not neglect the fact that children carry the burden of adult problems more frequently than one might like to admit. Seeing adult people try & settle their issues while granting their children the freedom of ignorance, the sentiment of safety & the environment to be a kid, was wonderful & I applaud Weiner for reinforcing that point. When all is said & done this is a highly dramatic plot. If you do not want to read about a handful of people being unfaithful to their partners, exploring their sexuality, having children, experiencing death, working through familial relationships, talking about personal issues, etc; I would advise you to steer clear. This is a story that packs a heavy punch. There is a lot going on & people don’t always (or nearly ever) act in logical ways. Everything is overblown, people don’t seek to express themselves & things get lost in the sauce, which I admit is one thing I truly dislike about stories (point finale). However, Weiner is a good author. Every character had a distinct voice, the scenes were clearly set & the imagery was detailed & all-encompassing. It was evident that this author put effort into ensuring that, however, flawed her characters were, they were real people in this story & we got a true glimpse into their lived realities. Sure, many of the things that happened in this book were ridiculous. Sarah decided on a limb to have an affair with someone she hadn’t seen for 15+ years because her husband was closed-off; Sam had sexual relations with Gabe on the night when Ruby left him a break-up note, & Rosa ignored Eli because she couldn’t be an adult; Eli lying to Annette so he could have a biological child; Annette blaming Eli for birthing a child that she knew she wouldn’t be able to emotionally care for, etc. But, I guess if you can look past some of the more extraordinarily wild things that happen, you might enjoy this book. As for myself, there were too much of too many random & ignorant things happening for me to forge a connection with any particular character which might leave me feeling fond of the story itself. I really truly enjoyed the way the book was written & for that, I allocate its own star because it was very enjoyable up until about the middle point of Part 2. Regardless of that, this was a weird & interesting, bizarre & enthralling story that would indeed be a good summer read. Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, & Jennifer Weiner for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Feb 17, 2022
|
Feb 17, 2022
|
Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||||
4
| 
| 1982171952
| 9781982171957
| B0984KRNCN
| 3.73
| 2,205
| Feb 15, 2022
| Feb 15, 2022
|
it was amazing
|
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, theref
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on child endangerment, sexual acts (performed by minors), parental neglect, crimes motivated by bigotry, & others. Owen has spent the entirety of his conscious life hidden; burrowed away from the world because his mother is convinced that it has nothing but terror to offer her son, the boy known as a Terror due to the very real bird that has grown within the layers of his ribcage. Owen is sensitive to those around him as much as he is to his own emotional turmoil, due to sharing a physical body with an entity all their own; he has manoeuvred through life, a place in which people can be two-in-one while being wholly singular. How swiftly the weighted word anchors itself to our hearts. How delirious the memory of a decadent story can render us to become. How bewilderingly breathtaking it is to read a story about a boy with a bird in his chest who reminds us that the heart can be as full of good memories as the mind. Lund has exquisitely crafted a story so sickly sweet that I truly & very overwhelmingly adored every aspect of it. I must first begin this review with praise for the author as the prose that was employed throughout this book was wonderful. Reading this book was like walking through life with blue-coloured glasses; everything carried a weight of morose sorrow with a hint of hope that wafted through the vast shades of blue. I was instantly hooked on Lund’s writing style, as I very much enjoy writing that seeks to craft a scene; showing, leading a reader down to a murky lake only to allow them to place themselves in the scene before beginning to exude the series of events that transpire in such a place. I acknowledge that this style will not be everyone’s cup of tea, if you prefer writing that is more so to the point, which does not seek to include repetitive phrasing with the purpose of adding minute details to an otherwise clearly painted picture, you might not enjoy this book. Therefore, please keep in mind that the writing style follows the mental dialogue of a person who has been nully exposed to the ‘real world’, their thoughts are often stunted by simple scenarios that the author takes pains to express. I found that the writing style employed throughout the book ensured that character voices & points of view were excruciatingly clear. There was no fear of mistaking Gail (the bird) for Owen (the boy); each character was their own person as much as you or I. This is something that is important to remark upon as both the bird & the boy inhabit the same body; they share feelings so closely as to make it practically impossible to hide something from the other. We read many scenes in which Gail knows what Owen is feeling, sentimentally, without ever having to hear him say it. Therefore, the ability to render two such characters into lively, fully individual beings was wonderful & I fully applaud Lund for that. As someone who has a difficult time suspending my disbelief, I will not lie to you & say that this story flowed without my need to do so. There are parts wherein one might question how or why something would have been done this way; it might be as frustrating as to want to make you abandon the story. However, should you be able to regard the book for what it is, a story about more than a bird in a ribcage, you might forgive the scenes that do not accomplish what you wish them to. The reason I highlight this, in particular, is because this is the type of book we might see lining the curriculums of schools in the years to come. Some day we might hear a teacher ask someone the importance of white cloaks & large stethoscopes rather than requiring us to focus on identification cards. This story poses us all the same question; what does the bird represent? It’s lovely to read a story about a boy who hosts a bird & they live through social qualms until they are loved & they love in return. However, there are too many scenes in this story for anyone of critical thinking to overlook. One must acknowledge the elephant in the room. This book allows every reader to pose many vast & profound questions about what it is they carry inside themselves. This is one of the many reasons why I adored Owen as a character. When we are first introduced to Owen it is through the setting of the scene; the boy born during the flood. We read about his mother’s decision to run away from the hospital workers after having been told that her son had a heart condition & he needed to be closely monitored. We are there when Gail appears in his chest & we are there when he roams free for one final day before his mother keeps him cooped up forever. It’s incredibly sad to read about a character like Owen. I could not help but feel incredibly morose while reading about his life because he was truly held back due to the inability of his parents to understand the complexities of the person they brought into this world. Yes, I am lumping his father into this statement even though the man didn’t even know he had a child but, the absence was a contributing factor to the life we read about. I felt so much empathy toward Owen that I began to feel hate toward his mother. Here walks a person who brought a child into the world only to subjugate them to their own adult delusions. Should we regard the story for what it is at face value, we have a person who locked their child in the house because they didn’t want them to be harmed by a group of people that we didn’t know for certain were roaming the earth in search of someone like Owen. On the other hand, if we take a step back & regard the situation for what it might represent, it is absolutely horrendous. Owen was neglected on such a level as to alter him almost irrevocably. We watch him long for comfort & joy while knowing that at a moment’s notice, his mother might call him to remind him that, that is not what he deserves to feel in this life. I understand that Owen’s mother wanted to keep her child safe, & I understand that she was afraid of losing the person that she loved. However, I find it very difficult to forgive parents who impose adult problems/issues onto their children. If you have an issue with the way the world functions, that’s on you. Your child should not grow up riddled with anxiety about the thought of the boogeyman looming around every corner. There is the possibility to be cautious without being paranoid. As we see Owen grow we read about him discovering his body, his pleasures, & desires & all of this encompasses sexual desires too. I personally found the way in which his sexual discovery was written to be as tasteful as it can be. We are, after all, reading about a person discovering what physical pleasures might arise from masturbation & most people who have gone through puberty might attest that learning to understand your body is not a smooth nor artsy process. Lund was able to write about something that is possibly taboo for many people & not so much for others, in a way as to remove us from the act itself & encourage us rather than focus on the mental hoops Owen has had to jump through to arrive at accepting pleasure for himself. Having lived every waking moment up until that point in constant fear & anxiety about bad things that would befall him, it was good to read about him learning to believe that he could feel good within himself. I think that as the story unfolds every person might find an aspect of the plot to appreciate. The characters are so incredibly well-thought-out & they wander through prose that is delicious in its descriptors. I am already looking forward to the time wherein I am able to read this story again. Though it is nearly impossible to capture the sentiment of the first time reading a book that one loves, Owen felt overwhelmingly familiar to me, parts of myself in an otherwise total stranger. Therefore, I will anticipate the moment when we can meet on these pages again. Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, & Emme Lund for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Jan 30, 2022
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Jan 30, 2022
|
Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||
2
| 
| 1473683106
| 9781473683105
| B08CHHMH12
| 3.70
| 2,275
| Apr 27, 2021
| Apr 29, 2021
|
liked it
|
**spoiler alert** Jeanie Masterson is thirty-two (32), she is married to her lifelong friend, Niall & they work alongside Jeanie’s parents as Undertak
**spoiler alert** Jeanie Masterson is thirty-two (32), she is married to her lifelong friend, Niall & they work alongside Jeanie’s parents as Undertakers in Kilcross, Ireland. This book follows Jeanie as she wades her way through adult situations without ever investing any ounce of truth, honesty or bits of herself; lest it is the wrong decision. Though the main character is surrounded by family & friends who have doted on her for the entirety of her life, Jeanie continues to evade sincerity in all her actions & reactions; choosing instead to lean on the words ‘duty’ & ‘obligation’ in a hope to validate her inability to be the person that she is. At face value, you might approach my review feeling a bit confused as to why I rated this book so highly if I spent the entirety of my reading experience riddled with annoyance towards the main character. I myself wondered how I might be able to express my reasoning; finding myself working through the pages curious as to why I was enjoying a book that featured a character so polar opposite to myself & truly, a person with whom I felt very frustrated. I suppose I found my way to this rating as I asked myself what it was that I was enjoying; what aspect of a book renders us to fully invest? Does it matter to us if the characters are unlikeable if a story is realistic? In this instance, I found myself invested in the story because I felt that Griffin has successfully created a plot, characters & an environment that made me feel like a fly on the wall. I was peering into the lives of a family who held secrets close to their heart, closer still than the people they loved more than anything in life. I found myself enjoying the aspects which sprinkled sentiments of reality in this story. Though the plot highlights Jeanie as having a supernatural ability to communicate with those who are deceased, this was not a huge part of the plot & I felt as though it was utilized in an appropriate fashion. By this I mean, it didn’t really matter if I believed that Jeanie could communicate with dead people. It didn’t change the fact that the conversations that were shared held more value than the requirement for me to believe in something outside of my immediate understanding of reality. The feelings & emotions that Jeanie explored when sitting beside a deceased person evoked more motion in the advancement of the plot than the simple act of her sitting in a mortuary. Therefore, it didn’t matter whether I believed that a dead person would choose to wait before transitioning into the ether. What mattered was that I read about sentiments we often feel, evoked in a time of high stress & turmoil, from the lips of an imaginary character, into my very real conscious state. Before delving further into other topics of the plot, I want to acknowledge the representation of neurodivergence in Mikey, Jeanie’s older brother. I am not someone who is personally or professionally in a position to make remarks on the authentic representation of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (regarding it wholeheartedly as the spectrum that it is) & therefore, my comments should be recognized as coming from someone who read through this book without personal or educational weight to back my impressions & opinions. I wish we had explored this character a little further, I wish there had been more to him than his deep adoration for all things ‘war history’. However, when I regard any other character, I cannot say for certain that they had thoroughly been developed either. Everyone was second fiddle to Jeanie & her antics. Though I didn’t feel any longing for any further details from any of the other characters, I was left feeling rather sad about Mikey & his circumstances. Having a younger sibling like Jeanie could not have been easy. For the entirety of their lives, she put herself at the forefront of his well-being without ever being able to take care of herself. Are we meant to believe that everyone who is on the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) requires a member of their family to abandon all their hopes & dreams to take care of them? I think I felt so poorly about Mikey because his character was constantly utilized as an excuse; a reason to stay behind, someone to hold others back. Based on the little we know of this person, I can’t imagine that he ever wanted anyone to not be who they were. Therefore reading about Jeanie, vapid underachieving Jeanie, constantly placing the blame of her ineptitude on her older brother felt like a huge cop-out; though, maybe that was the point. My most favoured line of the book is spoken in passing after the horribly lost main character evades responsibilities & lives in the rural countryside of France in the hopes of learning who she really is. When Marianne tells Jeanie that (in different words), places do not matter, the people in them do; I found myself at the core of the story. Though I admit that Jeanie as the main character was hugely flawed I couldn’t help but accept that so many, many, people are indeed wandering through life just as she was. I couldn’t shame Jeanie for not knowing who she was when I very clearly read about her having always been evasive when it mattered to be straightforward. One might even argue that her parents & the lies that they fostered, encouraged her to be less than honest, even with herself. However, I think it was more than that. Jeanie never had to question anything, she never had to wonder ‘what if’ because there were always ample people around her protecting her from a failure that might scare her into making a solid decision. While she was a child on the playground, Peanut defended her honour. All throughout their lives, Jeanie had someone defending her, helping her choose, & leading her by the hand through any confusing moment in time. I suppose one might say that she was luckier than some of us who have had to do it on our own. However, on the other hand, Jeanie was never so alone as she was when it came time to speak on her desires; who was she but the flimsy leaf, grasping for dear life on the bark of a self-sufficient tree. I found it difficult to find it in myself to think kindly or empathetically towards Jeanie. Every time someone in her life asked her, to be honest, to be present, to be invested; she was elusive & asked for time to think. This time to think was always granted & I couldn’t help but feel envious. How many times, I cannot count, might it have been warmly welcomed for me to have been granted time to reflect; time to organize my thoughts & feelings? Jeanie was granted the freedom of independence & she abused it at every turn. How can you be so willfully ignorant as to take advantage of the people who are trusting & loving towards you? How can you take their kindness & understanding at your needing time before broaching a subject, only for you to leave them hanging for days, sometimes years? You have no right to turn around & feel betrayed when on their death bed, they speak of the people in their lives whom they loved; people with whom they were able to foster an actual healthy relationship. Should I leave a low rating because I thought Jeanie was a spoilt privileged vapid individual who never learnt any lessons in all of her life? Or, should I rate this book highly as it made me truly feel as though this person were real, & as though all the turmoil experienced was in fact truly transpiring? I chose the latter because, though many aspects of this book were annoying, & sometimes frustrating to read about, I appreciated their earnest presentation. It made sense that Niall moved away to finally find himself living sea-side; this was honest & genuine to the complexities of his character. Of course, he loved Jeanie, of course, he adored everything he hoped to build. But, he was also a person who had complex emotions & a deep understanding that though Jeanie had many aspects of her person to love, she was hollow & this does not leave much room for him & his characteristics, to be loved in return. I wished for better for all the secondary characters. Even after the final twist is revealed, that didn’t alter my opinion of anyone involved. Life is not always straightforward, sometimes very simple matters snowball into complicated situations. Regardless of what is right & wrong, I wanted everyone in this story to feel validated & comforted. I cannot imagine what Jeanie’s parents must have been feeling when their daughter ran off to Norway because she had never learnt to communicate how she feels. Though I appreciate that she felt inclined to stay to support her aging parents (as many children feel), she was not in a situation wherein she was not granted the liberty of being her own person with her own path. All this to say that I very much enjoyed this book. It was frustrating & aggravating & sometimes very noisome but, it was honest. It genuinely presented the complexities which lie in a single person’s life, however much they lack substance, there is still very much a whole person inside trying to find their way. I think that this book should be read when one is in the frame of mind to appreciate the enormous flaws of the main character without allowing her tantrums to get in the way of the plot. There were so many other people to like, root for, to enjoy. The paranormal aspect of the story plays such a small role so, if you are seeking to have that at the forefront you might be left wanting. Overall, I am glad that I read this book when I did. Irish novels always remind me of my grandparents & for that, I am left with warm sentiments of home & love. Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, & Anne Griffin for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Jan 17, 2022
|
Jan 17, 2022
|
Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||
3
| 
| 1662500084
| 9781662500084
| B09KLL1TKX
| 3.55
| 8,114
| Sep 01, 2022
| Sep 01, 2022
|
it was ok
|
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, theref
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on abuse, child endangerment, violence, parental neglect, sexual abuse, psychological distress, & others. This book explores the reflective events that transpired in the lives of a group of four (4) friends in their teen years as they found themselves involved in the disappearance of Warren Ingram; an abusive drunk who filled the role of stepfather to Jane & Jason Mooney in title alone. This story is read through the dual point of view of Georgia Lee & Jane; two members of the group of four who fostered a blossoming romance for a short time before Jane put herself forward as Warren’s murderer, providing no rationale for her decision save for her belief that her sibling had indeed committed the crime. I need to give credit where it is due & therefore, I shall begin my review with praise. Ford crafts a story that could be real. All the characters in this book could be people any of us knew, they could be people we read about in the paper, they could even possibly be me or they could be you. The world in which this story takes place (Maud, Arkansas) is earnest & settled. We do not require multiple chapters to understand or appreciate where we are as Ford drew us a clear picture & I applaud her for that. While I do grant Ford praise for crafting a story that revealed its ability to present the reader with fully fleshed-out characters, environments, & conflicts; this also leads me to the part which rendered this book something more difficult for me to read. I found myself off-the-cuff hating Georgia Lee. It is challenging for me to write about situations I find in books without putting myself into the critique. I suppose this is the clause to which humanity is pinned; we view everything in the first person & everyone & everything we compare & contrast our own experiences as well as ourselves. For this reason, I was unable to garner any sympathy toward Georgia Lee. We have to read about a character who felt inclined to vocalize that she was the reason that Jane & Jason were safe from Warren’s abuse. She was the one who killed the violent man who lived in their home. She was the one who stood up against the villain. I want this to be clear; I am in no way trying to shame people who have not lived through situations in which their entire personality, well-being, & survival mechanisms were transformed due to abuse. I am not trying to say that if you had a good life, you cannot speak about things around you. What I am saying is that it was very obvious to me that Georgia Lee had never truly been afraid a day in her life. For, if she had, she would have kept her mouth shut when Warren was slurring off to her in the doorway that night. I was riddled with anxiety reading about a person who had not a single clue as to what it feels like to be afraid in your own home; what it feels like to have to be quiet in all the wrong ways so that one day you can feel safe. It’s no good talking back to someone whom you know could put your head through the drywall. What I found most aggravating about this scene was that we are meant to feel poorly for Georgia Lee. Perhaps, my inability to do so resides fully in my experiences. I could not but feel petrified for Jane & Jason because there was no way in hell that Georgia Lee was going to set right what a grown person had put wrong. The fact that she bludgeoned him while he was inebriated, with a stone was luck & nothing more. To read about a situation where things could have gone very wrong, very quickly, as though there was no possibility of that happening was sickening. I will grant Ford the benefit of the doubt; perhaps she wrote this book in a way that would lead the reader to grasp that fact for themselves. Regardless, I found it difficult to digest. I want to talk about the details of the crime. Due to this story taking place in a State within a country in which I am unfamiliar with their legal system, I found myself having to do further research while making my way through the story. I am certainly glad for a book to encourage me to further my knowledge on a subject which I was unfamiliar with prior. However, the way this story presents its obstacles is a bit frustrating. For example, when Warren is ‘found’ I was confused about how they would have known that it was him. The man had been dead for twenty-five years & his body was in warm water which one can conclude to mean, that the heightened temperature would have certainly moved forward the decomposition his body underwent. One might state that the policing body would have tested his DNA with previous medical records. Given this story takes place in the USA it’s not farfetched to assume that Warren, who spent all of his time & money remaining inebriated, was probably not working a job that granted him medical insurance. Therefore, he wouldn’t have been seeing a dentist & no medical records might have been pulled to compare to the teeth found on the skeleton. When it was revealed that the skeleton was not Warren’s, I was annoyed. I appreciate that this is a small town in a State wherein advanced justice system proceedings might not take place, however, I cannot confirm that for certain as I do not live there. Therefore, the author is asking the reader to make many leaps in their assumptions to cushion the plot reveals. Assuming that the policing body in Maud was horrendous at their jobs, they would still have to record that they found a body. We already know for a fact that there were dozens, if not more, men, who had gone missing within a specific period. Even with them being utterly horrible at their jobs, one might assume that one of the men missing was a personal friend of a police officer. In this case, that was Warren (as detailed by numerous recollections). Therefore, as a personal friend of the victim, why was no effort put into ensuring that the identification was confirmed? We are assuming that this story takes place in the current time, as evidenced by the use of Facebook, we can therefore deduce that these people knew about advanced criminal investigations & proceedings. So, why did we have to read an entire book in which the policing body had released a confirmed statement of the body belonging to Warren? Diane was the person to know that Warren was found due to Gerry telling her. She doesn’t strike me as an idiot, though she acts idiotically, so, why was she so apt to believe him if not for a supporting statement by the police? Another aspect of the proceedings that left me with questions was the stint in Juvenile Detention. Jane states that she was sent to Juvenile Detention for her crimes against Warren. Based on “Shelby John TIPTON v. STATE of Arkansas” (1998) a person would not be convicted of the same crime twice. also known as Double Jeopardy. I am left feeling confused as to whether Jane’s stint in Juvie was indeed her serving time for the crime she admitted to, given she was a minor she wouldn’t have been sent to an adult penitentiary (though this has been known to happen before). Therefore, was she convicted of the murder or did she serve time for,….being annoying? Why did she go there if not as a consequence of a conviction? If that is the case, why was she constantly worried she was going to be re-convicted? Though I did have frustrations with the crimes presented in this novel, I appreciated that we were presented with a story that took place in a town filled with people who lost men en mass & yet seemed oblivious to it ever happening; something not unlike what happens in many cities, States, Provinces & Territories around North America every day. My greatest qualm with the way the book flows is the asinine amount of dialogue we have to read which brings nothing to the story. Every chapter is filled with reflections which then result in an inner monologue which then transforms into shared dialogues of; Is this person keeping something from me? I am a protector. Did this person squeal on me? Who did this? Why would this person I know do this? We circle the same number of questions that are never answered. It made no difference how many times Jane questioned her brother’s involvement because when the book was over, nothing was revealed to us that we didn’t already know. Are we meant to believe that 14-year-old Jason was murdering all his mother’s boyfriends? The reveal of him having been sexually abused by at least one of Diane’s partners was hinted at as having happened early in the book & the fact that it is never concretely explored makes me feel as though it were utilized as some form of reasoning for him taking a baseball bat to a person. The reason I would have preferred a conclusive & well-presented ending was that we speak about so much of ‘nothing’ throughout the entire story that, when we arrive at the end; Diane lying on the sofa trying to off-herself, Jason covering for her evasion of guilt in the crimes, it all feels very shallow & rather vapid. I wish we had had some form of substantial dialogue. Instead, the entire final chapters are filled with back & forth ‘run’ ‘no’ ‘run’ ‘no’. Please, give me something to work with here, we’re standing in the room with the person we are meant to believe serial murdered dozens & dozens of adult men in his childhood, I need some form of concrete statement somewhere to clear the water because right now it makes little sense to me. This is not to say that I don’t understand Jason’s trauma response, I do. However, I would have wanted Ford to detail things more clearly. When did he snap? Where along the line did he realize violence was his means of retaliation? When did Diane realize that Jason was capable of violent crimes? What was the conversation they had between mother & son that would have resulted in Diane being completely fine with Jane hanging for a crime she knew Jane hadn’t committed? There was a lot of information missing & though it’s fine to hint at things & allow the reader to form their own conclusions, I didn’t like that for this story. The weight of the subjects broached in the plot merited some explanations. I would say particularly so as this story presents much of what many people go through in a way that sheds light on how common they are. People are swift & unquestioning when a parent states something; no one questioned whether or not Georgia Lee had Mono, for example. I think the children who were abused in this story deserved their truth to be told in a blunt & honest way. Though I acknowledge that this would rarely happen from a first-person perspective; the book would have benefited from a third-person narration. Utilizing Georgia Lee & Jane as narrators kept the story within confines that prevented the reader from learning details that would have carried weight; which would have garnered the characters' sympathy & understanding. A third-person narration would have also allowed the reader to pause, to reflect on many, if not all, of the facts presented in the story. Overall, I didn’t hate this story but it wasn’t one that I would revel in for its astounding plot. I found the characters to be shallow for the majority of the time. Though this might be true to their dimension as people, it was hard to want to continue reading when I didn’t feel any connection to any of them, nor did I anticipate any reveals because, for me, most of it was set out since the beginning. This is why I made my comments regarding the transparency of trauma/influence. I think other people will enjoy this story. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it & I do feel that it will be appreciated by some readers—particularly lovers of the genre—should they decide to give it a chance. Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, & Kelly J. Ford for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Jan 09, 2022
|
Jan 10, 2022
|
Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||
9
| 
| 4.12
| 56,429
| Feb 01, 2022
| Feb 01, 2022
|
it was ok
|
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, theref
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on graphic violence, racially motivated crime, financial insecurity, racial slurs, psychological abuse, physical abuse, parental neglect, & others. The frequency with which Slocumb incorporates racism within this book was exceedingly high. This book is a story & the purpose of putting forth a work of fiction is ultimately to lead the reader through a tale that has been weaved with profoundness & forethought as to where the ending may conclude. It is to the detriment of every person who has been at the forefront of racially motivated hatred to read a story in which every other interaction presents a repeated act of racism without gifting Ray, the main character, with any depth to his person; there is nothing happening in between these acts of violence which leave the reader with the sentiment that this story has a plot. Rather, this book reads like a retelling of horrible things, none of which I deny have happened. When one reads a situation of fictionalized work that incorporates aspects of realism without necessarily branding the work as magical-realism, the web, known as the plot, may easily become mangled in an effort to sustain legitimacy & credibility. Objectively speaking, racism is wrong—I am not arguing the contrary. What I am saying is that presenting a story of the struggles encountered by a Black musician seeking to find his place in the world of classical music, while simply littering the book with racism; his grandmother saying that he needs to work harder; his mother being an abusive slog; his immediate family being complacent in his mother’s abuse; & little else to classify this book as anything but a familial drama, there is little left to lead the reader to feel any level of the desired sympathy for the main character. How did Ray make it through so many years of his life without being made aware that Black people in North America experience acts of racism? Was he not present when any singular member of his family might have encountered a similar situation to the one he had at the music store? Did no one in his family think to talk to him about the experiences he might have had growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina? This feels absurd. I am not assuming that the stress & anxieties lived by adults in the world should be imposed on children but, I cannot help but wonder that Ray lived freely in North Carolina without encountering a single racial slur up until he was 18/19 years old. As I have no tangible life experience in this domain as stated in the introductory paragraph, I shall leave these questions to be posed & answered by people of the community who may better speak on such things. Bordering on unbelievable, this story takes place in modern times & by modern I mean that it could be taking place in the same year as I wrote this review as well as it could the year prior. I have a particularly difficult time forgiving judicial ineptitude in books that take place in modern times as there is practically no excuse for things not to be resolved. I appreciate that the real world is seldom like the one we read about in books but, seeing as this story incorporates so many aspects of realism within the plot one would anticipate seeing a thorough police search take place when an authenticated Stradivarius violin insured for $10 million is stolen from under Ray’s nose. I acknowledge that policing bodies are not always as wonderful as one would hope. However, Nicole being the thief of the violin & not being followed or questioned in depth is ridiculous. Any person who has spent an afternoon watching any criminal show on television can readily tell you the spouse is almost always the culprit. This is not a far-fetched notion. Nicole, being someone who was present in the room when the violin went missing, who had all the motive in the world to take it, who had a history of romantic relationships with a person who was questionable legally speaking, walked out of the hotel room & away from police questioning without so much as a scratch on her record. This feels ludicrous, to say the least. How moronically boring it was to read about all the policing efforts being placed on a person who was surely an undocumented inhabitant of the United States whilst Nicole roamed around scot-free. Leaning on a popular belief behind that saying I would like to focus on Leon. The beloved ‘PopPop’ of Grandma Nora, who played the Stradivarius violin until his passing in 1935; left the Plantation that saw him under the ownership of a Master Thomas essentially without any hesitation or qualms by the Master of said Plantation nor from any other person involved in the business aspect of running such a place. Though I would love to believe that this was a common occurrence, one that I might believe to be true, I cannot rightly say that it was. I must admit that I felt rather disgusted with the route the author decided to take in terms of stringing together the moral of the story to the historical aspects that held weight both in the book & in reality. Reading that the Marks’ family was related to the slave owners that held Leon & many other Black people captives, & had travelled willingly on a boat from Italy to the United States only for them to hold the desire to become slave owners was wickedly stupid. I respect that many parts of history are hidden from us should we not know where to look. However, I do. The Italian people who immigrated to the United States were not regarded with any dignity or respect by the American people. Anyone who was not, shall we say, Germanic looking or bred was a stain on the human species & this included the Irish, Italians, Greeks, Chinese, & so on & so forth. As found in “The Book of History: United States” (1923): “[…][O]nly once before 1854 did the number in any year reach a thousand. […][T]he number increased, varying somewhat from year to year until the hundred thousand mark was reached in 1900.”(pg. 6321) This citation highlights that the number of Italian immigrants making their way to the United States was minimal at best. It would be implausible to assume that the small number of those people came to this new country & were gleaming to take part in slave ownership when many times they were also Indentured. Within the same book, there is noted that the percentage of Italian immigrants from the South (i.e. the reputably poorer part of the country) who spoke English was 55% which leads one to the conclusion that these people were not, in fact, jumping on a weeks-long journey to a country where they could statistically not communicate with the inhabitants with great ease. A search through census records would lead one to record that Italians were often marked as ‘Black’ given both the pigmentation of their skin & the derogatory opinions held towards them by those running the Census. Therefore, how would these same people have been taken seriously? Is it possible that Italian immigrants came to the United States & held social weight to put themselves in the slave trade & ownership—chances are slim but not impossible, after all, we as a species have bore witness to many a mind-bending occurrence. Yet, I cannot rightfully conclude that members of a group of people, whom the inhabitants of the United States despised, would have been able to make their way to the South, a less than welcoming location, put themselves forth to own a property outright, been taken seriously in their purchase of slaves & then have run a ‘successful’ Plantation. We come to the part in the story wherein Leon has played the violin for Master Thomas for a greater portion of his life. It has been hinted that Leon is a child born from the rape of his mother by Master Thomas yet, we’ve no reason to focus on that for very long as, before we know it, Leon is standing at the death bed of his humanitarian violator & being told that he will be granted whatever he wishes for because ‘he didn’t try & run away.’ What an incredible stroke of luck. Especially if we are to believe that Master Thomas was an Italian immigrant he would certainly have more to prove than any of his fellow American slaveowners & therefore have little reason to show kindness to anyone, ever. Yet, in a letter that Leon forced Grandma Nora to write when she was nine (9), we are led to the moral of the story which has left me with revulsion. In his recollections, Leon says that he asked to be a free man & voilà, wish granted. He asked for the freedom of his mother but, given that the Lady of the house had poor opinions of the victim of alleged rapes, she would be trapped at the Plantation. But, Oh! What other fairy dust has been sprinkled over the life of Leon, he is allowed to take the family heirloom, known to Ray as the Stradivarius, on his route with him to freedom. This comes from the same man we read about who amputated the body parts of those he had enslaved for the sake of ensuring that they never felt able to revolt or seek freedom. How on earth am I meant to believe that this makes sense? But wait, there’s more. Leon tells Grandma Nora that even though Master Thomas was a mean man, though he was a cruel man, Leon always treated him with respect. Leon never treated Master Thomas poorly & so, Grandma Nora should know that even if she is treated badly, she should treat everyone with respect. Am I meant to deduce that Leon treated Master Thomas with respect because he was a respectful person & not say because Master Thomas was performing horrific acts of violence & abuse against everyone on the Plantation? The moral of the story cannot possibly be to link the survival mindset of someone who was enslaved to the racism experienced by someone in the 1930s. Clearly, there is a disparity in what is being presented & I cannot help but wonder that no one questioned why this letter that Grandma Nora wrote was not edited to reflect better light on the moral of the story. I am sure that Leon felt better within himself by acting in a way that saw him attempt to be true to his values. However, he was enslaved. It does not matter that he was respectful to a person who owned slaves; this person does not care about the well-being of a person they are keeping as a slave. At the end of the day, it did not matter what Leon did, he could have had his limbs cut off for simply being a Black person. It’s nice to want to encourage a young person to be true to themselves even in the face of cruelty but to say that treating a slaveowner with respect was taking the moral high ground versus simply performing acts in an attempt to not be mutilated, abused or killed, is absurd. Leon could have drawn a conclusion to his life working in the music scene, where he most certainly experienced prejudice being a ‘free man’ in a world that believed only White Americans were truly free. As a final thought, I would have regarded this book more highly had it been branded as a drama. This is not a thriller. To put this book amongst those that riddled the heart with murmurs & leaps is to do it a great disservice. This is a story that seeks to highlight the racial inequality felt by Black people who are attempting to breach the classical music scene. This alone is enough. One did not need the ploy to steal the violin as it brought down the quality of the book significantly. A story about classical music artists & the struggles they overcome to be the best at their craft would be wonderful to read. Even more so from the perspective of a person who did so themselves. The author would have done well to write this book as non-fiction. I truly appreciated all the details regarding orchestra performances, practices, compositions of the Greats, etc. I would have enjoyed this story very much. Yet, when I have reached the end of this book I wonder that we should regard Grandma Nora so highly when she raised Ray’s mother—his abuser—& did nothing to quell her abusive behaviour. I wonder that the Marks family terminated their lawsuit because they were worried that the letter Grandma Nora penned as a child might reflect poorly on their family, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it would have already been known that they had slaveowners in their family. I wonder that none of the characters held much depth in a story that revelled in recollections; I don’t even know who Ray is at all, he plays the violin & that’s all that’s written. I wonder at many things & yet, I shan’t remember to wonder tomorrow, so little this story did impress upon me. ...more |
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Apr 05, 2022
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Dec 28, 2021
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| 1459747089
| 9781459747081
| 1459747089
| 4.11
| 2,295
| Feb 01, 2019
| May 04, 2021
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liked it
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**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, theref
**spoiler alert** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on sexual assault, sexual violence, rape, assaults against a minor & others. This is a story that seeks to evoke an emotive response. Two (2) Nigerian women find themselves, their lives, & their histories, intertwined amidst class & social inequality. I held off writing a review for this book after finishing it because I was ultimately left wanting; something innate in the story was lacking & the time I took was an attempt a pinning down what that aspect was. The environment in which the story takes place, the characters, & truly, the plot in its entirety present important subject matters. Onyemelukwe-Onuobia has nice writing, which enamoured me to continue reading until the end. That being said, this book was easy to become immersed in; regardless of my feelings towards the layout, once I started reading I was on a roll. The introduction allowed the reader to understand that the subject matter would be sensitive & would require them to be in the right mindset to read the story. I very much appreciated that. I will not pretend that I am well versed on Nigeria. When I chose to buy this book it was because I was interested to read about the lives of people who reflected signs of the times in said country. We never see the characters as three-dimensional. By that, I mean that these characters had things happen to them but the story never explores the depths of their consciousness reflected in the decisions they made. For example, after Nwabulu was raped as a child we hardly see this impact her character development at all. Instead, we read about her relationship with Urenna as being almost stress-free after he told her he would be gentle. Then, we see her have seemingly normal relationships moving forward & none explore the depths of which childhood sexual assault has on a person. I can appreciate that, as is the case very often, one does not have time to ‘wallow’ (for lack of better words) on what has transpired but, the trauma still affects a person. I felt as though Nwabulu had things happen to her & we simply moved on without revisiting the consequences on her person. That is also not to say that I would have wanted her to have a horrible life. However, everything that we live through affects us in some way, even if very slightly. We view the consequences of having had her first baby stolen from her within her marriage to her husband & the relationship she has with her other children, later in life. We never read about her expressing what it must have been like to live in the area of the city where she was working as a child or what it would have been like to be able to send her children to school; how she felt owning her own books & sharing her love of reading, opening, with others. Even after reading about the past which leads them into the moment in which they find themselves together, sitting in the same room; things transpire very rapidly. The revelation that Julie was the person who raised Nwabulu’s son was so quickly fired-off that we were not given the chance to appreciate the gravity of her statement. In the following moment, Julie is unconscious & then the story ends. I did not appreciate the ending. Having spent so much time with these characters & knowing that I was so close to the end of the book, I nearly gave-up finishing. I quickly lost my momentum to care, seeing how few pages remained. I had been curious as to how Onyemelukwe-Onuobia might tie the dual narrators together. Unfortunately, I was not very thrilled with the result. Did Julie die? Would Nwabulu have revealed to the son that she was his biological mother? How is this topic approached in Nigerian culture? What would have happened from a legal standpoint if she had decided to go forward with that, given that Eugene had a vast estate which would have fallen to his ‘biological’ child? Would Nwabulu not care about anything that might be of detriment to the child because she simply wanted to have her son back? I didn’t feel that I knew either of them enough by the end of the story to conclude with any certainty what might happen once they were rescued. All in all, it was an interesting book but, it did feel very surface-level. This is a good example of a book being very pleasing, fulfilling & intriguing to some while others might not connect in any way with the story or the characters so, if you decide to read the story keep in mind that it moves fast, it’s well-written & it is sad. But, there is not much more than that. ...more |
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Aug 15, 2021
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| 0451529308
| 4.16
| 2,267,549
| Sep 30, 1868
| Apr 06, 2004
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liked it
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I do not have much to say with regard to this book which is odd because it’s a long read. Then again, nothing much happens during the entirety of the
I do not have much to say with regard to this book which is odd because it’s a long read. Then again, nothing much happens during the entirety of the plot which would leave me with any particular feelings or thoughts. All that to say, a book deemed a classic piece of literature does not mean that it will be a great read. Should you be seeking to argue your point that many classic books are in fact boring, this would be a good book to utilize in support of your point. That is not to say that I am not glad to have read the book. I wouldn’t dissuade anyone from reading this story but, I didn’t find it as enthralling as many others. The story follows a family of women as the Patriarch is away from home. This is not the style of book I very much seek to read. The plot is concentrated on highlighting the opportunities refuted to women in the time period, which we then see some of the women attempt to reach, irrespective of their sex—wonderful. Nevertheless, I found little to lead me to want to complete my reading of this book save for the fact that I wanted to have a well-rounded opinion before writing a review. I will leave off by saying that though this wasn’t necessarily a book that I was thrilled in reading, I understand why so many people marvel at its plot. The characters are authentic to themselves as much as they are able. The scene is genuinely set so that the reader might find no struggle at imagining the homestead & town. If you have the time, I can’t say that it would necessarily be lost in reading this book, you might in fact find yourself reflected in one of the many characters who peruse the pages. ...more |
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not set
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Mar 17, 2020
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Dec 27, 2019
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