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| 177843052X
| 9781778430527
| 177843052X
| 4.83
| 6
| unknown
| Sep 03, 2024
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Jul 12, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0385545428
| 9780385545426
| 0385545428
| 3.78
| 8,988
| Aug 27, 2019
| Nov 12, 2019
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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May 20, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 0593546857
| 9780593546857
| 0593546857
| 3.87
| 6,869
| Apr 18, 2023
| Apr 18, 2023
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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May 13, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1627555811
| 9781627555814
| 1627555811
| 3.99
| 10,335
| Mar 1924
| Jan 15, 2014
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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May 13, 2024
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Paperback
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| 1039056423
| 9781039056428
| 1039056423
| 3.85
| 1,618
| Jun 04, 2024
| Jun 04, 2024
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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 self-harm, parental abuse, physical violence, homophobia, substance abuse, Dementia, grief, & others. Following the red thread that links one person to the other is a tedious endeavour. One might be surprised to find that the thread is slim, nearly indistinguishable. Whereas on occasion, a person may feel as though the entire universe conspired to weave two people together, the connections we share are tender & delight in the interpretations we might gather independently of the bones that hold us up. When exploring the nature of genealogy & the intricate study of genetics, one observes the foundation on which rests human society; one must be the same as the other to merit entry to a neighbourhood, a home, or a heart. Conflicts arise through adoption, abandonment, displacement, & the forlorn forgetfulness of stories that can no longer be told. Stories speak to an intimate experience of the world. The author has in their hands the ability to weave a narrative that is powerful & overwhelming though they may decide to go the other way; choosing instead to make their story one of slow wandering worry, paved with secular stones, & false idols. Whereas Talty had experienced success in their previous work, namely “Night of the Living Rez” (2022) & most recently by contributing to the anthology “Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology” (2023), their recently published story follows a very sullen path & readers may not find the terrible tremble of the plot as engaging as in the author’s previous work. However, if they have the patience to accept that not all stories are Odysseys, that some stories are simple tumbles of stones at the base of a mountain, they may thoroughly enjoy what Talty has brought to their doorstep. In essence, this is a story about a man who lives outside the community that raised him. Charles is not an Indigenous person by heritage or ancestry, yet his entire life is shaped & sung by the voices & people of the community he was raised in. When the reader meets Charles, he is seated on his porch, watching the world go by. More specifically, Charles sits outside of his house day & night to watch the goings on of his neighbours across the river; the house where his child once lived & where his former best friend & romantic partner now resides with her husband. As he watches their lives unfold, Charles toys with his freedom to inform Elizabeth, his daughter, that she is his child. The reader must decide whether Charles is correct in his pursuit or if his silence is worth the torment, it causes him. My experience with this story is strange to quantify into words. Talty’s writing style is very simplistic, I am confident any number of readers will be able to grasp the inner workings of the story at play & leave with more than they bargained for. The stylistic choices he employs throughout the book allow an easy flow to the narration that the main character provides. At times, the juvenile reflections gave me pause: Why was I reading this story? Charles is older than I am & has lived a life humbled by regret & guilt. The reflections he provides throughout this story felt tangible & realistic because the book was not littered with prose. Though, there are times when writing with smoother edges might have cushioned the transitions of the story, Talty did well by providing Charles with the saw-toothed letters he spoke with. While reading this book I found myself reflecting on the sincerity of the accusations Charles brought to the reader. While it was true, Charles felt immense guilt for the death of his stepfather, & though it is accurate to say that he was self-involved, much of this story could have been avoided had the main character been granted the opportunity to be heard. This might seem like a silly thing to say & you would be correct in thinking this. Ultimately, Charles is not able to speak his mind & he does not have anyone who will earnestly listen to him, this is not the reality of this story. However, I find it useful to ponder the nature of his circumstances because they are too tangible to be fictitious. In life, many things take place that remain outside of our control. When Charles refused to go with his stepfather into the woods, he could not have known that the man would pursue a moose deep into the trees until he succumbed to frost & ultimately, death. What makes the plight of the main character so dreadful is that there is no redemption. His life is moving in a direction that no longer parallel’s his parent’s; he must go it alone. Talty has ensured that the cast of characters were fleshed out enough for a reader to see similarities between themselves & their environments, within the strict frame of the story. As the plot unveils itself to the reader, several key pieces are brought to light. The communal influence that has left Charles feeling Indigenous; the home that reels with the absence of his parents; the proximity to what he can no longer attain. Certainly, one may find the dilemmas that Charles ponders rather annoying, nearly insulting. However, it is not the reader’s role to judge the main character for his views nor for his moral conundrums. Rather, because the reader is not given a full scope of the reality that has surrounded Charles, they are kept in a distinctly primed position. The author knows they will judge Charles, & he bets on their heightened feelings to drive home the conclusion of this story; we are all who we are in part because of the people we meet, & primarily because of those who have come before us. The scope of this story follows one man & his troubles are valid; he has a child & his partner all but abandons him with this knowledge so that their child can be perceived as “full blooded”—a practice wholeheartedly inappropriate & reminiscent of the deranged lack of understanding that accompanies those without knowledge of genetics; blood is not mathematically fractioned, it is oil & stone into the entity; rippling monsters under the cavernous sea to boast of old stories & lore unbeknownst to the newborn. However fancifully I wish to write about this subject, the truth remains; certain communities still perceive blood, heritage, lineage, & ancestry to be something one can keep purely to the point; a tit-for-tat in the mirror of dynasties & mile-high perverse incompetency. I am not here to write about my feelings towards Charles identity. This is not my place & I would not want to add fuel to a fire that is burning ominously as it is. Rather, my reflections contain the truth of my experiences in the world as a person who is the human fraction, a putrefied equivalent of a mutt dog; a mongrel; a half breed; a silly slimy frog in a pool of swans. That being said, so are we all. In some storybooks the Prince is tender & sweet, whereas in others, she is hidden behind the beast of his own appearance. These tales are meant to guide humanity & ease their personal burdens—they are not alone. No matter the moral at the end of the fantasy, one must acknowledge that there is a role for all to play & so we do. Charles was a son, he is a father, he is a recovering alcoholic, he is lonely, he is a friend, he is frustrated, & warm-hearted; he is a human being with a complicated relationship to the world & with himself. Part of the joy of this story is being privy to the chaptered representations of his philosophy. On occasion, Charles is the Prince & in other cases, he is the magic mirror captive in the house. The character was dynamic & crafted to reflect the people we share this life with. However, there were still instances wherein I found the story to stall & I wondered what the point of such a narrative was, if my thinking had been thought & all my ruminating had been completed before the final curtain call. The story hinges on the decreased mental ability of Charle’s mother who has Dementia. The secret of her past tumble forward when she is at her most vulnerable & the author nearly reveals what happened before the reader arrived on scene but, he doesn’t. Instead, he reminds readers that the spectrum of this story is contained & sheltered in the confused fear of the narrator. I cannot fault him for this, it appears that he wrote the story he wanted to tell & he did not leave room for meandering. Rather, I mention this detail because I was waiting for something more. Perhaps it is unkind to reveal that I wanted more from a story that simmered so densely on subject matter that is objectively difficult to experience firsthand. Yet, I claim my spot here; I wanted the story to reveal more vulnerability than it had in store. Though the characters were earnest in their portrayal, the core of the narrative remained poised on the surface level. Charles does not necessarily grow from his reflections, nor does he ever truly take into account the reality that encumbers each of the people impacted by Elizabeth’s unstable mental state. I do not say this to be unkind, but rather to highlight that each character who was a parent to her tried to give her the upper hand without understanding the vulnerability that coveted her psyche. Ultimately, this is a good book & one that reveals a distinct reality for many people. Readers may find themselves drawn or repulsed by Charles & his quest to speak truth into Elizabeth’s life in an attempt to clear her blue skies. Their genuine attempts to do the right thing, while being uninformed & self-serving, made harsh the environment where their shared love grew into a matured & tender greenery. If one has the patience to follow flawed characters, one will find themselves drawn to the yellow brick road that leads to the protected centre of the story; we are who we are & no claim, chain, status, or census will change what nestles deep within; the studies & fruitfully crafted code that propels us forward until the end. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada, & Morgan Talty 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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May 12, 2024
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May 12, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 0805212663
| 9780805212662
| 0805212663
| 4.01
| 39,583
| Nov 1919
| Nov 03, 2015
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Apr 29, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0374168156
| 9780374168155
| 0374168156
| 3.81
| 16
| Nov 12, 2024
| Nov 12, 2024
|
liked it
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**spoiler alert** The world’s movement is rarely felt by the life forms who live on its shoulders. Ancient prophecies speak of a shift that will lead
**spoiler alert** The world’s movement is rarely felt by the life forms who live on its shoulders. Ancient prophecies speak of a shift that will lead humanity to falter & require the species to change direction; to make better choices & understand that their existence is insecure & easily eliminated. Supposing that the threat is not said in jest, one may ask what the purpose of such a reset would be. Will the forest dwellers feel relief? Will the concrete scurrying rats feel free? The world functions by default, without anything but the axis; life on Earth is a blessing, one which many human beings seek to shed. When I requested this book, I had no concept of what I would find inside. This might be a silly thing to admit but, I did not regard the title as profound insight into the plot, nor did I seek to decipher the colour scheme of the cover art to mean more than what they were—a reflection of choice. Inadvertently, I found myself reading this novel perturbed by its approach. While a more studied reader will have further criticism of the stylistic approach that the author has taken when presenting the narrative with characters whose lives are both specific & ambiguous; my review will focus primarily on the time count, the hours it took me to realize that this book wasn’t as long as I felt like it was. In essence, this is a story about despair. The author introduces the reader to Anthony, a man whose past is riddled with drudgery. This first chapter promised a great saga with lore to confound the reader & I anticipated the story to play a rhythmic fiddle when enunciating the malaise that accompanied Anthony. However, this was not to be. Price’s novel incorporates the perspectives & realities of a slew of different characters & though, at first, Anthony appears to be an ideal narrator—a character worthy of following, ever so despondent as he is—the story’s shift tumbles over the heads of those whose chapters were less riveting, one from the other. It is not easy to incorporate so many perspectives into a single story. While the main driver of circumstance is the destruction of the apartment complex, each character reflects deeply about their feelings regarding events & people whom the reader never knows. These instances are beneficial in building the realism that Price offers the reader but, while perusing the chapters, it was difficult to engage fully with characters whose value to the story remained hidden. Anthony reappears in the later portion of the book as the titular Lazarus man, having been found beneath the rubble of the building, it appears that he was there for days. Yet, in truth, the shock that Anthony experiences led him to wander back into the building in the hopes of finding purpose, a calling, or the door that would lead him to the end. There is a great deal of time that can be spent reflecting on the build-up of this revelation however, I feel great frustration now as I did then. Though the story is well-written in the traditional sense, the story itself is of no interest to me. Rather, the plot was filled with individuals whose lives were riddled with anger & grief but, while reading about the slow progressing days of their lives, I was acutely aware that my days were passing me by. More often than not, I found myself wanting to toss away the book & be done with it. I could not understand how such a story could feel like such a drag. Herein lies my main issue; this is not a story to be told in the traditional sense. The modern era of visual aids, such as documentaries films & series, remind readers that the slow progression of the redundant events in this plot, would have felt far mor engaging & interesting had they been coloured by film. This is not a stance I am averse to adopting. Arguably, all stories need to be told a certain way for them to be appreciated as they should. In the case of these characters, one may find the hours slowly ticking by without any sensation of thrill that often results from reading a good book. The telling—the transmission of this tale—felt stilted & dull. Not all stories need to feature speeding cars & lightning bolts but, at some point one must ask what the purpose is in rehashing the same sentient patter of the life that is lead by each character. Each character is dealing with an infidelity; their faith has faltered, they are engaged in a sexual relationship with a less than desirable person, they are experiencing financial insecurity, & they have found themselves in the environment of the apartment collapse. At face value, their experiences are altogether human & though perhaps less than intriguing, they are lives led by individuals & they contribute to the whole of existence. Rather, perhaps a reader who has more patience than I do will find the dreadfully slow-moving chapters that are the middle portion of this book, easier to consume. My main qualm with this book was that it wasn’t for me. I have met readers in my life, happy to consume a book because it was a book & they needed nothing further than a story & so, they read it. Readers who may connect with this approach will appreciate this story. In reality, nothing much happens throughout the entire book. The police officer is searching for a man whose wife died in the collapse—she finds him & he’s just a man grieving the loss of his loved one. Anthony lies & acts holier than thou, & is able to continue doing so because he’s not the first, nor will he be the last. Yet, with each character one is left wondering what the point is. What is the story trying to say about life in New York City? What is the author’s goal when presenting readers with a slice of life rather uninspiring to those who may not be living life in the same way? Is the reader meant to feel pity for the characters who miss their loved ones or for whom family is the collection of stray pebbles? Which part of the plot highlights the earnest truth about a life sheltered by grief? Is the narrator Anthony or Mary? Does it matter if Anthony is lying to gain praise or should a person be honest to a fault if they wish to speak on salvation? What is perhaps most odd of all is that by the end of the story, the conclusion sets nothing to right. In some ways, the reader plays the omniscient being who watches the gastric incision take place from the amp theatre, safe from splatter. In this way, the reader is able to watch poverty, praise, sorrow, love, loss, disenfranchisement, gentrification, justice, & cheating, scramble through the lives of others without adopting any value to these experiences. I wonder whether a deeply sensitive reader might not appreciate this stance more than a reader who, like me have walked the roadway of these realities & have little care for the clinical view they may offer a privileged reader who cares naught for the consequences of these experiences. I have spoken ad nauseum about how tired I felt while reading this book. The cold approach it took to present a cast of characters who lived within the confines of the same community was unnecessary. There is a possibility that I am wrong & that Price saw something in this approach that I have not, having spent more time with the faces that remained in shadow than I have reading about them. Regardless, the final product left much to be desired & though the writing was enticing & the stylistic choice of vernacular well-placed, the plot itself felt dense, while vapid of any gooey elixir. Ultimately, the plot wraps up the storylines with enough detail to highlight that life goes on. The photographs, sexual encounters, the rambling & raving, the family business & youthful hope, the changing neighbourhood & tumultuous flow of life, weave a tapestry that is daunting & humble, leaving readers with no fond feelings of gladness for the continuation of life but rather, joy accompanied by the end of the book. Thank you to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, & Richard Price 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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Apr 27, 2024
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Apr 27, 2024
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 605045552X
| 9786050455526
| B01GY17QKA
| 4.07
| 4,438
| Jan 01, 1937
| Jun 11, 2016
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Apr 23, 2024
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Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||||
| 0593546903
| 9780593546901
| B0CC1D7GM2
| 3.65
| 1,686
| Apr 16, 2024
| Apr 16, 2024
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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 substance abuse, violent crime, the death of a loved one, alcoholism, the death of a child, parental negligence, self-harm, cannibalism, the death of an animal, suicide, mental health, & others. Great Spirit sees all, observing as the wind ruffles the newborn skin of life, day in & day out. To explain our origin in the windy world, humanity has cast spells of lore; riddles that mask our sorrow at the dark cavern from whence we came & to which we will return, giving nutrients when once we had received them. The weaver is the key element in breaching the dark; the voice whose ease at transporting the listener revives still sounds, casting them like Northern Lights to the silent sky. Without storytellers where would we be? The obsidian nature of our travels leads us back to ourselves; the storyteller lights our way. The tapestry of creation has offered the wandering soul ample room for whispers from the Great Spirit, Creator, the Lord Himself, His Son, the Archangels, Muhammad ibn Abdullāh, Siddhartha Gautama; the list raves onward, tirelessly presenting the species with individuals who carry word from the unseen. This statement is perhaps, as you may note, not altogether true. For many cultures, proof of holiness, or the existence of a larger entity than the self, is in the world around us. Who could think of something as beautiful as the sun whose warmth shines for all on earth? Who could have conjured a more perfect globe where land & water exist in tandem for all of existence? The small & large shapes, sounds, visuals, & tangible experiences that exist alongside humanity breathe air into the mythology that colours systems of belief. Though, if you have made your way through my previous writing you will note a strong stance on the subject of religion, this review does not exist as a critique of schools of belief. Rather, while reading this book, I found myself earnestly, curious about the creatures who suffered the wrath of humankind. Where was Creator when the rock was cast that killed the woodpecker? Where was Great Spirit when Johnny burned alive in the fire pit? In such a beautiful landscape how can such horror thrive? Where is the kindness riddled in stories that are meant to guide us? Perhaps this story sets in place the doubt that has long seeped into the mind of the burdened; it is not enough to believe in goodness, one must be good to see it live in the world alongside them. In essence, this is a story about intergenerational trauma. Medina has woven two tricks into his story allowing the reader to remain nearly disengaged when torturous emotions drown children & zombie forces lure them out to pasture where their neglectful parents bury them alive. If readers feel this reality too obstructive to the view they hold of their kin, they are welcome to watch the alligator slither across the page, swallowing unsuspecting victims like stones to the riverbed. Nestled in between the detrimental, blood-soaked narrative is the truth; intergenerational wounds seldom heal. This story is formatted in a dual narrative. In the present, Noemi experiences the sudden death of her fiancé, Roddy, & the return of her uncle Louie, whom she hasn’t seen in over a decade. Louie’s narrative explores the past, namely the year 1986 when the events that tormented him came to a head. Readers who develop an appreciation for both Noemi & Louie will revel in this approach. Both characters are adults, aged over forty, & have lived long & obscenely complex lives. Presenting readers will characters who are well-established individuals, in the sense of the years they have spent on earth, allows readers the opportunity to delve further into the material that is being presented. Unfortunately, this is my first qualm with this book. In the introduction, Roddy is described as having committed suicide by jumping in front of a Jeep. His body is then ravaged by a coyote when the driver of the vehicle runs to get help. This approach to introducing the dual perspectives of mythology & trauma was delightful to read. To be clear, this choice of scene—the road, the wild animal, the woman, the man, their home, the land—allows readers to immediately immerse themselves in the story. The borders of the page disappeared as I wondered where the narrative would bring me; Who would I meet along the way? What insights would they give me? When would I be met with the horror I was promised by the genre? Certainly, one may read about the terrible fate that befalls each of the characters in this story as horrible enough, that there was no need to further the torment of humanity by inducing ghastly soul-eating alligators. This would not be an incorrect decision to conclude. Indeed, this story did not need two perspectives, two narratives, & two timelines. In reality, Louie carried the entire story & this left me grating my teeth every time Noemi was brought back to the page. I am still conflicted as to what made her so annoying. In an attempt to decode my feelings, I pondered the nature of her character & the benefit of including a forty-year-old woman who was so deeply ignorant, to a story that was emboldened by the Goliath that was her uncle. Perhaps, I should consider myself lucky that I have such an intimate understanding of Depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, & suicide. Perhaps, I should learn to be more patient with the world as there are certainly more people like Noemi than there are who are like me. For this reason, call it a lack of patience or desire to sit in the company of someone who was troubled by their own volition, I felt frustrated every time Noemi narrated her sections. This is primarily due to her lack of knowledge. In her forty years of life, not once has Noemi ever sought to understand the complexities of mental illness, not once has she stepped outside of herself. The death of her long-term partner, Roddy, comes to her as a shock only because it means she now has to find someone else to support her dreams. For chapters on end, Noemi speaks about how impossible it would be for Roddy to have committed suicide because they were happy & they had plans, & his bad days weren’t that bad. This was insulting to read. It is insulting because Noemi has no clue what she’s talking about yet, she’s a grown woman, she’s an adult, in a world where children rely on adults to guide the way down the road of life, & where other adults inadvertently lean on each other to safeguard the road when it becomes too hard to walk alone. All the while, Noemi fails at her role, in her community & life. You may deem my criticism harsh but, ignorance is violence & what Noemi states as impossible is in fact what leads so many people who are experiencing mental distress, suicidal ideation, & depression, to be burdened in silence & misunderstanding. Why is Noemi so ignorant of the parameters of mental illness? People who commit suicide could have sat & had the most delicious meal with the most loving people & this would not be indicative of a change; this is simply one moment in time. The burden of weight carried in the spine, dousing the brain, is not swayed by one lovely meal. This is not difficult to comprehend. In the middle of her rambling ignorance, Noemi corners Roddy’s sister telling her she’s wrong & wishing to one-up her in the pursuit of answers. Why does she do this? Are readers to believe that not once in forty years of life did Noemi ever encounter another person who was experiencing mental illness? Did Noemi never venture outside the confines of her own bedroom? Certainly, in life, as I have said earlier, many people lack understanding of what leads a person to commit suicide. I am disheartened to know that this is the case because the solution is simple. Whereas readers are enveloped in a story that deals with the ill-structured home life of a family on the brink of collapse, the world at writ large is littered with situations exactly like the fictionalized one in the reader’s hands. Can I fault Noemi for being a product of her existence? Will readers be more ready to forgive Noemi for her cruel self-centered ignorance regarding Roddy’s suicide? What I have come to understand in my many years of life is that some people never learn because they are not seeking the knowledge that will set them free of their ignorance. Noemi was raised in a house with a grandmother who suffered from alcoholism—an illness that ultimately led to her death—with a mother who was crass & rarely present. Noemi also had the opportunity to grow past the ignorance of her parent, a woman who raves love for men who are ghosts, men who are the opposite of the protagonist, Louie. Again, perhaps it is too demanding of me to assume that Noemi has the willpower or the strength to become more than what she is; few people do so, why am I so caught up in her issues? The troubles that plague Louie left me empathetic to him. He was sixteen when the events in 1986 took place & readers will note the matured tone of a person who struggles to grow like a rose hidden under a log. Louie is written with gusto, & gumption, with faults in his naive logic but, who can blame him, he lives in a world where his neighbour committed serial murders & blamed a malevolent spirit for his psychological issues. In that same breath, you may wonder why I struggle with approaching Noemi with such patience. Perhaps it is because I have been sixteen, & similarly to Louie, I took the reins for a situation I was in no way grown enough to heal. Whereas I have not reached the age of forty & what Noemi lacks, I have in spades. What is the role of a reader? Am I supposed to compare myself to Noemi & Louie? Am I supposed to pick a side & stick to the path I have chosen? Halfway through this book, I abandoned hope that Noemi would change, I did not believe her to be capable of it but, Louie had such a long life yet to lead, & I did not want to read about his youth becoming entrapped with the slithering gizzard that crouches on my bedpost. Philosophical masticating in the background, I maneuvered my way through lore & mythology that was not my own. The stories of critters & crawling friends were familiar to me & I was glad to see the comfort of tales that would not give me the answer I needed, neither did they present the characters with the road they should take. The community of people who vanished, were murdered, & died as a consequence of their addictions or their mental illnesses, clobbered the silly tale of ghosts & screaming corpses. I read most of this book at night, lying in bed listening to the wind whisper to me; each of these situations was more than the life they consumed. Certain characters presented readers with good reason to pause & take inventory. Why did Jean-Luc eat the bones of the deceased? In some systems of belief, eating the flesh, bones, & meat of people whom one respects allows this person to consume their essence. When Jean-Luc explains that he dug up the graves of respected members of the community & people who were loving & kind, readers may reflect on the person that he is rather than the one he thinks he wants to be. In wishing to be like the Tamahka (Tunica-Biloxi word for alligator) Jean-Luc emptied himself of his essence, becoming a shadowed sac some may refer to as a Wendigo. Therefore one may be left asking; Do the dreams we have require us to scalp divinity from top to bottom? I appreciated the morose, gruellingly devastating approach that Medina took to introduce the deadly sin of desire, specifically, the longing to escape the body we are sewn to. Ernest murdered his mother because he could, because he was bored, & because inside he was probably a person who was clinically psychotic. The flashbacks that the reader is given to remember Horace added a layer of sadness to this story that I did not expect to find. Odd, perhaps, for me to admit that I was not ready for sorrow when I read Horror as though I have never experienced fear in my life but, true it is, nonetheless. Indeed, reading about the potential that was striped from Horace by being a person who had a stutter, to being the child of a family that was on the receiving end of violence from another feuding family, sunk the stone deeper in my soles. Readers will surely wander through the chapters of this book swiftly, & wonder at the ease they feel while reading such a story. In truth, the experiences of the characters are terrifying because they are not dedicated fabrications, intended for a freaky night of reading. Indigenous Peoples experience the highest rate of suicide worldwide. Indigenous Peoples experience starkly high rates of addiction worldwide. It is no mystery why this is yet, in Noemi, readers may find comfort in their ignorance. It is unacceptable to remain in the dark when people, who do not deserve to suffer Charon’s cold finger directing them to their seats on the splintered boat, continue to drown. Why then, do people revel in the shocked face of ghastly surprise meant only for birthday cakes & Christmas morning? This is a story about the intergenerational burden of a community of people who have struggled to stay-face in a world that has repeatedly told them their demise would be a pleasure to witness. I return to what I said earlier, my frustrated notions of annoyance against Noemi & her structured ignorance. Perhaps you will think me a product of a life that has left little room for patience, forgiveness, or tenderness; you would be wrong, but only partly. In fact, I work tirelessly to ensure that the spaces in which I go reflect the song the crows have sung as we greet each other, & that I spill only soft wind into the rooms where doors have been previously closed. I am troubled by a reality I know well & I remain frustrated that humanity does not advocate for a space where what has been need not be any longer. Whether an alligator swallowed Mrs. Shelby or whether her son murdered her in her home; whether Horace was mutilated by a Vampire or whether his friend carved out his heart so that he may never rest; whether Mae was consumed by a demon or whether she chocked on her own vomit; victims of crime, victims of exhaustion from fighting against a beast greater than the Meli Omahka or any of its other names; people suffer the fate that befalls them as they dangle on the edge of a cliff where, rather than sacred & safe, the rocks have been moulded into the dead-eyed faces of the perilous Nazgûl. Ultimately, the beating that reverberates the ribs, pumping willpower to the brain, & steadying the river watcher, riddles a tale as old as time; Who can escape the self? Readers will be met with causes worthy of their care with optimism that the alligator, the woodpecker, the armadillo, & the coyote will act as guides to them whereas in life they persist in ignoring the very people for whom these animals are kin. Troubling as the ghost may appear, his reflection is often more coyly our own than we care to admit. For readers who have wandered the land in tune with the formidable looming cloud, this story will wriggle into the tendinous ring, like the fantom of despair made into the giggling forest’s safe-heaven for the Alligatoridae who seek to return to the underworld where their smooth underbelly guard the stones of souls long since laid to rest. Thank you to NetGalley, Berkley Publishing Group, & Nick Medina 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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Apr 21, 2024
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Apr 21, 2024
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||
| 1910312649
| 9781910312643
| 1910312649
| 3.77
| 53,633
| Jul 23, 2020
| Jul 23, 2020
|
did not like it
|
**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 the death of a minor, sexual violence, rape, substance abuse, disordered eating, distorted body image, bigotry, transphobia, psychological distress, & others. Irina is about the same age as I am while writing this review. Every aspect of her person reads like the residue of saliva caught in the corners of a speaker’s mouth. What this story offers the reader is an unbearable drone of dullness. Nothing happens that does not circle in on itself a couple of pages later. Readers might ask themselves what the purpose of such a book is. Why is Irina such a shadow of a person? What part of this narrative is meant to induce cerebral elation; fear; tremors in the soul? What is the point of this story? My conclusion is that there is no purpose to this narrative. There is no point in writing this story because there is no story to be told. When the reader meets Irina it is abundantly clear that we will be faced with a person who has the lung capacity to sing their own praises but remains debilitated by the smoothness of her grey matter. It wouldn’t be accurate to call Irina an egotistical maniac, though, this is certainly what she is. It wouldn’t be right to deem her narcissistic or pessimistic, existential, nihilistic, or dissociated. Irina is insufficient. The main character of a book does not need to be a dandelion in a field of green to be appreciated. The main character of a book needs to be tangible; they need to be sleek like wet paint, stimulating like oral consumption, & evocative like our own reflection in a mirror. Irina is simply a caricature; the result of a disjointed group effort to combine repulsive human tendencies into a single person. The result is that none of her traits or characteristics read as being more than a weak-willed attempt at extremism. There are communities of people who live their lives in ways that differ significantly from what the collective has deemed as being normal. Whether this is a reflection of a person’s sexual desires, their eating habits, their inner monologue, or the ways in which they style their hair—these aspects remain avant-garde insofar as the person actioning them has the gumption to carry them forward with courage. This story significantly lacks a character with such poise & dedication to themselves that they are able to present their person in life as anything worth paying attention to. Within this story, we read about Irina’s perception of self rather too often. In a time where our personal image & desired characteristics are showcased cyclically, there is no room for people like Irina. There is no space left in the brain of the reader to imagine someone with an inflated sense of self with none of the gumption to back their claims. Irina watches tentacle porn. How ground-breaking. Irina photographs men in the nude or in sexually explicit positions. How different than all the other photographers who have already been doing that. Irina exhibits disordered eating because thinness is the ultimate beauty. What a shockingly original take. /s What part of the world in which she lives is out of Irina’s grasp? Reading about such things—as I listed above & many others—reads as very sheltered. I feel confused as to what position the author felt they were taking when compounding so many random aspects of lore into a single character. The year in which this story takes place does not allow for any of these aspects to come across as interesting. Rather, every time Irina spoke about only eating salads, I felt immeasurably bored. Irina felt perpetually stuck in the past of her own accord. Because the main character has no girth to their person & because every trait of her person is willed into her bones by sheer determination to exude the otherness that people experience when vulnerable; Irina becomes a non-entity within a story that is meant to focus solely on her. Why should we care about the films she watches? Those films exist because people made them. This means that someone other than Irina desired to have this art form made into a reality. Ergo, she is not unique. This is perhaps a harsh take. After all, human beings are a reflection of their environments. Irina is not the first person to exhibit tendencies toward self-harm. She is not the only person to have dyed her hair or to have had a negative relationship with her parent. Rather than see any of these aspects explored with depth, we read about Irina in her name alone. Irina is the title of a spreadsheet where numerous people invested three minutes of their time adding bullet points to a document that would be scrapped anyways. Certainly, people who believe that no part of life has any meaning might view this story as an interesting take on listicles. However, as this story progresses towards more debilitating violence I wonder why no one thought that it might be a good idea to link the personality they desired to craft to the shell of a person wandering the pages. Our actions do not necessarily seamlessly lead to one another. Sometimes a person simply wanted to eat an orange; they didn’t need a commercial to influence that desire. Yet through our actions we reveal ourselves. We sneak glimpses of Irina’s desire to do that—perhaps the author felt that there was something innately missing from her character to make her a real living being. However, this lasts one single scene. Leaving me to believe that it was not the well-crafted writing of the author that flaunted the inner desires of her otherwise destitute character but rather the fluke chance that her humanity carried over into her storytelling. What does this all mean? When I saw the cover art for this book I was eager to explore a story that dealt with gender roles, imposed torment regarding sexuality, & the judgments of the all-seeing-eyes towards our very sense of self. Within the pages of this book, we find the poverty of any of these explorations. How does Irina’s claim that all East Asian women are the same essence anything other than the narrative pushed by geriatric Western racism? How is Irina’s derogatory behaviour towards a Trans character anything other than the maniacal social delay perpetrated by bigotry? How is Irina anything other than what is? There is no exploration of paranormal beings; nothing veers left to divert starkly from the world that exists all around the readers. No part of this story alleviates itself from its own strain. What does it bring to the story to have Irina rape & torture men? What does it bring to the story to reveal that Irina is a murderer? It brings nothing. It is entirely disappointing to read about a character so outside of herself that she fails to realize that all of these secrets she believes she keeps are well-documented & studied subject matters. Why, then, is Irina unable to ground herself in the world? Why does she refute bisexuality in a story meant to engage with this very same subject? What part of assigned gender roles is explored when Irina degrades a person because they are not tall in stature but have put forth their entire will & effort into presenting as the person they feel they are inside? What I take from this is no nouveau riche perspective on gender or sexuality. Rather, this entire book is demonically idiotic. Where was the essence of reality? One thought to another thought to another thought, without any semblance of string tying any of it to Irina does not a person make. This story exhibits a drowned potential that the town stood around to watch take place. Within this very narrative there existed the potential for Irina to be sociopathic while still having the depth of her person to exist in the real world. It is exuberantly obvious when a person who is gorging on themselves walks around in society. There exist too many studies on the deficiencies of human beings. People who are ravenous for harming the bodies of children & animals; people who leave others at the side of the roads; people who view ethnicity as a race against each other. There is no shortage of literature that will expose the demise of our kin. What part of this is explored in this story? At what point does Irina’s raving lunacies about how sexually desirable she is, develop into the reflective piece this story boasts itself to be? It is not enough to claim that presenting Irina as a girl different from all other girls, will reveal the nucleus of this tale. Irina is in fact nothing more than a shadow; a skinwalker, if you will. She raves about how explicit she can be. She pushes back on her experiences by recycling what has been done. Again, this is not new. Abuse presents itself in the cloistered limbs of the victim. Regardless of this fact, Irina is not that person. Because there is no depth to her & because the author does not deliberately state things, we are left in a Ferris wheel facing a decaying concrete wall. Putting things into clear language leaves the reader with no room to escape. The villain lives in our world. With extra care taken to create the shell on which Irina leans to entice men to come into her garage, we could have been met with terror. Irina could have been the monster who actually presented how ludicrous it is for people to believe the terrible things that they do. Irina could have been a siren perusing the streets with shiny new legs set on her body specifically to reveal the treachery of sexual exploitation. Irina’s photography could have revealed the pornographic cesspool of bigotry & the craze of monetization that exists towards the female form. Instead of that, we are faced with a white-eyed creature unable to form coherent sentences; left to loom in the corner of a mouse pen in the hopes that another rodent will claw her a path to freedom. Merged review: 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 the death of a minor, sexual violence, rape, substance abuse, disordered eating, distorted body image, bigotry, transphobia, psychological distress, & others. Irina is about the same age as I am while writing this review. Every aspect of her person reads like the residue of saliva caught in the corners of a speaker’s mouth. What this story offers the reader is an unbearable drone of dullness. Nothing happens that does not circle in on itself a couple of pages later. Readers might ask themselves what the purpose of such a book is. Why is Irina such a shadow of a person? What part of this narrative is meant to induce cerebral elation; fear; tremors in the soul? What is the point of this story? My conclusion is that there is no purpose to this narrative. There is no point in writing this story because there is no story to be told. When the reader meets Irina it is abundantly clear that we will be faced with a person who has the lung capacity to sing their own praises but remains debilitated by the smoothness of her grey matter. It wouldn’t be accurate to call Irina an egotistical maniac, though, this is certainly what she is. It wouldn’t be right to deem her narcissistic or pessimistic, existential, nihilistic, or dissociated. Irina is insufficient. The main character of a book does not need to be a dandelion in a field of green to be appreciated. The main character of a book needs to be tangible; they need to be sleek like wet paint, stimulating like oral consumption, & evocative like our own reflection in a mirror. Irina is simply a caricature; the result of a disjointed group effort to combine repulsive human tendencies into a single person. The result is that none of her traits or characteristics read as being more than a weak-willed attempt at extremism. There are communities of people who live their lives in ways that differ significantly from what the collective has deemed as being normal. Whether this is a reflection of a person’s sexual desires, their eating habits, their inner monologue, or the ways in which they style their hair—these aspects remain avant-garde insofar as the person actioning them has the gumption to carry them forward with courage. This story significantly lacks a character with such poise & dedication to themselves that they are able to present their person in life as anything worth paying attention to. Within this story, we read about Irina’s perception of self rather too often. In a time where our personal image & desired characteristics are showcased cyclically, there is no room for people like Irina. There is no space left in the brain of the reader to imagine someone with an inflated sense of self with none of the gumption to back their claims. Irina watches tentacle porn. How ground-breaking. Irina photographs men in the nude or in sexually explicit positions. How different than all the other photographers who have already been doing that. Irina exhibits disordered eating because thinness is the ultimate beauty. What a shockingly original take. /s What part of the world in which she lives is out of Irina’s grasp? Reading about such things—as I listed above & many others—reads as very sheltered. I feel confused as to what position the author felt they were taking when compounding so many random aspects of lore into a single character. The year in which this story takes place does not allow for any of these aspects to come across as interesting. Rather, every time Irina spoke about only eating salads, I felt immeasurably bored. Irina felt perpetually stuck in the past of her own accord. Because the main character has no girth to their person & because every trait of her person is willed into her bones by sheer determination to exude the otherness that people experience when vulnerable; Irina becomes a non-entity within a story that is meant to focus solely on her. Why should we care about the films she watches? Those films exist because people made them. This means that someone other than Irina desired to have this art form made into a reality. Ergo, she is not unique. This is perhaps a harsh take. After all, human beings are a reflection of their environments. Irina is not the first person to exhibit tendencies toward self-harm. She is not the only person to have dyed her hair or to have had a negative relationship with her parent. Rather than see any of these aspects explored with depth, we read about Irina in her name alone. Irina is the title of a spreadsheet where numerous people invested three minutes of their time adding bullet points to a document that would be scrapped anyways. Certainly, people who believe that no part of life has any meaning might view this story as an interesting take on listicles. However, as this story progresses towards more debilitating violence I wonder why no one thought that it might be a good idea to link the personality they desired to craft to the shell of a person wandering the pages. Our actions do not necessarily seamlessly lead to one another. Sometimes a person simply wanted to eat an orange; they didn’t need a commercial to influence that desire. Yet through our actions we reveal ourselves. We sneak glimpses of Irina’s desire to do that—perhaps the author felt that there was something innately missing from her character to make her a real living being. However, this lasts one single scene. Leaving me to believe that it was not the well-crafted writing of the author that flaunted the inner desires of her otherwise destitute character but rather the fluke chance that her humanity carried over into her storytelling. What does this all mean? When I saw the cover art for this book I was eager to explore a story that dealt with gender roles, imposed torment regarding sexuality, & the judgments of the all-seeing-eyes towards our very sense of self. Within the pages of this book, we find the poverty of any of these explorations. How does Irina’s claim that all East Asian women are the same essence anything other than the narrative pushed by geriatric Western racism? How is Irina’s derogatory behaviour towards a Trans character anything other than the maniacal social delay perpetrated by bigotry? How is Irina anything other than what is? There is no exploration of paranormal beings; nothing veers left to divert starkly from the world that exists all around the readers. No part of this story alleviates itself from its own strain. What does it bring to the story to have Irina rape & torture men? What does it bring to the story to reveal that Irina is a murderer? It brings nothing. It is entirely disappointing to read about a character so outside of herself that she fails to realize that all of these secrets she believes she keeps are well-documented & studied subject matters. Why, then, is Irina unable to ground herself in the world? Why does she refute bisexuality in a story meant to engage with this very same subject? What part of assigned gender roles is explored when Irina degrades a person because they are not tall in stature but have put forth their entire will & effort into presenting as the person they feel they are inside? What I take from this is no nouveau riche perspective on gender or sexuality. Rather, this entire book is demonically idiotic. Where was the essence of reality? One thought to another thought to another thought, without any semblance of string tying any of it to Irina does not a person make. This story exhibits a drowned potential that the town stood around to watch take place. Within this very narrative there existed the potential for Irina to be sociopathic while still having the depth of her person to exist in the real world. It is exuberantly obvious when a person who is gorging on themselves walks around in society. There exist too many studies on the deficiencies of human beings. People who are ravenous for harming the bodies of children & animals; people who leave others at the side of the roads; people who view ethnicity as a race against each other. There is no shortage of literature that will expose the demise of our kin. What part of this is explored in this story? At what point does Irina’s raving lunacies about how sexually desirable she is, develop into the reflective piece this story boasts itself to be? It is not enough to claim that presenting Irina as a girl different from all other girls, will reveal the nucleus of this tale. Irina is in fact nothing more than a shadow; a skinwalker, if you will. She raves about how explicit she can be. She pushes back on her experiences by recycling what has been done. Again, this is not new. Abuse presents itself in the cloistered limbs of the victim. Regardless of this fact, Irina is not that person. Because there is no depth to her & because the author does not deliberately state things, we are left in a Ferris wheel facing a decaying concrete wall. Putting things into clear language leaves the reader with no room to escape. The villain lives in our world. With extra care taken to create the shell on which Irina leans to entice men to come into her garage, we could have been met with terror. Irina could have been the monster who actually presented how ludicrous it is for people to believe the terri ...more |
Notes are private!
|
2
|
not set
not set
|
Mar 2023
not set
|
Apr 10, 2024
|
ebook
| ||||||||||||||
| B0BTZW48Q6
| 3.57
| 25,509
| Sep 12, 2023
| Sep 12, 2023
|
it was ok
|
**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 cults, mental illness, physical violence, physical abuse, psychological abuse, the loss of a loved one, grief, promiscuity & others. The mysterious allure of the morbid drew me once again to a book that was not written for me. This statement is not to be interpreted as a petty nuisance or as a bourgeois stance on the department of stories. Rather, the seasoned reader; the reader whose mind longs for the ghouls to show their malicious tendons in the night; the reader who wishes the grotesques spoke riddles & mumbled turmoil into the wind, will find themselves stunned into stone by the catatonically monotonous premise & plot of this book. It would be an understatement to say that I am disappointed. As a lover of Horror in all its many ludicrous forms, I cannot help but develop sentiments of eagerness when faced with the opportunity to add a new author to the inventory. Awad’s name is everywhere; readers boast about her writing skills as though no book had ever been so well written in the history of stories before she picked her pen & drenched the page in ink. I will not shy away from saying that I have very little faith in the collective when it comes to social media’s darling authors. Certainly, it would be ignorant to say that authors whose work has become popular are not worth your time in retired Canadian pennies. There are thousands of writers around the world, it just so happens that a collective group of people feel the need to share their enthusiasm & there is nothing wrong with that. However, here I sit, conflicted & not a little bit confused about the plot I just read. I have seen no criticism of Awad’s work that veered from praise; no single word shadowing a disappointment or lack of thrill. Once again, it would be untruthful of me to say that this did not leave me intrigued. It is human nature to feel the pull of the wave of joy that surfs the social medias in which we visit. The main character in this book, Mirabelle, is a victim of this feeling as well. Yet, so rarely does the dive pay off. I became quickly aware that I had been duped, led astray & left to rot with a story that made no sense & not because it was illogical but because it had been done before, with depth & talent; to find myself reading a semi-sewn attempt at derivative work from the fables & fairytales well-known, was tedious at best. To begin at the start, this book is about Mirabelle who travels to the California coast from Montréal, Québec, following the sudden death of her mother, Noelle. Mirabelle is an awkward person. Her personality veers on reflective, never actually adopting any depth or sense of self. Though readers might be inclined to state that this is intentional, there is a fine line between vapid & struggling. Never once throughout the entire novel does the main character experience any level of growth or revitalization from her self-loathing. This can be read as a consequence of a poorly built character, one who has so few things going for her that there is little desire to add dimension. This very same fault befalls all the characters in this book. Not one in the array of casual tertiary characters develops an identity all their own; there is the shop attended, the shirtless window cleaner, the fake-beard-wearing man, the lady in red, the twins, the manager, the male companions, & the mother. Certainly, somewhere among this crew, someone deserved to be written with dimension; someone merited to have a personality all their own & not be stuck in a loop of redundant dialogue & action. Hope as one might that a Horror may be written with the delicate syrup of a tremor in mind, this book fails at hitting the mark. Mirabelle’s arrival in California allows the story to adopt a dual narrative. At once, the reader follows her experiences in real time as she attends her mother’s wake, speaks to her mother’s friends, & walks the halls of her mother’s condo. In between these events, Mirabelle recalls the childhood that shaped her; her time seated watching her mother prepare for a date with another man who promised her movie stardom, another day complaining about working at The Hudson’s Bay Company (The Bay), another moment wherein her grand-maman, spoke to her of the end of the world. I appreciated the flashbacks to a youth, which was evidently deranged by the shadow of the ghost of Tom Cruise. That is not to say that I think the inclusion of Tom Cruise was a good idea. On the contrary, I think this aspect added a facet of lunacy that was both hilarious & succumbed the story to a Drama rather than the Horror it was purporting to be. The inclusion of the past proved to be far more interesting than any of the actual alleged drama of the present. I cannot necessarily fault the author for including a more intriguing aspect of a dual narrative. This is often the way of these things, one tends to prefer one timeline to another & the book hardly reaches favouritism amongst readers given none can agree on the superiority of the whole. Back & forth the narrative flows until the reader has grown tired within the first five percent of the mundane redundancy of the story. Throughout my reading experience, I questioned whether or not the author’s previous work followed a similar suit. How can so many people love a writing style that is so trite, corny, & bland? Cruel it is, perhaps, to say such a thing but, regardless, it is true. This story would have benefited from being half the length. The joys to be found when reading a novella are in the knowledge & first-hand experience noting that the author has kept the fruit itself succulent & juicy for consumption. Having this story play out within a novel format dragged it down. There was no suspense, no tension or worry, there was repetition & redundancy galore & nothing else. The sheer number of times the reader explores the very same passages leaves them with no other option than to call to mind the original works that the author has used to line her book. The red glass slippers ring true to “The Wizard of Oz” (1939). The path through the cliffs & the wood to a woman who houses sweetness, a callous representation of the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel” (1812). The shiny twin bodies of the slimy red queen, shadowy forms the likes of which can be found in “Alice in Wonderland” (1951). The wishful desires of the mirror are nostalgic reminders of the story of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937). The castrated reflection aiming for independence is just such a one as is found in “Peter Pan” (1953), which was originally a play written by J.M. Barrie in 1904. The list goes on & perhaps the point of this book was to case the small plot in a magical world of familiar faces & actions so that the reader might find themselves eased through the story. I cannot say for certain, I am not the author. What I can say with certainty is that though these markers of nostalgia & similarity might ring a quaint tune, the story should not lie wholly on the backs of works that have already been done by champions of storytelling. Fables & fairytales can be adopted to find the modern consumer without necessarily regurgitating platitudes. I found the nomenclature of the Woman in Red to fit ideally with the lore associated throughout many cultures & centuries, with the Woman in White. Awad had ample opportunity to craft a tale dark & mysterious as the ghoulish masked face in the mirror for which she drew a pound of flesh. Yet, in lieu of malevolence turned beast & instigator, the reader is met with Tom Cruise. I repeat this fact twice because there were many more important things to explore than the movie roster of the actor. Mirabelle deals with low self-esteem as a consequence of her skin pigmentation. The child of mixed parents, her encounter with the world shines light on her mother & leaves her darker skin to callous, unloved. This should have been presented with the gumption that is deserved. Instead, here we come through another long-sequenced dialogue from the paranormal spirit in the mirror whose actual name was….Seth. What was the purpose of this? Surely, readers note the abundantly corny writing that nose dives into rocky gardens as an attempt to bring cultural awareness & link the reader’s own past childhood crushes to Mirabelle’s. Yet, this is supposed to be a Horror. This story is supposed to incite feelings of dread & malaise; one is not supposed to be wriggling with discomfort at a ghost named Seth who seems to speak kindness to Mirabelle who is experiencing colourism. Where is the fright? Where are the screams & moans of torment? Seth (a.k.a Tom Cruise) is a worm of a character who does nothing but bring down the quality of this book. Ultimately, I am aghast, not because of the cult of skin-care-loving abusers who slurp the soul like a Windigo; escape the legal system’s clutches like a Changeling; roam the countryside like maggots the likes of which feature in any number of episodes of “The X-Files” (1993); I am aghast because this was a story about listening to skin-care regiments & reading about the main character’s walk down the same pathways every single chapter. This book is quirky in the worst way. It’s shallow & tedious & truly a lost potential. Therefore, for any readers who consume literature as I do, you may take this voluntarism of my time as freedom in yours to save yourself the burden. With that being said, I know this book will be beloved. The readers who have found themselves eagerly knocking at Rouge’s cult door will nibble the crumbs of a treatment meant specifically for them; the sly grimy minds of the fandom of easy reading. As always, this is not said with malicious intent. The world needs all kinds of people—readers included. Though none of this story was of particular joy to me; joy in the sense of finding a story brooding & gothic like the haunting pain experienced in Mirabelle’s neglected & abandoned childhood; I am confident in my assessment that the plot is a gem the likes of which many readers will seek to possess & admire. As for those who, like myself, need something altogether different. The darkened rocky pathway leading to the house of the banal cult will veer into the ocean wherein the detritus of the Leviathan’s passage will ask us to be brave & dive headfirst into the original & familiar encasing of the deep. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada, & Mona Awad for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! Merged review: 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 cults, mental illness, physical violence, physical abuse, psychological abuse, the loss of a loved one, grief, promiscuity & others. The mysterious allure of the morbid drew me once again to a book that was not written for me. This statement is not to be interpreted as a petty nuisance or as a bourgeois stance on the department of stories. Rather, the seasoned reader; the reader whose mind longs for the ghouls to show their malicious tendons in the night; the reader who wishes the grotesques spoke riddles & mumbled turmoil into the wind, will find themselves stunned into stone by the catatonically monotonous premise & plot of this book. It would be an understatement to say that I am disappointed. As a lover of Horror in all its many ludicrous forms, I cannot help but develop sentiments of eagerness when faced with the opportunity to add a new author to the inventory. Awad’s name is everywhere; readers boast about her writing skills as though no book had ever been so well written in the history of stories before she picked her pen & drenched the page in ink. I will not shy away from saying that I have very little faith in the collective when it comes to social media’s darling authors. Certainly, it would be ignorant to say that authors whose work has become popular are not worth your time in retired Canadian pennies. There are thousands of writers around the world, it just so happens that a collective group of people feel the need to share their enthusiasm & there is nothing wrong with that. However, here I sit, conflicted & not a little bit confused about the plot I just read. I have seen no criticism of Awad’s work that veered from praise; no single word shadowing a disappointment or lack of thrill. Once again, it would be untruthful of me to say that this did not leave me intrigued. It is human nature to feel the pull of the wave of joy that surfs the social medias in which we visit. The main character in this book, Mirabelle, is a victim of this feeling as well. Yet, so rarely does the dive pay off. I became quickly aware that I had been duped, led astray & left to rot with a story that made no sense & not because it was illogical but because it had been done before, with depth & talent; to find myself reading a semi-sewn attempt at derivative work from the fables & fairytales well-known, was tedious at best. To begin at the start, this book is about Mirabelle who travels to the California coast from Montréal, Québec, following the sudden death of her mother, Noelle. Mirabelle is an awkward person. Her personality veers on reflective, never actually adopting any depth or sense of self. Though readers might be inclined to state that this is intentional, there is a fine line between vapid & struggling. Never once throughout the entire novel does the main character experience any level of growth or revitalization from her self-loathing. This can be read as a consequence of a poorly built character, one who has so few things going for her that there is little desire to add dimension. This very same fault befalls all the characters in this book. Not one in the array of casual tertiary characters develops an identity all their own; there is the shop attended, the shirtless window cleaner, the fake-beard-wearing man, the lady in red, the twins, the manager, the male companions, & the mother. Certainly, somewhere among this crew, someone deserved to be written with dimension; someone merited to have a personality all their own & not be stuck in a loop of redundant dialogue & action. Hope as one might that a Horror may be written with the delicate syrup of a tremor in mind, this book fails at hitting the mark. Mirabelle’s arrival in California allows the story to adopt a dual narrative. At once, the reader follows her experiences in real time as she attends her mother’s wake, speaks to her mother’s friends, & walks the halls of her mother’s condo. In between these events, Mirabelle recalls the childhood that shaped her; her time seated watching her mother prepare for a date with another man who promised her movie stardom, another day complaining about working at The Hudson’s Bay Company (The Bay), another moment wherein her grand-maman, spoke to her of the end of the world. I appreciated the flashbacks to a youth, which was evidently deranged by the shadow of the ghost of Tom Cruise. That is not to say that I think the inclusion of Tom Cruise was a good idea. On the contrary, I think this aspect added a facet of lunacy that was both hilarious & succumbed the story to a Drama rather than the Horror it was purporting to be. The inclusion of the past proved to be far more interesting than any of the actual alleged drama of the present. I cannot necessarily fault the author for including a more intriguing aspect of a dual narrative. This is often the way of these things, one tends to prefer one timeline to another & the book hardly reaches favouritism amongst readers given none can agree on the superiority of the whole. Back & forth the narrative flows until the reader has grown tired within the first five percent of the mundane redundancy of the story. Throughout my reading experience, I questioned whether or not the author’s previous work followed a similar suit. How can so many people love a writing style that is so trite, corny, & bland? Cruel it is, perhaps, to say such a thing but, regardless, it is true. This story would have benefited from being half the length. The joys to be found when reading a novella are in the knowledge & first-hand experience noting that the author has kept the fruit itself succulent & juicy for consumption. Having this story play out within a novel format dragged it down. There was no suspense, no tension or worry, there was repetition & redundancy galore & nothing else. The sheer number of times the reader explores the very same passages leaves them with no other option than to call to mind the original works that the author has used to line her book. The red glass slippers ring true to “The Wizard of Oz” (1939). The path through the cliffs & the wood to a woman who houses sweetness, a callous representation of the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel” (1812). The shiny twin bodies of the slimy red queen, shadowy forms the likes of which can be found in “Alice in Wonderland” (1951). The wishful desires of the mirror are nostalgic reminders of the story of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937). The castrated reflection aiming for independence is just such a one as is found in “Peter Pan” (1953), which was originally a play written by J.M. Barrie in 1904. The list goes on & perhaps the point of this book was to case the small plot in a magical world of familiar faces & actions so that the reader might find themselves eased through the story. I cannot say for certain, I am not the author. What I can say with certainty is that though these markers of nostalgia & similarity might ring a quaint tune, the story should not lie wholly on the backs of works that have already been done by champions of storytelling. Fables & fairytales can be adopted to find the modern consumer without necessarily regurgitating platitudes. I found the nomenclature of the Woman in Red to fit ideally with the lore associated throughout many cultures & centuries, with the Woman in White. Awad had ample opportunity to craft a tale dark & mysterious as the ghoulish masked face in the mirror for which she drew a pound of flesh. Yet, in lieu of malevolence turned beast & instigator, the reader is met with Tom Cruise. I repeat this fact twice because there were many more important things to explore than the movie roster of the actor. Mirabelle deals with low self-esteem as a consequence of her skin pigmentation. The child of mixed parents, her encounter with the world shines light on her mother & leaves her darker skin to callous, unloved. This should have been presented with the gumption that is deserved. Instead, here we come through another long-sequenced dialogue from the paranormal spirit in the mirror whose actual name was….Seth. What was the purpose of this? Surely, readers note the abundantly corny writing that nose dives into rocky gardens as an attempt to bring cultural awareness & link the reader’s own past childhood crushes to Mirabelle’s. Yet, this is supposed to be a Horror. This story is supposed to incite feelings of dread & malaise; one is not supposed to be wriggling with discomfort at a ghost named Seth who seems to speak kindness to Mirabelle who is experiencing colourism. Where is ...more |
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| 4.15
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| Jun 18, 2024
| Jun 18, 2024
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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 the death of a loved one, slavery, racism, substance abuse, bigotry, scenes depicting the graphic death of a minor, & others. The salivating need to redeem the sacred soul leads to follies. Characters whose plight feels burdened by reality present readers with interesting subjects. The digestion of their story is unmoored by the current of other nutrients, the substance they offer is all their own. Yet, the troubled reality of those who receive no forgiveness, no calming finality to their torment, offer stories that are given as warnings rather than common truths. I received this book in the evening. The post had come late & I had not been expecting the gift I found. I was quick to share my joy with my book-loving friends, & those whose relationship with literature differs quite significantly from my own. My enthusiasm was purely materialistic. I cannot rationalize that I receive books to review; this is something my young small-town self would find absurdly cool & to this day, a wave of humbling joy overcomes me. The background is given here because I had not heard of Vercher before receiving his book. I can confirm to you that the sunset’s gift of this story has left me longing for more of the author’s work. In truth, as I spoke about my enthusiasm, & my humbled gratitude, in response to receiving this book, I wondered if I would be the target audience. Had the publisher been correct in sending me this book? Would I be able to appreciate the labelled scars on the skin & souls of the characters? The synopsis left much to the imagination & I ruminated on what possible avenues the author might take in order for his main character to tell his story. If one is looking for a sad story, one is in good company here. Rather than adopt the genre of magical realism tinged with creatures of old school horror—the likes of which have been done before in this setting—Vercher offers the reader their own home; asks them to turn off the lights, & listen to the hum of silence, deafening them with anguish. In essence, this is a story about grief. The main character begins to speak to his son who died in a car accident, with him at the wheel. The chapters follow the narrator as he attempts to push through the wall of bricks that he has built, unconsciously, around himself. He shimmies over mounds of regrets, sadness, & hollowed-out spaces that reflect his shortcomings to himself. The story he shares with the reader is complicated & simple; he is sad. However, the main character is also angry; his failure to be a better person resulted in years of frustration for his son & left him reeling in his last moments, grasping for safety with a parent who was never there to offer it. While reading this story I began to wonder how I would explain it. What words would I use to recount my experiences with the plot & how would I describe the setting? Did I enjoy this story? Was the moral of the story tangible? Did the main character experience growth or regression? Was this a story that all readers may be able to appreciate? Though I have come to find the answers to these questions less easy to present in writing, the answer overall resides squarely with one’s own awareness of society. In recent years, the subject of ethnicity, race, nationality; the abstract demise of community, & the Land, have circled spaces intended for open discourse. Those among us who have been made to perish lock-jawed in the dirt find that the trees that shade their unrestful repose have grown strong; ignorance cannot survive forever. Yet it does persist. The reality that led the tomb to be shattered; the intentional sinking ship; the fire to the crops; the genocidal intent to eradicate; all these things live in the bones of those who wander the earth desperate & hopeful to find what has been lost to them. The main character has experience with these subjects on a more intimate level than simply through discussion. It is here that the reader will choose their path & decide how they will interpret the story. On the one hand, a reader may revel in the magic that colours the perimeter of this story. The main character experiences a shift in his physique as he slowly transforms into a jellyfish. He spends days fearing the worst, losing sleep, & speaking to shadows, only to return to the water from whence he originated. On the other hand, readers may interpret the dual narrative as a secret whispered to those who saunter the shores of experience; the exposure to a broken fraction; attempting to live life not wholly one part, but neither insufficient in either. As a person who empathizes with the reality of the main character, I found the dialogue that circled his truth to be presented authentically. Chapters explored the shifting tide of the diminished attention span, as those around him who are one with the identity they hold, discouraged him from expressing himself further, noting that no one cared to read about that anymore. The frustration will surely mount in readers who recognize the truth in these statements; though, it is certainly powerful to share, what feels like a majority of people are not listening to understand but to suck dry the oyster so they may declare themselves full. The narrative presents readers with snippets of blatant reality. Not everyone is given a spot at the table, some people aren’t even told that there is a table, left altogether unaware of a gathering. What may render this honesty difficult for certain readers to stomach is that it is presented by a character who is nearly, entirely, unlikeable. Readers who are led by logic & whose own days have been brimmed with an intimate acquaintanceship with humanity will have no trouble discerning value in what the main character is trying to communicate, even though he was a negative force in the life of his child. I found the inclusion of such negative traits an interesting choice. Certainly, if one is among the crowd of those who tire of conversations that include race, one may decide upon this being the perfect reason to duck out; people are angry & so why listen? On the other hand, I appreciated that the main character was redundantly flawed. This did not discount his reality. Indeed, if one studies the flow of the main character’s regression to a sea creature, the puddles of a grief-stricken parent, or simply the sorrow of a person who is intentionally misunderstood & ostracized because of what others see in him, this story speaks clearly about the empathy that is lacking in our communities. Why is it so difficult to accept that anger expressed is not an indication of fault in logic? As the story progressed & the main character struggled to stay face, the plot explored the burly nature of imbecilic reasoning. Characters flew on to the page to express that seeing is believing & then quote the Bible as rationalized jargon that may support them in their crimes. These people wanted to continue to enslave the souls of those who perished deep into the earth, denoting value in success for a job well done rather than an intricate understanding of what it means to love someone. By this I mean, that a person who loses without the ability to see, once more, what has been taken; a person whose sight witnesses despair & the similar, if not same skin walking villains protrude through the gentle flow of life; this person will never grow beyond the ignorance they wield. Certain aspects of this story lingered without giving the reader further clarity into their presence. The main character speaks of his grandfather who was a terrible man; What does this mean? What changed in the days they spent together while the main character was a child? Did this man express racially derogatory sentiments? Did he leave the property—the plantation—to Malcolm because he wanted him to know that no matter how brilliant his melanin, how deep his brown eyes, or how thick his locs were; deep down he would always be the product of malice? I cannot begin to know the answers to these questions though, I believe that the book does not necessitate me having clarity into the burdened soul of a bad man. Rather, I believe this book wants readers to reflect. Why would any of this have taken place? Readers like me may wonder at the forgiveness that is not given to the main character. The soothing nature of the water sings back to him as he escapes the burden of being the person that he is in a world that does not accept any portion of his identity. There is no winning in a system where a person needs to break off pieces of themselves to fit keyholes & purport terminology that is neutral & inauthentic. I was glad to see him enveloped by the water that cups the land, the ecosystem that shields life from humanity. Ultimately, this book was interesting & perhaps that is enough. When I think back, I am troubled by the aggression of the main character & flummoxed by his intentionality when treating others poorly. The flashbacks as his son grew up offered this story well-needed intimacy with the narrator, without which readers might be left wondering where to offer their sympathies. Truthfully, I felt moved by mournfulness as the narrator revisited the death of his child; the destruction of a life that had yet to experience the good that does thrive in the world, due to the unfortunate seething anger of his parent. This left me with deeply wounded gloom. My appreciation of this story mirrors the familiar twinge that beats deep in my mind. The sleepless nights & chatter with Grandfather Moon; the seething torment of rivers burdened with molasses; the life that seems utterly devoid of the tranquillity satiated by the ignorant, & an existence that is kept in the profoundly cavernous shadows of the self, unspoken to those whose boisterous cries decry an end of all things passed, though their pruned Capillaries drip downstream. Readers may cherish the story that speaks truth into darkness even if only for the ghosts. Reprieve from misunderstanding & a hollowed existence for the fault of a shape that has been disavowed though crafted originally by a spirit whose mania romanticized the very scoundrel it created, is all but absent. Such is the nature of the tormented, invisibly apparent, tremors of sorrow. Thank you to Celadon Books & John Vercher for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ...more |
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Apr 07, 2024
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Apr 07, 2024
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Apr 03, 2024
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| 0063327686
| 9780063327689
| B0C245PL9F
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| Jan 09, 2024
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Mar 31, 2024
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| 180336758X
| 9781803367583
| B0CJTPY8FQ
| 4.04
| 1,199
| Jun 04, 2024
| Jun 04, 2024
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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 violent crime, the death of an animal, grief, the death of a loved one, body mutilation, substance abuse, & others. Oh, the rumble of the familiar road. Some form of resemblance to the life once known, a twinge of the dimple engraved in the hollowed false smile, lies the dawn of reparation; the final layer of the beast that is regret. Who is to judge that which causes harm to the wishing & washing of casual daydreams? Sometimes, the ghoul itself will raise its head in a pulsating threat, staring down the reflection it finds in the mirror. Seldom is more terrifying than that which is comprehensible, attainable, & proximate to the reader. I have stated before that the scariest story is one that reminds the reader of themselves & I remain convinced of this fact after finishing Malfi’s most recent novel. It is certainly the fangs of reality, those able to pierce the security one pretends to have in this life, that creep & crawl through the mind long after the immortal bat has taken flight. You will find that I repeat myself & that is only to reinforce my point. Readers familiar with my reviews will have heard me praise Malfi before. What you shall read in this review will be nothing new though, my experience with this story adopted new edges & saw me invested without shedding my annoyance, only to leave me surprised that I had come to the conclusion I accepted at the start. In essence, this is a story about regret. Andrew, the main character, is thirty-five & is living a life he is proud to have achieved. The borderline trite nature of his experiences in Manhattan is cooling to the touch; the lawyer, his wife—the editor, their soon-to-be-born first child, the life of luxury all stemming from the humble beginnings in a town whose name no one knows but which is familiar to readers like a collector’s coin they’ve hidden in the attic. Andrew returns to his hometown to meet his four friends. Though they have not kept in contact & though it has been, cumulatively twenty years since they engaged in any friendly activity, Andrew returns to engage in his trade in keeping one of his friends out of jail. The rest, as they say, is history. When I was young, I was quite certain that Horror was not the genre for me, therefore, I distanced myself from the garish covers & tomes lining the shelves of the libraries I frequented. I had enough to deal with, I did not need a reminder of the threat I knew by name. As the years passed, something like comfort grew in me as I poured over books that spoke to me through the pages; the experiences I sheltered, secretly pleading to disappear, transcribed gently via the time-stamped ink of a total stranger, allowed me reprieve. The transition between these two realities was rather more seamless than I am detailing. It never ceases to astound me that the wide world with all its rivers, oceans, mountains, molehills, & prairies, can be so very small as to fit compactly within the binds of a book. I highlight this personal experience because this story brought me back to the feelings I had towards those early novels. I often wondered why the truth was never spoken or why a character’s guilt allowed them to evade the claws of self-decomposing despair. The convenient ending felt too quaint & I pondered the nature of concluding a story that covets reality with the magical dreamland bonbons of forgiveness & tender healing. You may think me a pessimist & you may not be entirely wrong. However, this question persisted. It was through many years of life & a gargantuan pile of books that I concluded that the age-old adage was indeed accurate; the sun does, in fact, shine bright & clearest on the unperturbed landscape. Where does that leave the veteran reader? When coming upon this book, my immediate sentiment was, thrill. After reading “Black Mouth” (2022) by Malfi, I was a fan for life, regardless of whether his books ever impacted me so deeply, ever again. Readers will find in the repertoire of stories that the author crafts the ease of a storyteller’s gift. Certainly, there are plots that pivot the gaze of marvel & in some others, the Leviathan itself seethes through the veins of a foul tale. It is a gift to tell a story; it is a delicate talent to transmit it to others. I would not say that the main character of this story had such talent though, he had little choice but to share or hold his peace, forever. This is an interesting story & one that devoted readers will clock as the ode to the Titan’s great work, “Ghost Story” (1979) by Peter Straub. Should a reader not have had the opportunity to read about the jaundiced demons intent on revenge, this story will still offer them a sliver of flavour to masticate on, unique in its succulence. The witching aspect of this story gave me pause. Following everything I’ve said, one would be right to assume that I had a complicated relationship with this story. The opening chapters reminded me so deeply of Straub’s work that I forgave them for the meandering dialogue. I wasn’t necessarily reading because I was invested in Andrew’s personal life or because he may prove to be insightful. Rather, I read this book because I love the sentiment of fear—the most intimate of emotions. The weaving nature of the terror that loomed behind the everyday grief—consequences of a series of horrible decisions—was not something I welcomed. The Graves family & their history was interesting. I was not seeking a story that would include earnest witchcraft, spells, or ghoulish old women on a murder rampage but, that is what the author has written. My insecurity towards my feelings began to develop early in my reading. At times, I grew hopeful that the plot would be the double-entendre; the morbid nature of a mind that does not rest & the fabulously mystical Grimm Brother’s antagonist in her cottage. Certainly, readers who do not mind one or the other, or even both, will delight. I, on the other hand, found myself conflicted. Though I appreciated the nature of a real-life villain, one that was always around & one that felt rather quaintly placed in reality, one asks oneself in actually, who it is that is rioting against the cause for colonialism & gentrification? Who can be rooted for? My personal sentiments about the mystique of the old Graves woman did not leave me with unease but, a sulking frown. Do not mistake me, Malfi paced his story well & the villain was ripe with reason, she was a vigilante whose goal was to murder those who violently killed her child twenty years ago. I understand her plight. While reading about their torment of Robert Graves I too found my sympathy waning. The group of friends vandalized the Graves house, nearly setting it on fire, then shot a firework through Robert Graves' eye socket, leaving him to drown after shooting off the side of a cliff. Is a reader meant to root for these characters? In some sense, I believe that Malfi played on my secret desire to read a story that did not offer a calming ending. The characters did not experience reprieve & rather, their tar tore each other apart, leaving one after the other for the vultures to devour. Will readers believe that each character was treated with the consequence, torment, guilt, & terror that they deserved? I cannot say that I feel that each member of the group received what they merited. In the original situation, wherein Robert Graves was murdered by negligence, assault & battery, not every member of the group acted in an equal fashion. Here the reader may need to call upon their mature experiences to deconstruct the setting. An innocent life was taken because a group of teenagers were spoilt, deeply ignorant of how closely death walks in step with each of us, & they held a deep inability to gauge the legal consequences of manslaughter. Tig did not pay for the death of Robert Graves. She grovelled for forgiveness & was set free whereas Andrew was left in a coma following a car crash. Meach was murdered by Eric, & Dale was murdered by Eric; can these be considered as penance paid or, the easy way out? What was it that the Graves Witch wished to inflict? If one is pondering her motive to act twenty years after Robert’s death it may be as simple as her knowing that her time is nearing a close or, perhaps she has seen how well the lives of those responsible have become & felt it her calling to act now, though, this is not altogether true since Tig is experiencing very serious financial insecurity & Meach is suffering from physical illness & addiction. Neither of these characters acted as violently as Eric & Dale—who, in my opinion, are the true antagonists. Though I would not state that Andrew is innocent, I am not sure whether he deserved to be in the cellar of his mind’s horror for the rest of time. The cowardice that took place across the pages, as was exhibited by each character left me to wonder how this same situation may play out for anyone in real life. The answers one looks for, those that may set us free from the guilt we hold for our actions, are rarely found in this lifetime. Andrew became a shadow of his potential because the people he was close with were responsible for the death of another teenager. Does this make him the evil mastermind? Should he have told Rebecca that he knew what happened to her brother? What is altered by telling the truth? I found Andrew to be a compelling narrator only because he was so simple. His goal was to escape, no matter the consequences or the toll it took, yet at every turn he made the most ignorantly banal decisions. I found myself curious only because he was so silly. Readers observe Andrew deciding to live in a house that is infested with flies; a house that has a possible sewer leak; a house that is without basic amenities for reasons he never makes clear. What would have led him to be comfortable with living with all of these things, let alone one? It would not have been unusual for him to choose to sleep in his car rather than lay in a bed that was swarming with flies. Andrew’s senseless behaviour persisted throughout the story. He engaged with Eric who was surely culpable of the First Degree; he sat with Dale as he lied straight to his face; he went back to his hometown knowing how little gumption he held in his person. Why did he do this? When analyzing the behaviour exhibited by Andrew one may wonder at his reasoning. I suppose it might be as straightforward as to state that he is not a complex person, nor he is very smart, or well-rounded; he’s a man who went to law school & married the sister of a boy he left for dead. The rest is background noise. Reading about the absurd decisions that Andrew was intent on making left me frustrated. I kept hoping that something more would happen that would leave him shocked & electrocuted to the world around him like a strike from the sky. In some ways, I felt that there was something he was not communicating to the reader, something that left this story wanting altogether. What was the point in all of this? Why did Tig murder Cynthia? Why did she attack her with an ashtray? Tig has worked in a bar her whole life, she would have known, or even seen, the repercussions of an ashtray thrown in anger. Why did Tig lean on Dale & his unspoken love of her to get her off Scott-free while Dale died? In an ideal world, readers may consume this story & judge the characters for their actions. Readers may wonder why none of the characters made different choices Why did none of the characters go to the police & why did they not tell the truth? Based solely on the cold written word of the law, Dale is to blame for Robert’s death & the others may be tried as accessories to the fact. Had they called for help immediately Robert may have been blind, but it is not a certainty that he would have died due to his injury caused by the firework. Leaving him for dead secured their fate, each character is responsible for his death. Would calling a first responder have prevented any of the events that took place? Had Eric’s father not been a police officer or the sheriff, I may be inclined to believe that real life would swoop into the story & the group of friends be made to suffer the consequences of a wishy-washy justice system. One could ponder the probabilities all day, my point is that no consideration was given & in their adulthood the characters believed it their right to take justice into their own hands, leaving each other for dead. My favourite part of this book was the scene in the Motel. By this point in the book, I knew who the cold-blooded killer was & I knew who relied on their self-secured ignorance to wade the tides of criminal activity. I was sure that Rebecca was Robert’s sister & I was sure that the parents of the group, had done what was in their abilities to safeguard their children from the law. What I wanted from this story was for it to spell out how morbid the lives of these characters were. I wanted the narrator to make clear to the reader all of the terrible things that happened leading up to the horror the reader encountered but, it did not offer any of this. Instead, the Motel allowed readers to ponder the nature of the story they were reading. Is time linear or, did Andrew act as a voice to young Meach? Was Meach’s psychosis as entrenched as his friends believed or was, he suffering the repercussions of untreated addiction? Why was Bonnie sleepwalking? Why did the Graves Witch include Bonnie as a vessel for the torment? How were Bonnie & Cynthia beckoned in sleep to wander the town? Did Eric’s father remain physically abusive or did his behaviour extend into other forms? Why did Eric’s father commit suicide? Ultimately, I think what made this story enjoyable was the ending. There was no resolution, no happiness, no final hurrah to forgive & live a life worthy of existence. The characters, each in their own way, suffered a fate that they created for themselves. It is unkind to say that Meach deserved his addiction & it is cruel to say that the innocent life of Robert Graves merited a torturous end. Neither of these individuals were granted freedom for what befell them. I will not sit & write out how much better Meach is now that he is free because I do not know that his soul could rest, floating around a room carved out of the flesh of lies, terror, & sorrow. The familiarity of this plot spoke softly to the reader, the shadowed carcass of the deceased, the vultures, the shadow man, & burning figure of desecration in the drywall; the paralysis, the nightmares, the loved ones lost, the group's secret, the small town, the stories, the lies. It is up to the reader, depending on the day & the hour, whether they feel that these glimmering notes of an ode sung to the departed whisper a tune worthy of the Serpent himself. In dreams, the nightmare fuel of walking through rays of sunlight is made clear, cruel, & staunchly vivid, to the suffering soul who has thrown away the key to their salvation. Meriting a second’s glance is the accessory; the sorcerer whose spell is in the living creatures who suffer the magic cast with intent to harm. May the souls of the birds whose necks were snapped & whose bellies sliced open, be free in skies unincumbered by torrential rain & human horror. Thank you to NetGalley, Titan Books, & Ronald Malfi 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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Apr 11, 2024
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Mar 31, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| 1250874971
| 9781250874979
| B0BSD5JCH2
| 3.78
| 289
| Dec 14, 2022
| Dec 14, 2022
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Mar 29, 2024
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ebook
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| B009ANF1VQ
| 4.02
| 611
| 1981
| Oct 20, 2011
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None
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Notes are private!
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not set
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not set
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Mar 15, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0802162959
| 9780802162953
| B0CH1NHWNW
| 4.03
| 6,317
| Apr 02, 2024
| Apr 02, 2024
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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 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 the death of a loved one, graphic violence, torture, forced confinement, the sexual abuse of a child, violent crime, lynching, grief, & others. The good story begins with the voice of wonder speaking down from the clouds; sneaking blissfully through the wind; resounding like falling timber in the woods; offering the sounds of sonorous fantasia into the pulsing eardrum of the reader. The narrator may never be seen by the reader but for his resounding voice, which often feels too far away to chase & yet resounds with comfort, too close to release into the page. Rainy’s narration is one of a man whom readers will love immediately. His story begins where all good stories do, with his heartstrings sewn tightly to the instrument he sets forward to play. As readers open the page to this chronology they will meet what defines the traveller’s furry; the incomparable emaciating infatuation of a story. The cover art for this book gave me pause. I will always admit, with truth & compassion, that I judge books by their covers. I do not do this because my opinion matters more than the artist or the author whose time & investment crafted the joint nature of visual art. Rather, I do this because the beast's shell speaks to me or is silent. I have been reading for a great many years, I state with certainty that I know when to listen to the tectonic murmur of a story & when to go on my way. This is not a science; sometimes books do not appeal to me or, in other cases, their colours seem to promise me the ruby & leave me empty-handed in the end. I enjoy reading so, it’s no love lost, either way. In this case, Enger chose wisely. The colourful painted world of his tale was brought to life on the cover & for this reason, I requested the opportunity to read what was held inside. It was early in my reading experience that I realized that I could not eagerly run to the end of this book. It was too good to leave. I reached out to a friend, who will surely recognize himself in this section—rather what are friends for if not to support one’s adulation of reading? As it so happens, I knew he would love this book as much as me, yet, I was hesitant to tell him so because, at that point, I had only read about ten percent of the 300+ pages. Every sentence reminded me of the joy I felt as a child, reading the adventurous series of books « Amos Daragon : Porteur des masques » (2003) by Bryan Perro. As an adult, I felt that the years spent reading as a child shaped the world around me & I never stopped chasing the format that contained the stories I adored. In adulthood, adventures & turmoil, hidden treasure, fantasy & lore, often disappear into the backdrop. Yet, readers of these genres, such as myself & my friend, often make our way indirectly to the origin of what was for us, the beginning of enchantment. Enger welcomed me into his story after time away from such imaginativeness. The introduction will allow readers to ease their way into the milky sautéd waters of the Great Lakes which are home to me & my country’s neighbour. The story will be a dystopian nightmare, yet not ghoulish like the fanged villains who bomb the houses where children live, yet seething in a way that reminds readers why dreams of adventure are so deeply important. In its essence, this is a story about death & grieving, & the ways in which our person dies a slow death waiting to rejoin those whom we have loved in this life. Rainy, the main character, is a man who is kind, he is tender & funny, smart & musically inclined. His narration of the story comes from a point in the future. The reader is unsure of why Rainy has chosen to share his recollections or if he knows that we are listening. However, these details are not as important as they may seem; Rainy has something to share & so he does. This excursion began when his beloved wife, Lark, was murdered in their home by a group of government bruisers who ransacked the house in search of a runaway prisoner. I find this story difficult to review. I felt terribly sad when Lark was murdered & yet, I hardly knew her. In fact, Lark wasn’t a real person at all, she is a character in a book. Her character was warm, cunning, savvy & humorous, she was gentle & firm, empathetic & silly. Lark felt like the rain over dry crops; she was a person who brought life into the story by the mere mention of her person. It is no mystery to me why I felt so positively devastated by her untimely demise. Lark’s character enters the story & acts as the light that shines the way for Rainy. Their marriage is one that would make the most claustrophobic covet the cupboard to feel such snug warmth. Lark was a keener of delicate & valuable books—readers will love her for this fact alone. She owned a shop in the town & roamed the country in search of estate sales & delicate treasures she may amass for her collection. In the world of this story, such treasures were rare & often miscategorized for their lack of immediate value, such as one would find in a tool or wire. I suppose in some ways, I wanted the opportunity to visit Lark. I did not forget where I sat while reading this book nor did I envy the characters their world; a society in which rampant triads of gore shimmered in every horizon & sunrise. Yet, had the opportunity to visit her little shop of wonders been granted, I would have taken it. You see, I cannot pass up the chance to see what stories are beloved by another. Here we find ourselves at the heart of the story. Though this book deals primarily with violence, the adventure of finding a person one has lost to death, & the trials of surviving in a gruesomely barbaric society; this story also teases the reader with sweets in the form of tales & first drafts, of chronicles that the bind knows the reader cannot pass up. The title of this book is the same as the one that Lark has pursued throughout her adult life. I am compassionate of her endless & tiresome travels, attempting to obtain the precious gem that has escaped her. When finally she finds it, her death follows soon after. What is the purpose of this book? What is the goal when including a secondary author in the torment of grief that overshadows all other things? Readers may find that Enger confuses himself by encouraging Rainy to carry a book that Lark loved & yet never had the opportunity to ruminate on, throughout the months of his travels in search of her spirit reincarnate. Veteran readers, or readers who are people with days under their skies & dozens of meetings with the moon, will not begrudge Enger or Rainy their small comfort. As referenced earlier, the goons who were responsible for Lark’s murder were chasing an escaped prisoner whose name was Kellan. His character is flawed, rather sullen, sulky & shy. However, Kellan is also patient, insightful, & kind. Though the reader never learns the details of Rainy’s age, they may come to look at him as a man in the middle; a person who has lived long enough to know the patterns & flow of life but who has enough spirit left in him to try something new & tempt fate, one more time. The relationship that these two characters share is short-lived. Kellan runs away in the middle of Lark’s birthday party & Rainy sees him only upon arriving on the government’s prison ship. Yet, their time is well-spent & readers are given the layout of the viper’s nest that sits quietly in the tall grass. Though I do not think it is my place—a reviewer’s place—to recap the story in its entirety, I hope this morsel suffices for readers who have yet to read the book, to engage their curiosity further by going to the source. Enger writes a story that lingers in the mind. Every single character is a delight, even when they act as the antagonist to the melodramatic chants of the protagonist. The feat of writing an adventure the likes of which rivals Homer’s “The Odyssey” (725 BCE), is incomparably difficult. Readers seldom forget themselves in their reading experience. Those who do are perhaps reading for escapism or are less critical of the world built around them; none of which are bad things. To be met with the dedicated talent of an author who understands their characters & the shadow figures of their imaginary world is a treat one savours upon encountering. Enger is an author whom I will seek out again. What made this story so enthralling had perhaps less to do with the plot than it did with the characters. Rainy was not without his faults & none of the secondary characters were altogether trustworthy. In scenes, the reader meets people who are abusive, cruel, & tormented. The next chapters gently untangle a forgotten memory that Rainy wishes to share & it seems that the story is forgiven for the introduction of an annoying child or of a dirty malevolent predator. Just as life is flawed & faulted by the very nature of its existence, so too was this story. The flow of the narrative captured what it meant to mourn a loss that was stolen; a thieved facet of what made life worth living. The imagery presented throughout Rainy’s travels reminded me of home while also speaking to me in a language foreign to my understanding. The claim of this being a dystopian novel is factually correct, though I would hesitate to state that devourers of this genre of story will be met with their most beloved in this bind. Rather, this story appeals to readers because of its adventurous nature; wandering minds & analytic thinkers will have something to devour & deconstruct without necessarily stepping outside the confines of comfort. The equation presented is one that a tired & true reader may have encountered before. In some ways, this reminded me of John Langan’s “The Fisherman” (2017), which is how I sold it to my friend, telling him that in this book he would find the classic storytelling of ancient philosophers & the clawing nature of the magistral beast that we both loved in Langan’s fantastical horror. These points are not meant to discourage readers, on the contrary, I believe that one has certainly come upon a book that missed the heart of what their reader’s mind was seeking to find & I believe that I have been satiated by reading Enger’s book. Certainly, the storytelling style of a personal narration, mixed with memories, side notes featuring feelings, & characters the reader will never become acquainted with firsthand, may lead some readers to flounder; What is the purpose in so much detail? While I reference my nameless friend so often it is not without purpose. There were times while reading when I wondered if my grasp of English was strong enough or if I had enough life experience to empathize with Rainy. On other occasions, I felt overexposed to feelings I kept locked away or memories that reminded me of my existence. Though I shall never come out & say the things that make me who I am & very rarely hint at them, the books that I appreciate—the stories that I love—do that for me. To share such high esteem with another person is quite a vulnerable position. Rainy spends an entire novel speaking to the reader because they are a stranger. He knows how he may sound & he understands that he will come across, as sometimes shallow, & sometimes a silly dreamer, but he shares his experiences because this part of him has lived in his person for so long, & it has come time to set it free. I knew I loved Rainy immediately & I rather bemoan myself for writing that sentiment here because I do not want you to know this. Rainy reminds me quite intimately of the hope I held a very long time ago. He remained nearly faceless throughout this entire story because, as all great love stories go, we met in the written word & we shall never have the chance to meet with eyes locked in understanding. His deep-rooted admiration, tenderness, respect—his love—for Lark opened a soft spot for him in my mind & it was overwhelming to see him remain a man that a reader could trust, flaws & all. What kind of reader does this make me? Perhaps in the same way that Rainy sought refuge with the quietly gentle couple in the remote town near a Great Lake, so too have I tilted my head upward to meet the bear waiting for me in the forest. Ultimately, as I wrote out my recommendation to my friend—a person who knows me well enough now to understand the grappling nature of sickness that cut off crumbs of paper for him to follow when it was his time—I remembered myself as a child, reading the great books that shadowed the hallways of the houses I frequented & the people whose minds they lived within. A recommendation is a person’s way of saying; in this delicate treasure, you may find me, alongside the uncharacteristically earnest people who colour the ink. Perhaps, I feel brave because I read a story about a man who could not escape his grief. Maybe, in some way, this story was made magical because it reminded me of something else, or because the prose was more beautiful than a naturally grown rose, or the morning song of a bird waking one from slumber. Certainly, the pilgrimage of grief exists alongside Rainy for the rest of his life. His story does not end as the reader closes the page to stare into silence. Rather, snippets of his joy, his cool water resounding mornings, his riddles & strums, the waves of his forearms & Ursidae heart, beat into the night like a drum whose belly is soft as the fur that once adorned it; tanned with the sorrow of a long & succulently devious life. Thank you to NetGalley, Grove Atlantic, & Leif Enger for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ...more |
Notes are private!
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not set
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Mar 02, 2024
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Mar 02, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| 0316568066
| 9780316568067
| 0316568066
| 3.75
| 65
| Aug 20, 2024
| Aug 20, 2024
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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 violent crime, grief, murder, distorted body image, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual-based violence, clinical distress, the death of an animal, & others. Ample are the parameters, definers, symptoms, & faces of grief. The altruistic nature of the sentiment prevents the shadow of emptiness from hovering over a future horizon, perhaps never to be met by the sufferer. The quotidian rhythm of existence promises grief in the rise & fall of all that we do; there is no way to avoid loss. However, grief is not simply a loss. In its own beautiful way, grief speaks to something unknown; a splinter in the beast itself. Culture will define grief & will prevent it from growing tall; nipping it at the heels with the poignant hymn of truth. Yet, one must ask; What is the truth? When I requested this book I knew not what to expect. This is perhaps a silly statement. Rarely do I endeavour into books that gift me a clear idea of what they wish to present. I have always been a reader who prefers the silent miss-matching of story & mind. The ambiguous clarity provided by a synopsis is one I usually forfeit altogether; I have done this too long not to read the shaded colours & stencilled shapes on the wall. In this particular case, I was glad to hold my ignorance. The format of the story is adopted primarily to sequester a reader in what might be a primal stance; to be victim, victor, or vanquished. In essence, this story is about Jane. It appears trite to say that the story relies upon Jane’s disorders to reel the reader into submission but, this is the truth. The story opens with Jane’s redundancy. Her mornings see the consequence of dread filling her lungs after a night of being caught in the riptide of her illness (Bulimia Nervosa). She runs the city, scours her room, rides the train to work, eats a salad, occupies every free second with her best friend, hitchhikes her way home through pizza joints & doughnut shops, & repeats her dissociated dance of online activity & purges evidence of nutrition into the bellies of the toilet bowl. Jane’s story is split into three parts. The first of which explores the first-hand experiences of Jane’s diligent & harmful cycle, as listed in the paragraph above. In between the sections that read like a malevolent tornado, Jane meets men; she sleeps with them, runs the pedestrian’s path with them, & works on literary projects with them. All the while, Jane remains essentially unknown to all the people around her. This first section is meant to act as both a cautionary tale & a reminder that the mundane sickness of life may not end us but, death is certainly around the corner. That is to say, Jane’s life is sad to take in. Readers unfamiliar with the cycle of distress that accompanies an eating disorder may feel just as suffocated as readers who have felt the weight of horror in their bodies & bones. Montague works diligently to prevent the reader from forgetting who Jane is. Rather than stick to the mounds of dread, scratchy throats, & dirty bile; Montague reminds readers that Jane is a person misunderstood; she has likes & dislikes, passions & terrors. All the things that make the reader the essence of who they are also exist in Jane. This is what made her section both insightful & ruefully grievous. Through the pages of repeated daily activity, Jane becomes a person that the reader wishes to know. Some form of the fingers on the pages longs to intervene before it is too late. Throughout this section, I found myself actively engaged in the anthropologist’s role. Would Jane be able to find peace? Which of the men in Jane’s life murdered her? Every morning run reminded me of the curious nature of life; our habits shape the day as we move through it, tedious as they sometimes seem. However, in so far as I found Jane’s section engaging, the narrative lost steam because we learned so little about her environment. This was most likely done intentionally. Jane is the victim of a violent crime, her section could not be the length of a tome, she was nearing her final days & it was soon time that the reader shifted points of view to better understand the narrative at play. Regardless, I felt taxed as a consequence of a morbid existence, otherwise seen as being Jane’s life. The redundancy of Jane’s life shifts to welcome a new character, Jesse. The second part of the story explores a tertiary point of view of the crime. The players the reader grew accustomed to seeing in the backdrop of Jane’s life become the villains; men with voices too loud to discern clearly. Jesse’s role is as an investigator for the Defendant, Jeremy. In all sincerity, I preferred this section to the two others because it felt real in a way that is difficult to achieve in writing. Jesse’s life is flawed & hurtful; his days are wrought with anxiety & pain. His family life consists of hours spent guiding his mother through repetitions brought on by her Dementia & attempting to prevent her from losing hope in the darkness brought on by her mind. Jesse’s narrative was raw, earnest, pleading, ambitious, & genuine. His person brought realism to a plot that introduced the reader to people they might never understand & then, here came Jesse, a character who could also be their friend. Notable in this section is how Montague wrote the turmoil of a terminal diagnosis alongside the finality of death at the hands of another. In both cases, for both women—Jane & Jesse’s mother—the end of their lives became a truth they were not privy to learning. While Jesse attempted to wander in the dark to find the pieces of his mother that might still exist in her mind, he also attempted to find the truth in the void left behind by Jane’s murder. The links between both women are ample & a diligent reader will piece together the ropes that tie them to one existence; that of a woman without agency. I found Jesse to be amiable & warm. His earnest pursuit of the truth among all the shaded groves of different people & their experiences, helps the plot move forward but it also grants it the girth that it needs. In many ways, both the first & the third sections do nothing to speak to the reader & rather seek to isolate them from the narrative at play. At times, the secrecy behind an intentional intellect—think a philosopher without any lived experience to rely on—confounds this story into a heaping waste of time. The legal aspects are not explored in the first & third sections; the grainy details of the crime of homicide are not brought forward by any of the characters & rather, these sections poise the characters to make everything about their person, forgetting the societal implications of selfishness. This is, as I have said many times in my writing, not meant to be cruel. Rather, the author allows the reader to deduce that the real storyteller is Jesse. He is the driver of the story, the hero, & victor throughout all the chaos caused by two people who were egotistically overly involved in themselves. This truth made Jesse more appealing. The links between the deterioration of the brain & the body as well as the reality that horrors succeed without humanity being capable of concluding rationales is the crux of what is bulbous, overwhelming, & distressing both in life & in fiction. However, upon reflection, I wonder still about the reality of the case. Jane’s cell phone was found in the dumpster at her office building. Jane was having an affair with her boss, Tom, & she knew that he had the business appraised for an obscene amount of money. By the end of the second section, we learn that Tom was accused of the crime but was acquitted. Why is that? It will not come as a surprise to anyone who knows their way around the legal system that the processes are not always correct nor are they efficient. If Tom did not murder Jane, who did? How would Tom have known where Jane ran? How would Tom have known that Jane would have heard him calling to her in the alleyway? Had Tom met Aaron? Did Tom know that Aaron usually met Jane down the laneway from where she was murdered? Had he accounted for the fact she might not be alone or that other people were awake during this hour of the morning? There are so many variables that could & should be analyzed before concluding that the murder was committed by Tom. What is apparent & dull is that the justice system did not ask any of these questions. In the state of New York, the Double Jeopardy, also known as the Fifth Amendment, prevents a person who has been acquitted of a crime from being tried again for the same crime. Therefore, Tom is a free man. I reflect on this fact because the logistics do not make sense to me. None of the men regarded as possible suspects in Jane’s murder were approached with dedicated caution. Jesse came across the evidence of Jane’s affair with Tom at random. Why was he not being properly investigated from the start? Certainly, my questions are somewhat annoying because they will bring the reader no clarity. Though multiple characters claim that Jane’s schedule is meticulous, a murder in the morning is too risky to be well-planned. One can easily assume that Jane was not running in the dark of 4:00 AM but rather closer to 6:00 or 7:00 AM given the number of people out & about. This speaks to the personality trait at play as we know for a fact that Jane walked around the city alone at night between restaurants & bars. What I seek to highlight with these questions is not that the irresolution of her murder is flawed but that the story is not about the crime. The third part of the book drives home my point as Jeremy is introduced via his own experiences as he interviews for a podcast. The desolate & lovely gore of the story is sadly lost entirely in the third part. Perhaps the author sought to allow the vanquished man to hold his court & share his truth. In some ways, allowing Jeremy the chance to speak to his experiences as the accused feels just; his life will forever be altered by the suspicion that lingered on the cellphone tower. Yet, if one looks back to the perusal through the logistics of the murder, one is left wondering (again) whether the judicial bodies did any work in this case, at all. Jeremy, like Jane, held a meticulous schedule & visited similar places, over & over again. The suspicion that he might have been responsible for Jane’s murder arises simply because his cellphone pinged off a tower near the scene of the crime. Of course, reading Jeremy’s section does nothing to incite confidence in his character; rather he reads as a very tedious liar but, I digress. If one were to properly seek to understand the case against Jeremy, one would be left exasperated. Perhaps the author sought to include this final section to encourage the ambiguous ending; maybe, Jeremy did murder Jane. This leaves me asking what the point of the story is, if, in fact, the driving force is the men who do very little of anything worth reading throughout the entire story. From a neutral point, one can accept that it is kind to allow Jeremy to close off the story. However, this story is not about him so the narrative feels as though has lost its essence. Is this the point of the book? Are readers meant to conclude that a woman’s truth is lost as a consequence of a man’s presence/involvement? I am not convinced that this is the moral of the story. Rather, I feel quite comfortable in concluding that the author was simply writing to write; the final section shows a flexed finger as Montague quotes great writers whose word use reinforces the burden of existence whereas her book simply showcases the lost causes that exist in between rumbling subway stations. The dialogue between Jeremy & the podcast host did not insight knowledge into the story, nor did it create space for reflecting on what the story was actually about. Perhaps, because I was not a fan of who Jeremy was; after sections of blabbering about being a writer with talent & time; I found myself wishing for the book to end so that I was relieved of the boredom that accumulated around the third section. Truthfully, had his character been set up as a man of men, a person with flaws but the ability to not be chauvinistic & rather daft, I might not have felt as I did. Unfortunately, looming in the centre of the cream egg was mould & I did not see the purpose in writing pages about a man who made clear who he was in each section of the book. Ultimately, this is a good book & one I would recommend to other readers. I long to meet Jesse again & I hope that the sorrow of his life is healed. He was not a perfect person but he was a person in all his entirety, making him a man I grew eager to know. Just as I have chosen a favourite section, other readers will meet the parts of the story they deem valuable & agreeable. One is left wondering if the purpose of transcribing human horror is lost on the three subcategories of readers who will approach this book as I have & then also, in completely different ways. The burden of grief lays itself raw to the reader in the failed investigations & cruel characters that once appeared as best friends. The essence of a person is never quite lost as we live inside the story & reality that exists in the brains of others. Jane, a woman who was quiet & ill, was also mean & uninterested, while simultaneously being catastrophically numb to life, she sought out its warmth & excitement in any place she could. In just such a way, may the reader find that each of the characters is more than they appear yet, not a lie of who they hope to be. Much of the burden of loss exists because the imagery we hold is no longer visible to us until we become one with the illusion that shelters our person from days that continue to move forward without the comfort of those who are no more. Thank you to NetGalley, Mulholland Books, & Eugenie Montague for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ...more |
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not set
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Feb 25, 2024
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Feb 25, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 4.11
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| Jul 18, 2017
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Feb 20, 2024
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May 20, 2024
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May 13, 2024
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| 3.99
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May 13, 2024
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| 3.85
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May 12, 2024
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May 12, 2024
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Apr 29, 2024
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Apr 27, 2024
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Apr 27, 2024
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| 4.07
|
not set
|
Apr 23, 2024
|
||||||
|
| 3.65
|
really liked it
|
Apr 21, 2024
|
Apr 21, 2024
|
|||||
|
| 3.77
|
did not like it
|
Mar 2023
not set
|
Apr 10, 2024
|
|||||
|
| 3.57
|
it was ok
|
Aug 27, 2023
not set
|
Apr 09, 2024
|
|||||
|
| 4.15
|
liked it
|
Apr 07, 2024
|
Apr 07, 2024
|
|||||
|
| 3.86
|
not set
|
Apr 03, 2024
|
||||||
|
| 3.99
|
not set
|
Mar 31, 2024
|
||||||
|
| 4.04
|
liked it
|
Apr 11, 2024
|
Mar 31, 2024
|
|||||
|
| 3.78
|
not set
|
Mar 29, 2024
|
||||||
|
| 4.02
|
not set
|
Mar 15, 2024
|
||||||
|
| 4.03
|
it was amazing
|
Mar 02, 2024
|
Mar 02, 2024
|
|||||
|
| 3.75
|
liked it
|
Feb 25, 2024
|
Feb 25, 2024
|
|||||
|
| 4.11
|
not set
|
Feb 20, 2024
|
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