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Steph's Reviews > I Have Some Questions for You
I Have Some Questions for You
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⚠️ Warning - long rant ahead ⚠️
TL;DR version - this didn’t work for me at all, but everyone else seems to love it 🤷🏼♀️
Mark this down as yet another super hyped book that didn’t work for me. I’ve seen nothing but glowing reviews for this, but I really didn’t like it. It was painfully slow and far too long, it easily could have been trimmed back 100+ pages without losing anything important. There are also side plots that added very little to the story. This is classified as a Literary Thriller but it is not at all thrilling. I would really say its more part Literary slow burn mystery and part coming of age story.
I found the MC Bodie frustrating - she’s whiny, annoying and self absorbed in that everything has to relate back to her. So much time is spent by Bodie taking the story of her friends murder and trying to focus it on herself and her issues at the school. While also being sure to tell everyone that the podcast about the murder totally wasn’t her idea - literally this is the first thing she says to multiple people who she hasn’t talked to in years. Priorities. 🙄
I often find that Literary Fiction books focus on social issues, but this one felt like it was trying to hit upon far too many. Gender norms, racism, me too era, covid, the justice system, misogyny, cancel culture, sexual assault, predatory behavior and more, yes more! I think this would have been more effective if the author had focused on a few of these issues and really dug in and analyzed and challenged what could be done about them, or how the full impact of each is felt. Instead it was done in a very heavy handed way and issues were brought up and then quickly discarded.
There were so many characters to keep track of between the present timeline and her past time at the school and I really struggled to remember who was who. I did this on audio which probably helped contribute to this confusion, but eventually I gave up on trying to keep all the minor players straight. Randomly the MC would just begin to start listing out a variety of cases with women as the victim (was it the one about the women who was found in the dumpster, or no was it the one about… etc) which for me didn’t have the impact I think she was going for, and instead I ended up skipping past these sections after the first two instances.
When part two begins I thought it might finally pick up, but then the way its done we have to get all the information second hand which does not make for exciting reading. Things took a wildly unbelievable turn and felt very Scooby Doo in how things were found out. I really did not like how it ended, it annoyed me and I felt like I walked away from this wondering what point the author was trying to make. I gave it 2⭐️ bc I did finish it, but I also feel like I stuck it out only bc I’d already invested so much time in the far too long book.
TL;DR version - this didn’t work for me at all, but everyone else seems to love it 🤷🏼♀️
Mark this down as yet another super hyped book that didn’t work for me. I’ve seen nothing but glowing reviews for this, but I really didn’t like it. It was painfully slow and far too long, it easily could have been trimmed back 100+ pages without losing anything important. There are also side plots that added very little to the story. This is classified as a Literary Thriller but it is not at all thrilling. I would really say its more part Literary slow burn mystery and part coming of age story.
I found the MC Bodie frustrating - she’s whiny, annoying and self absorbed in that everything has to relate back to her. So much time is spent by Bodie taking the story of her friends murder and trying to focus it on herself and her issues at the school. While also being sure to tell everyone that the podcast about the murder totally wasn’t her idea - literally this is the first thing she says to multiple people who she hasn’t talked to in years. Priorities. 🙄
I often find that Literary Fiction books focus on social issues, but this one felt like it was trying to hit upon far too many. Gender norms, racism, me too era, covid, the justice system, misogyny, cancel culture, sexual assault, predatory behavior and more, yes more! I think this would have been more effective if the author had focused on a few of these issues and really dug in and analyzed and challenged what could be done about them, or how the full impact of each is felt. Instead it was done in a very heavy handed way and issues were brought up and then quickly discarded.
There were so many characters to keep track of between the present timeline and her past time at the school and I really struggled to remember who was who. I did this on audio which probably helped contribute to this confusion, but eventually I gave up on trying to keep all the minor players straight. Randomly the MC would just begin to start listing out a variety of cases with women as the victim (was it the one about the women who was found in the dumpster, or no was it the one about… etc) which for me didn’t have the impact I think she was going for, and instead I ended up skipping past these sections after the first two instances.
When part two begins I thought it might finally pick up, but then the way its done we have to get all the information second hand which does not make for exciting reading. Things took a wildly unbelievable turn and felt very Scooby Doo in how things were found out. I really did not like how it ended, it annoyed me and I felt like I walked away from this wondering what point the author was trying to make. I gave it 2⭐️ bc I did finish it, but I also feel like I stuck it out only bc I’d already invested so much time in the far too long book.
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message 101:
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Brianne
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rated it 2 stars
Feb 16, 2024 07:49PM
This 👆. Exactly this 👆
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You summed everything up so well. This book sucked.
I actually loved it. It seemed sophisticated without seeming “slick”!
1000% all of this. Well said
Very much agree with this review! Very well said!
Thank you! You saved me from wasting any more time with this book.
Couldn’t have said it better myself
100% accurate review.
I am on page 67 now and doing everything i can not to DNF it. I find the descriptive language to be masterful, but my god, the slow-as-molasses pacing seems designed to make me quit. Even the interior scenes hold no intrigue for me--typically I like the peeks into the mundane, but somehow even that has been made a slog here. I also cannot connect with the MC Bodie (at least not yet) no matter how hard I try.
“Very scooby doo” is a cutting and accurate diss!
Thanks for your review. Just from all that you’ve shared, it hits upon just about everything I find annoying in novels. You have made me reach the decision s to pass on this one, and 1) not torture myself, 2) avoid my peculiarity of idiosyncratic behavior of self-flagellation on DNF’s
I agree, but I also thought the worst/most tedious part was the reminiscing about the 90’s. It felt too much like pandering to nostalgic 40-yr olds. The thing I did “like” and told my friends as a recommendation to read it was that I was reading g it before bed and it worked perfectly for that! I was never, ever tempted to stay up too late reading and it was boring enough to make me feel sleepy.
Heidi Wolske Dugger: I agree with everyone who has said it was boring, too long, too many characters, etc but when I read your comment about "you" that clinched it for me. I was extremely frustrated by that in addition to everything else that contributed to the amount of effort I put into reading it. It was a book club selection and I really wanted to finish it even if my enjoyment reading it was minimal. I do look forward to our club discussion and hope I am not the only one who was disappointed. I don't know at what point I made the decision to skip to the last few parts because I had it in all 3 formats (Kindle, print, audio) in an effort to keep people straight. Rereading what I heard on audio thinking I had missed something important. Nothing really helped. As I aged (currently late 70s) I learned it was not "against the rules" to not finish a book that frustrates me, especially when that frustration stems from unrewarded efforts to understand the story or a lack of enjoyment while reading it.
I agree wholeheartedly with all the above comments. I find that with many books lately my first reaction is, “Where was the editor?” This book is a perfect example of that. I think this happens particularly often in the case of authors whose previous work was acclaimed. It’s as if publishers just assume all their subsequent work will be of the same quality and won’t require any additional tweaking.
Completely agree with this review. I only got half way thru and was bored to tears. Too many side quests for my liking. The writing style also seems like a stream of consciousness rather than being fully thought-out and realized. Hopefully someone else loves this book, it just wasn't for me.
Hit the nail on the head! AND THE ENDING!? WHAT WAS THAT MADNESS?!
Agreed! We kept waiting for the hype…womp womp…there isn’t any.
I was so frustrated by that ending and felt so robbed of time (which I do not think was a literary tactic) and the only satisfaction I was able to recoup is coming here and seeing these comments
