Isabella (isabunchofbooks)'s Reviews > I Have Some Questions for You

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai

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I Have Some Questions for You
by

Rebecca Makkai (Goodreads Author)

Isabella (isabunchofbooks)'s review

Feb 20, 2023

did not like it

Listen, this book was going to be 4 stars until the ending, which I found incredibly problematic. But in writing this review, it's clear to me that would have been way too high a rating regardless of the ending! Spoilers and an explanation below! If you've read this, or don't plan on reading it/don't care about spoilers, would love to hear your thoughts. Will also preface by saying I don't reveal who the killer is in the spoiler section below.

(view spoiler)[ This book is taking a look at a crime 25 years later through the lens of #MeToo, and that's done reasonably well for the most part with the glaring exception of Jerome (if you know, you know).

Laced throughout this entire narrative - we are told to our faces more than once, and it is implied as well - that the unconscious bias of the white students at the boarding school, including the main character/narrator Bodie, made them indirectly responsible for the wrongful conviction of Omar, a young black man. At the end of the book, Omar is denied a new trial, despite the true murderer having been revealed to us and Bodie. This book is written by a white woman, and that bleak ending just didn't sit well with me despite the fact it may have been realistic, ESPECIALLY because of what the main character had to say about it. Bodie literally comments that she has faith Omar will make it through to his next appeal because he's an athlete and he's strong (after he nearly died after being stabbed in prison during a case of mistaken identity and his mother dies from COVID). What the fuck?! This, after the whole book tries to make a point that Omar was able to be convicted - despite all the problems with the case, such as the physical evidence being not only questionable but severely compromised, an interrogation that wasn't recorded, a confession that was coerced, and investigators who didn't ask the questions that they should have - because these white kids made up stories and passed around rumors that they repeated to law enforcement that were derived from their preconceived notions about black men and their connection to drugs and violence. And after all that, this white author had her white character say what she said. And the problem is, this book doesn't know what it's trying to be (a thriller, dark academia, literary fiction with a dash of crime... it couldn't figure itself out or truly commit to any of these), so I didn't feel like the author was having Bodie say and do the things she did in the end to make a statement about racism and bias, it read like they were both just plain ignorant. I should also mention this book is also written kind of like a letter in the second person to this teacher, Mr. Bloch, who, yes, is a predator and should be in jail, granted, but Bodie is so convinced until the last 1/4 of the book that he's the murderer. And when Omar is denied a new trial, Bodie cares more about him getting what he deserves than the fact she now knows who the real killer is and that Omar is innocent and has been sitting in jail for 25 years. (hide spoiler)]

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Reading Progress

December 18, 2022 – Shelved

December 18, 2022 – Shelved as: to-read

February 20, 2023 – Started Reading

February 20, 2023 – Finished Reading

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message 1: by KPETE (new)

Feb 22, 2023 10:21AM

Thank you! I really appreciate your review and am glad that I read it first. I started the book and then I decided to read more reviews and I am so glad that I didn’t finish the book or get very far into it and then get very upset about the exact things that you wrote about. Thanks again!

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message 2: by Isabella (isabunchofbooks) (new) - rated it 1 star

Feb 23, 2023 09:11PM

KPETE wrote: "Thank you! I really appreciate your review and am glad that I read it first. I started the book and then I decided to read more reviews and I am so glad that I didn’t finish the book or get very fa..."

Glad to know I'm not alone!

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message 3: by Natalie (new) - added it

Mar 25, 2023 06:37AM

I felt like so many of these storylines were just so pointless. This whole build up with Bloch and then it just fizzled out. I felt like she tried super hard to be all hip and woke and hit all the hot topics but it was all just so “meh.” I think you’re right—this book didn’t know at all what it wanted to be. So it just felt like a mess. It would have been better if there had been a singular focus.

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message 4: by Jameil (new)

Apr 03, 2023 03:12PM

Thank you so much for the spoilers. I just quit when she started fantasizing about Omar killing Thalia.

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message 5: by Jessica (new) - rated it 1 star

Apr 23, 2023 01:24PM

Bodie's commentary is especially callous when you remember Omar has only gotten one meal a day through the whole trial, and it's mentioned he's dealing with chronic pain that almost certainly won't be treated in prison.

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message 6: by Annie (new) - rated it 1 star

May 22, 2023 02:41PM

Who was the killer?? I couldn’t read this.

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message 7: by Gabrielle (new) - rated it 1 star

Jun 20, 2023 12:39PM

I listened to this entire book and I have no idea who the killer actually was. I came to read spoilers to help me with that! I thought it was the teacher, but at the end it just rambled and my mind wondered away so many times.

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message 8: by Darla (new)

Jun 28, 2023 01:56PM

To the letter, I feel the same way after finishing this book. Most of this novel was compelling and then I get to the end and see Omar — who has had one cruelty after another heaped on him — be the only person who is denied anything resembling dignity. Him being denied lunch and dinner during the hearing bruised my heart, but then to see him denied a new trial made me livid.

Even the culpable guys had the dignity of, you know, continuing to walk free. Even the white "former mean girl" who first floated Omar's name to the cops gets redemption. And yet Omar gets sent back to prison.

I agree with you 100% about the "athlete" comment. And wanna add another thing that was such a white author move: Bodie's reverie of seeing an elderly man, exonerated after decades for a crime he didn't commit, lifted out of his wheelchair at a baseball game to touch the grass with his bare feet. Wow, thanks? As if there's romance in this kind of state violence and suffering.

After what seemed to be a mostly thoughtful novel, Rebecca Makkai reveals that she thinks our lives are a joke. The white characters in the end see things work out for themselves but the "sad truth" resolution gets reserved for the Black character who's been grievously harmed.

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message 9: by Victoria (new) - rated it 2 stars

Nov 29, 2023 11:30AM

spoiler**

the fact that the story went from it was the black man to the it was the white working class dude, and using the fact that rich kids paid for his vacations and helped him with clothes as evidence of him being devious .. it was a choice... of a whole school of rich kids it was the other poor character...

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Isabella (isabunchofbooks)'s Reviews > I Have Some Questions for You

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