this is a book about sisters, scams, paris, magic, sapphic romance, and ghosts.
that's like 6 of my 10 all time favorite things.
turns out it also has athis is a book about sisters, scams, paris, magic, sapphic romance, and ghosts.
that's like 6 of my 10 all time favorite things.
turns out it also has a lot of my least favorites.
what it doesn't have enough of is story. it's not even 300 pages long and yet we don't have enough content to cover us! we try our hand at multiple perspectives (all my homies hate multiple perspectives) that cover the SAME TIMELINE, resulting in the first 200 pages becoming totally redundant as we sit through the same story once more. 150 pages of the first pov, 100 pages of the next one telling the same story, all with a slow pace and an actual plot beginning at the halfway point. by the time we catch up to where the first perspective left off we have less than 50 pages to go.
did that description make sense? it was so surreal as i was reading it i'm struggling to capture the experience.
and the bummers continued apace. this is allegedly set in paris, but it has literally 0 atmosphere and contains a bizarre choice to write one perspective in what i can only describe as "old-timey british dialect." two unredeemed, deeply annoying protagonists were the killing blow.
the writing and synopsis aren't quite my cup of tea, but i thought this could be the exception to the various rules in my hater's heart.
throw in a bunch of unresolved thoughts about familial abuse, suicide, depression, infertility, motherhood, social class, and love...and it's safe to say it was not.
bottom line: it was the best of tropes, it was the worst of tropes.
i haven't read the first one yet but i still know i want to read the secondi haven't read the first one yet but i still know i want to read the second...more
can't wait to read this armed with the knowledge i can picture a saoirse ronan performance as the protagonistcan't wait to read this armed with the knowledge i can picture a saoirse ronan performance as the protagonist...more
this is probably the most stunning exploration i've encountered of a fact of modern life that haunts me. inundated as we are with horrible news, we kethis is probably the most stunning exploration i've encountered of a fact of modern life that haunts me. inundated as we are with horrible news, we keep it all at a distance, our daily functioning relying on our shutting out that every murder, act of colonization, ongoing genocide is affecting or destroying or ending human lives as complicated and important as our own.
but the chance that a "minor detail" will strike us, as it strikes our protagonist when she encounters the story of the rape and murder of a palestinian woman by israeli soldiers that happened 25 years to the day before her birth, causes it all to collapse.
the connections it draws between our main character and the girl this violence happens to is also a disturbing, timely reminder of that same message. we are separated from those who are suffering only by minor details, in feeling and in chance.
this is a haunting and terrible story, and it's one whose twin in horror is occurring every day before our very eyes.
the least we can do is watch and feel and cry out no.
but my favorite part of this was the food descriptions.
unfortunately, the rest was extremely repetitiveof course i want to read about magic fox girls.
but my favorite part of this was the food descriptions.
unfortunately, the rest was extremely repetitive. we have two perspectives, one of a fox girl and the other of an aging investigator, both of which sound interesting and aren't. each perspective just follows its respective protagonist as they go from the same place to the next, looking for the same thing, unchanging in themselves or in the plot. i waited for this book to pick up and it never did.
the writing was also strange—a lot of moments where something would happen, and then it would be rhetorically referred to as if it didn't. a character spots another character, and then 2 sentences later, when he starts speaking to her: "he'd managed to find me after all." like, no, he just saw you. we just talked about that. "she'd used her patron's name, hoping it would open doors. which it had." okay, why did we have to say that then. it resulted in me going back and rereading a lot of paragraphs and getting frustrated.
the ending and romance came out of nowhere, after hundreds of pages of sexual harassment, but there were parts of this i enjoyed.
i just wish there were more of them.
bottom line: more foxes, more food, less weirdness.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
i so appreciate that her stories were published and we get to read from an incredible voice, even if she was gone far may diane oliver rest in peace.
i so appreciate that her stories were published and we get to read from an incredible voice, even if she was gone far too soon. these stories brilliantly explore race in america, and capture a searing image of a bygone era that is not in the distant past.
bottom line: i'm grateful these stories are finally being shared.
just a few pages into this i already felt like i couldn't catch my breath.
i read two jesmyn ward books in one month, and this one was so excellent i fjust a few pages into this i already felt like i couldn't catch my breath.
i read two jesmyn ward books in one month, and this one was so excellent i felt like i had to go back and lower the rating of the other one. the evocative, emotional, propulsive way she writes is so one of a kind.
this book doesn't have the magic aspect of the others i've read by her, and i think it's stronger for it. in its place is an unforgettable love and bond between the characters, who are full and rich. this book is hard to read and even harder not to.
i would follow the lines of a family for 300, 400, 500 pages. i've followed them for 800+! 240 pagei love family dramas.
this one just felt too short.
i would follow the lines of a family for 300, 400, 500 pages. i've followed them for 800+! 240 pages doesn't feel like enough to see the full dimensions of their dynamics, the traces of family they carry, to develop full characters i'll remember forever.
while there are moments of this that struck me, in truth there just weren't enough moments for this to stick with me.
i was so excited to read this book, which is so many of my favorite things: women who spy! family drama! historical fiction about an under-discussed gi was so excited to read this book, which is so many of my favorite things: women who spy! family drama! historical fiction about an under-discussed geopolitical moment!
its purpose — to show WWII and the era leading up to it from the british- then japanese-ruled malaysian perspective — is excellent.
unfortunately, the way this book conveyed it undermined the message.
so much tragedy occurs here. violence of every type, deaths of multiple main characters, colonization, war, labor camps, comfort stations, racism, sexism, assaults, murders, torture. it's wrenching and difficult to read.
that isn't a con of this book, obviously. all of those things really happened, and the forgotten stories of the people that experienced it deserved to be told.
it's the fact that these don't feel like real people, or real stories. our characters kill people without regret. they see untold horrors and don't feel them. they keep unforgivable secrets, commit crimes, experience trauma, and give none of it a second thought. characters change from page to page, and motivations, development arcs, and things we hold to be true aren't consistently upheld.
there is nothing that will allow us to ground ourselves in order to really feel these stories as they deserve to be felt. a character who can't pick up a stick in one paragraph is running across a camp and doing his own stunts in the next. 4 people we've been following for hundreds of pages die within one chapter. these people do terrible things without the painful justification that would allow us to feel it alongside them.
bad things happen for no reason, to people who don't feel real—nor does their suffering, keeping us on the outside as one horrible scene after another unfolds.
bottom line: i am glad this story is being told. i wish it was better equipped to be shared.
it had so much to say about america, about family, about addiction, about being native, about cultural identity, and it did itso...this was excellent.
it had so much to say about america, about family, about addiction, about being native, about cultural identity, and it did it all in such beautiful language and so precisely.
there were parts of this where it lost me, and there was one perspective i don't think added more than it took away, and if anything this was maybe too little a sequel to the first book, but the last sentences of this brought tears to my eyes.
striking.
bottom line: one of those books where you're like, wow, that's a good title, and then every sentence is as good.
--------------------- pre-review
"i can't wait to read this book" -girl who is waiting to read it
update: i should not have waited.
(4.5 / review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
if i five star a book by an author, i will read everything by that author until i'm down to grocery listsif i five star a book by an author, i will read everything by that author until i'm down to grocery lists...more
had me at "a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic"!
and it is haunting, in a lot of ways! well written, draws from the inferno and spirihad me at "a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic"!
and it is haunting, in a lot of ways! well written, draws from the inferno and spiritual sources, filled with the kind of english class-esque lengthy descriptions you can draw a bajillion themes or motif sor symbols out of.
so in that way, yes, haunting. what is not haunting, or particularly memorable, or effective: this as a novel. our narrative and our characters leave Something To Be Desired, namely believability or entertainment value or the kind of feeling of being drawn in as a reader.
but 1 out of 2 ain't bad.
bottom line: not the best jesmyn ward book, but still a jesmyn ward book....more