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Jessica ❁ ➳ Silverbow ➳ ❁ 's Reviews > The Shape of Water
The Shape of Water
by
by
Jessica ❁ ➳ Silverbow ➳ ❁ 's review
bookshelves: it-came-from-the-sea, historical-fiction, buddy-reads-are-the-best, paranormal-romance, rabid-reads-reviews, that-bastard, shiny
Apr 10, 2018
bookshelves: it-came-from-the-sea, historical-fiction, buddy-reads-are-the-best, paranormal-romance, rabid-reads-reviews, that-bastard, shiny
Read 2 times. Last read April 4, 2018 to April 10, 2018.
Reviewed by: Rabid Reads
THE SHAPE OF WATER is a strange book. For a variety of reasons.
1. Dual film/book release, which, to my knowledge, has never been done before.
2. It’s only 312 pages long, but it has a cumulative 130 chapters (split into four sections).
That’s an average of 2.4 pages per chapter.
In the past, I’ve knocked an entire star off my overall rating of a book if a mere portion of it felt choppy and chaotic b/c short chapters. And before TSoW, I considered a ten page chapter to be short.
3. All those tiny, tiny “chapters” are told from multiple POVs, which I almost always hate outside of 500+ page fantasy novels, preferably in a long-running series.
BUT.
Somehow del Toro and Kraus pack so much personality, so much meaningful information, so much feeling into those tiny, tiny chapters that the only reason I noticed their length is b/c when I buddy read a book, I usually comment in the group thread every five chapters.
Getting through five chapters went a lot quicker than it usually does.
As for the alternate POVs (six of them), it doesn’t work outside of epic fantasy, b/c you don’t have enough time to connect with your storytellers, but that wasn’t a problem here. The short, powerful chapters had an effect usually reserved for significantly longer books—I felt like I knew the characters, and knew them well, almost immediately.
So there’s that.
The story itself . . . It had ups and downs.
Basically, the military captures a mythical fish-man-creature in South America and transports it to a research facility to poke, prod, and torture it (b/c ‘Merica). Then a woman on said facility’s custodial staff falls in love with the fish-man-creature and tries to rescue it before its dissected for research.
Pretty simple, right? Government bad, underdog good. Love conquers all.
Yes and no.
B/c despite the apparent simplicity of the setup, there is nothing simple about this story.
Elisa is an orphan with mysterious scars on her throat, the byproduct of a surgery she has no memory of or explanation for that left her unable to speak. Her loneliness is palpable. Strickland is a career military man clearly suffering from PTSD, yet he is a wholly unsympathetic character, b/c dude is a sadistic bastard. His training only serves to give him the experience and authority to break more shit than a civilian could. Lanie is a housewife whose newly gained independence is yanked away with the return of a husband she’d reconciled herself to losing.
And the list goes on.
All of this is made more intense by the 1960s setting. The evil man has more power. The orphan, the gay man, the black woman, and the white housewife have fewer options, are thoughtlessly victimized in ways that fifty years later seem incomprehensible.
SO. Not only is TSoW a fantastical story of captured sea gods and thwarting the Man, it’s a complex social commentary—it’s remarkable how much was accomplished in just 312 pages.
That being said, I did have a few minor issues, most of them spoilers, so don’t click the spoiler tag unless your prepared for the consequences:
1. (view spoiler)
2. Worst sex scene I’ve ever read. It’s so bad that when I texted book bff about it, she not only immediately recognized my quote referencing it, she responded WITH THE NEXT LINE:
(view spoiler)
3. In the words of book bff: those fingers will haunt me forever.
You: What fingers? O.o
Me: Someone loses a couple of fingers in an altercation with fish-man-creature. They get reattached, but b/c reasons, we know there’s s possibility they won’t take.
You: Eww.
Me: You have no idea.
BUT. A couple of lost digits, etc. are hardly reasons big enough to stop you from experiencing THE SHAPE OF WATER for yourself. I can honestly say, it’s been a unique experience, and it’s one I highly recommend.
Now I’m going to watch the movie. I’ll let you know how it goes. *winks*
THE SHAPE OF WATER is a strange book. For a variety of reasons.
1. Dual film/book release, which, to my knowledge, has never been done before.
2. It’s only 312 pages long, but it has a cumulative 130 chapters (split into four sections).
That’s an average of 2.4 pages per chapter.
In the past, I’ve knocked an entire star off my overall rating of a book if a mere portion of it felt choppy and chaotic b/c short chapters. And before TSoW, I considered a ten page chapter to be short.
3. All those tiny, tiny “chapters” are told from multiple POVs, which I almost always hate outside of 500+ page fantasy novels, preferably in a long-running series.
BUT.
Somehow del Toro and Kraus pack so much personality, so much meaningful information, so much feeling into those tiny, tiny chapters that the only reason I noticed their length is b/c when I buddy read a book, I usually comment in the group thread every five chapters.
Getting through five chapters went a lot quicker than it usually does.
As for the alternate POVs (six of them), it doesn’t work outside of epic fantasy, b/c you don’t have enough time to connect with your storytellers, but that wasn’t a problem here. The short, powerful chapters had an effect usually reserved for significantly longer books—I felt like I knew the characters, and knew them well, almost immediately.
So there’s that.
The story itself . . . It had ups and downs.
Basically, the military captures a mythical fish-man-creature in South America and transports it to a research facility to poke, prod, and torture it (b/c ‘Merica). Then a woman on said facility’s custodial staff falls in love with the fish-man-creature and tries to rescue it before its dissected for research.
Pretty simple, right? Government bad, underdog good. Love conquers all.
Yes and no.
B/c despite the apparent simplicity of the setup, there is nothing simple about this story.
Elisa is an orphan with mysterious scars on her throat, the byproduct of a surgery she has no memory of or explanation for that left her unable to speak. Her loneliness is palpable. Strickland is a career military man clearly suffering from PTSD, yet he is a wholly unsympathetic character, b/c dude is a sadistic bastard. His training only serves to give him the experience and authority to break more shit than a civilian could. Lanie is a housewife whose newly gained independence is yanked away with the return of a husband she’d reconciled herself to losing.
And the list goes on.
All of this is made more intense by the 1960s setting. The evil man has more power. The orphan, the gay man, the black woman, and the white housewife have fewer options, are thoughtlessly victimized in ways that fifty years later seem incomprehensible.
SO. Not only is TSoW a fantastical story of captured sea gods and thwarting the Man, it’s a complex social commentary—it’s remarkable how much was accomplished in just 312 pages.
That being said, I did have a few minor issues, most of them spoilers, so don’t click the spoiler tag unless your prepared for the consequences:
1. (view spoiler)
2. Worst sex scene I’ve ever read. It’s so bad that when I texted book bff about it, she not only immediately recognized my quote referencing it, she responded WITH THE NEXT LINE:
(view spoiler)
3. In the words of book bff: those fingers will haunt me forever.
You: What fingers? O.o
Me: Someone loses a couple of fingers in an altercation with fish-man-creature. They get reattached, but b/c reasons, we know there’s s possibility they won’t take.
You: Eww.
Me: You have no idea.
BUT. A couple of lost digits, etc. are hardly reasons big enough to stop you from experiencing THE SHAPE OF WATER for yourself. I can honestly say, it’s been a unique experience, and it’s one I highly recommend.
Now I’m going to watch the movie. I’ll let you know how it goes. *winks*
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The Shape of Water.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
January 27, 2018
– Shelved
April 4, 2018
–
Started Reading
April 4, 2018
–
1.88%
"She’d felt ragingly alive in the dream, but now she’s as inert as the eggs cooling on a plate. There’s a mirror here in the bedroom, too, but she chooses not to look at it, just in case her hunch is true and she’s invisible.
😕"
page
6
😕"
April 9, 2018
–
16.0%
"It was a lonesome spot. No one would hear her if she spoke. So she’d told lies into the cold, lapping water until there were none left to tell: She was happy that her husband had returned. She was fulfilled. She was optimistic about the future.
😩😭😩"
😩😭😩"
April 10, 2018
–
Finished Reading
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message 1:
by
Choko
(new)
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rated it 4 stars
Apr 07, 2018 06:05AM
Yeah, that was sooo sad.... :(
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Choko wrote: "Yeah, that was sooo sad.... :("The status update? B/c yeah . . . That’s rough. This whole thing is rough. 😩
Jessica ❁ ➳ Silverbow ➳ ❁ Rabid Reads wrote: "Choko wrote: "Yeah, that was sooo sad.... :("The status update? B/c yeah . . . That’s rough. This whole thing is rough. 😩"
Exactly! The book had me crying on several occasions, but I really liked it overall:):):)
I`m curios how it compares to the movie. I mean del toro wrote both right? I saw the movie in february and love it.
I've never seen a dual book/movie release but I like the idea of it. I'm going to watch the movie now after finishing the book. But I wonder if it was capture the magic that was the prose of the book.
Oda Renate wrote: "I`m curios how it compares to the movie. I mean del toro wrote both right? I saw the movie in february and love it."Co-wrote the book, no idea about the screenplay. I don’t know how they compare either. I just finished the book last night, and no way was I going to watch the movie before I’d read the book. 🤓
Robin wrote: "I'm going to watch the movie now after finishing the book. But I wonder if it was capture the magic that was the prose of the book."Me too. Kinda doubtful b/c movies rarely do, but with it being a planned dual release, maybe it’ll be better than usual. 😬
I dident know it was a book before I saw the movie. Yes I know he wrote the screenplay as well. Well he co wrote it but its rare only one person writes a movie.
I can’t read the review yet because I plan on reading it soon, but I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Alexandra wrote: "I can’t read the review yet because I plan on reading it soon, but I’m glad you enjoyed it!"Just make sure you watch the movie BEFORE you read the book. If you’re planning on watching it. If you read the book first, you’ll hate the movie. 😘
Dual book film release: Hannibal Rising. It was not a good example of how to do it!
Excellent review. I haven't watched the film yet cause I usually do it this way. If the film is only half as good as the book I'll like it anyway.
I watched the movie for a English class, and I had no idea there even was a book! I'm considering reading it, but I'm curious, does it go into further depth on character backgrounds? That's the main thing I would be looking for. Is it exactly like the movie or are there enough differences to make it a worthwhile read?
"2001" was a dual film/book release.
Yes, 2001: A Space Odyssey was the same concept.
