Jessica
I could not get into this one at all. The voices he chose for his characters really put me off. They seemed contrived, were hard to read and even harder to empathize with, and even Saunders seems to treat his characters with disdain. The overall tone of each story is hopeless and depressing. I stuck with it for a while because the stories were short and I was hoping there'd be some redemption, but I gave up by the time I got halfway through the cavemen story.
I had to give up on this one. I just couldn't get into it. It reads like an actual Dickens novel, and I am not a Dickens fan. And the narrator is so whiny and seems fairly unreliable. I am interested in the mystery about Drood, but the plot moved at a snail's pace. There are so many great books in the world, and I'm just not up to slogging through nearly 800 pages of random exposition.
I think I have to give up on this one. Nearly 100 pages in, and I still don't care about the main characters (nor can I keep their attributes straight). In fact, several of the characters are downright loathsome. I usually love Chabon, but this one isn't gripping me. It's also hard to follow. He'll start a sentence, then add some tangent that goes on for nearly a paragraph before coming back to the main point.
Giving up on this one at page 255. I've loved his other novels, though it's been quite some time since I read one, so not sure if this was me or the book. But judging from the other reviews, I'd say it's the book. The premise is interesting, but this needed a heavy edit and I lost interest and the will to slog through overly detailed asides when my reading list is already miles long. Also, Neal, you need to forevermore stop referring to human women as “females.”
If you've already read Kendi, Oluo, Saad, and others, there won't be much new here for you. But this is an incredibly accessible book and would be a great one for tweens, teens, and the people in your life who still say things like “I don't see race” or “All lives matter.” I loved Joseph's conversational tone, music recs, and the little callout boxes in each chapter telling folks what to Google for more info.
This is the laugh-out-loud funny escapism we all need right now. I couldn't stop sneaking paragraphs in between video meetings, which was a terrible and brilliant idea. Terrible because I had to try not to laugh as I recalled what I read (and I got called out more than once for this–“what's so funny?”), and brilliant because the humor somehow made work more bearable for a few days.
I'm kind of mad I spent so much time slogging through this. It had SO MUCH hype and the premise was super intriguing, so I thought it would eventually get better, or all the terror and violence would have some sort of satisfying payoff, but no. This book was A LOT. “Brutal,” as many reviewers described this, must now be code for “contains a lot of rape and pedophilia and pseudo-bestiality,” so my bad, I guess, for opening the cover anyway. And further my bad for continuing even after the book pretty much told me in the first few pages what it was going to be. And I do mean told. This is not a book that shows you anything. It prefers long-winded, nonsensical, overly stuffed exposition at every turn, with as many mentions of penises, violent sex, and egregious bodily harm as possible. And look, I'm not usually a delicate reader and I'm rarely offended and this is not my first book set within an African mythos, but what the hell, Marlon, and what the hell, National Book Award committee?
This is a really hard book to rate. Definite trigger warning for abuse, rape, neglect. Yet the protagonist is very compelling, and especially in the last half of the book, I could not stop turning the pages. One burning question, though, is why nobody tried to intervene sooner? That part was so unbelievable to me. The minute Daisy knew the full extent of what Lacey Mae went through, she should've called a social worker.
This was such a strange reading experience for me. I'd be absolutely bored and about to give up on it, and then some spark would engage my interest for a chapter or two before I'd get utterly bored again. In the end, I feel like nothing really happened and there was no character development. It's entirely possible the book was too smart for me, though.
Kinda wish I could unread this. It was compelling enough at first, if repetitive, but I kept hoping it would reveal more about the father's motivations than the very thin, unsatisfying reason revealed in the last few pages. And even though I suspected where the plot “twist” was going, I'm still very disgusted the author decided to include not only incestuous rape but a pregnancy resulting from that, especially the rushed way in which it was done at the very end. I understand what trauma does to your psyche can be a compelling topic to explore, but the author doesn't really do that here–it just ends up feeling sordid.
An important book, but perhaps overly dry and academic. The most interesting takeaways for me were:
* rural folks feel looked over and left behind by government and perceive that the majority of their tax dollars leave the community and never come back, whether or not this is actually true
* the common narrative that people vote Republican because they're rich or believe they will/can be someday is flawed. The conversations Cramer observed suggest that Republicans have been so successful because they tap into existing resentments; namely, the government, people who work for it, and urban areas full of liberals and people of color. So the “them” or the “haves” is defined not by affluence, but by culture
* most rural/”small government” folks don't actually oppose education, despite the common narratives and rural voting patterns. Rather, many of these folks would be willing to pay more taxes for money that would improve education, but they perceive that their tax dollars go only to urban schools or “undeserving” school teachers (these folks strongly resent public employees, who are perceived as “haves”). So it's not more money for public education these voters oppose, but their desire to limit this aspect of government so as not to benefit the perceived recipients.
* likewise, it is too simplistic to say rural and Republican voters favor small government. They don't usually actually support the principle of small government, but rather oppose particular social groups (again, usually because of a perception of undeservingness)
However, aside from the government doing a much better job of showing how tax dollars are used and how social programs do benefit rural communities, I still don't know how to get around rural consciousness. Listening alone, while it may soften neighbors and increase acceptance, is not going to actually change hearts and minds. And study after study shows that many people just double down on their beliefs when presented with facts that contradict them. Cramer suggests that we need to stop letting politicians prey upon divisiveness and, while I agree, again, how do you get everyone to stop buying into classic us vs them narratives?
TLDR: while this book was interesting and insightful, I'm still left feeling rather pessimistic about the general population.
A timely read that offers a unique view into the hillbilly mindset (and at times hit uncomfortably close to home). But it's ultimately lighter on the analysis than I had been led to believe from interviews with the author. I can see how/why many government programs aren't the answer to Appalachia's woes but would have liked more insight into how we can “put a thumb on the scales,” as the author put it. Without more concrete ideas about this, it left me feeling pretty pessimistic about US culture in general.
An important, thoroughly engaging read. While some found the protagonist too whiny and self-absorbed, I found Riley was a very believable teen voice. However, the novel is not without its flaws. Bec was too manic pixie dream girl for my tastes. And I think the author lost a big opportunity to introduce gender-neutral pronouns, and discuss in general how improper pronoun use can further harm trans and non-binary individuals.
Solid premise and writing, but in the end overly reliant on deus ex machina and I became distracted by too many unanswered questions. I would've liked to see this developed into a full-length novel with more backstory on the Tesslies, and even a bit more about how Julie's algorithms worked (anyone who knows me will know that this is a downright shocking statement).
Parts of this novel were really lush and gorgeous–especially the parts with Hild noticing the natural world around her. But like many readers, I had a very hard time keeping people and places straight, even with the map and glossary and family tree. I feel like there's a lot of subplot that I totally missed, primarily, whatever Breguswith was plotting the whole time. And the ending came out of left field. Why on earth did the author feel the need to create this character in the first place, and then make him Hild's half brother on top of it if she was just going to have them wed? Is there some political or historical significance to this that I'm missing?
I wanted a feel-good cheesy book for the holidays, a novel equivalent of a cheesy Lifetime movie. This was definitely cheesy, but I never cared about the characters enough to get warm fuzzies from it. Too repetitive, and far too many plot contrivances. Though I did find the village itself charming and exactly the kind of setting I'd love to live in, especially during the holidays.
Overall an enjoyable enough Gothic horror tale, but a few of the characters were annoying and there are some plot holes/confusion (especially around the whole tetanus thing). Also, some of the text seemed eerily similar to parts of The Southern Reach trilogy (feeling a “resonance” and “clarity”, becoming other, etc.). It may be that both just drew on the Cthulu mythos, which I've never actually read (did I just ruin my nerd-girl cred?). Despite these quibbles, I am intrigued enough, especially by the inspector character, to read the next book in the series.