Carolina Fantaccini Brito
I read this in 2000, and it has been burnt in my mind ever since as the stupidest, cheesiest thing I ever read.
I was forced to read this for school when I was 12 and... ugh.
You know, when people talk about schools killing children's potential pleasure for reading by forcing down their throats some classics without proper context and without easing the kids into them through more dynamic, age apropriate literature, it's hard for me to relate - I went to excellent schools that yeah, made us read some classics, but there was always a pretty awesome class about those books so we would know what we were getting into. It just nurtured my love for reading.
That is, except when they did this: recommend message-y, self-help drivel. The sort of annoying, preachy nonsense you get in a motivational cult. Hated those books at 12, continue to hate them 30 years on.
Remains of The Day is beyond a doubt Ishiguro's magnum opus, but I kind of love how f** up this one is. Never Let Me Go exudes gut-punching sadness and beauty in a dystopian scenario that would have been cheaply used as shock factor by a less skilled writer.
It's cute. Didn't blow my mind, but the “science the sh*** out of this” shenanigans were a lot fun. Yes, it does feel a lot like The Martian at times, but with a different and interesting enough premise to make it worthwhile. The most unbeliebable part of this was the protagonist not knowing about Pete Best. Dude! Come on! Beatles lore is not something you can avoid even if you want to.
I was going to rate it 3 stars, but I felt bad. Did I like the book? Hell, no. Do I think it's bad? Absolutely not. It's just not my thing. So, if I was going to rate from the gut, 2.75 rounded up to 3. But I can objectively see its qualities, so here, take the 4th star.
I don't plan to ruin my good youthful memories of this book by re-reading it as a middle-aged woman.
Yeah, no, sorry, not for me. Maybe I'm too old, but I found this extremely tame for the time and scene in which it's supposed to take place. To me it felt almost like a PG 13 romantic-ish fanfic of the seminal punk classic Kill Me Please. It's way too well behaved and proper: even though it deals with substance abuse and well, sometimes abuse in general, it felt too gentle, like it was trying to keep things classy in a scene that was anything but. I do think it was well written, and I can see why “the young folks” - man, I am annoying - love it. It is a pretty story, and it has one excellent character (not Daisy, nor the dude whose name I already forgot). But for me, a 70s rock'n roll story needed more bite.
⭐️ 4.5 - Rounded it up.
The Urras as 20th century Earth bit annoyed me a little, but when everything came together in the end, the whole of it was pretty great. Well crafted and well written, though not as lyrical as The Left Hand of Darkness.
Now I want to read the entirety of the Hainish Cycle.
Yes, it's as silly as you heard it was. Why does it get a second star? Because it's mercifully short.
As soon as Dietrich arrives in Hollywood, the book stops feeling like a biography and becomes very, very gossipy. There is very little of the woman herself, and a lot of how her daughter perceives her. We are given glimpses of her that feel cartoony even if that could very well be her actual behavior. Which is valid, and I don't want to minimize the things Maria Riva went through, but perhaps the the book would benefit from a title change, something like “Marlene and The Child”.
