Esmé

We all used alot from this book as inside jokes in year 10/11 which was v cute, one of the few times in school i miss.

I studied the Bell Jar for my Alevel English Lit course work, in which we could choose a work to write an essay on or create original creative writing based off. I elected for the second, writing from the perspective of the fig tree (in the instance where it is described by Esther as a metaphor for her overwhelm over her future) as a motherly figure. I think i chose the bell jar as i was 17, on the verge of the worse period of mental health ive probably ever been through and feeling widely misunderstood... tho ive been re-reading the bell jar recently and i do think it stands up against the trope that it is just for angsty depressed teen girls - not that i think that is as awful a thing as we like to make out.

I liked this a fair bit - it sort of pulled me along well although i found myself a little confused at times. Na lent this to me, she found it quite sad and emotional which was surprising. I agree that the things that happened to In-Yo and Rabbit were tragic however i feel the story is told quite matter of factly, its quite unemotional in its presentation or perhaps as its far removed, i didnt feel particularly moved at any point.

I did really enjoy it tho and i felt like it accomplished what it set out to achieve - the story moved along at a good pace and for such a short read i felt the characters were well enough developed. I really enjoyed the structure of the narrative and feeling like we are looking in at the story rather than in the midsts of it. This illustrated the relationship between In-Yo and Rabbit and the act of recoding these second hand reflections beautifully. When Almost Brilliant told Rabbit ‘I understand. I will remember Sukai for you, and so will my children and their children.' i felt this captured a beautiful sentiment of love, loss and the sacricity (?) of memory. I would have liked the idea explored more if this were a series or longer book of the stories Chih and Almost Brilliant collected however i think it was nicely achieved given the length. Particualrly Almost Brilliants comforting of Rabbit, she understands (often unlike Chih), Rabbit doesnt have to ask.

Its hard to formulate my feelings nicely into a review but tldr - 3.7 <3

I read this fairly incrementally - usually at uni or waiting for the bus which i guess worked quite well being a collection of short stories! Really enjoyed it so thank you Kate for getting me back into reading :'))

My neighbour got this for me (shes gifted me alot of books over the years that i never read) but i remember a while after our power went out for nearly a whole day and being that at the time i was fully nocturnal i spent my time playing solitare on my mums work laptop until that died, couldn't draw or paint because i felt it was too hard with candle light and so read it as i had nothing else to do. Id not yet (and still havent) read the handmaids tale so some of it didnt make sense to me for a fair bit of the book, but i think i felt intrigued by that. I ended up reading this in under a week and feeling very surprised in myself, having not read a book outside of school since probably year 7 or 8. The jumping narrative format definitely helped keep me engaged and pull me along in the book as a non reader and i remember enjoying it a fair bit because of this!

3.5 rounded down - some spoilers

I was sure this was going to be 4 stars right up until the end. I really liked the premise although i found myself confused by the ‘rules' at times. Sometimes the narrator would use the word of a disappeared thing, sometimes would describe how foreign the name of something felt in her mouth and have to sound them out. I enjoyed the writing style and pace - i think im quite suited to this type of storytelling, whereas people in negative reviews seemed to feel frustrated by it. The characters remaining nameless felt right to me and i generally liked them enough. They werent very in depth but i didnt feel frustrated by this, the old man was my favourite however i never felt much attachment to R.

I felt incredibly exited to near the end, whilst i could foresee the events and twists that came (memory police after the party, old mans death etc), i thought that things would come to some sort of conclusion. Each disappearance was given its time up until the end, i felt the bodily disappearances were rushed and didnt give me time to digest and understand them, and then it was over. On the last section of the manuscript, when it ended on a cliff hanger i flicked through the remaining few pages stressed that, that would be that and i would get no conclusion. The same then happened back in our story, she lost her body and throughout the description i felt confused, lost, presently aware of the lack of pages left to explain what was happening, let alone the myriad of questions i had about the story and world in general. I had hoped we would learn some about the memory police, or the world outside the island even if we never learned of the Inui familys or her mothers true fate. I dont know if im just not appreciating a story which leaves questions unanswered for the reader to digest and sit with but this felt like far too many. I felt dissatisfied and liked id been lead up a great old hill by someone who knew the shape of the land, but just before we reached the peak they scurried off pointing me in the direction i needed to go which led me to a disappointing and confusing view almost entirely obscured.

Overall, i had a pleasent journey but now feel a little gutted and abandoned, like my story teller had to rush off and

i could not get through this

My favourite Shakespeare :)) All of their names have a special place in my heart <33

This is my most annotated book! (i even fucking annotated it on Genius bc its on there for some reason ;—;)

We saw the play before reading (which was uncommon for us) for Alevel English Lit and we watched a revision of it where the cast were a black family so i cannot read this from the perspective of a white family now. I really loved Death of a Salesman, it was my favourite work we studied!