mari
i loved this but i also cant imagine literally anyone else enjoying this
to say the humor is dry feels like a gross understatement, but it definitely plays into the idea that selin is a naive college freshman and these awkward situations and their consequently dry humor were incredibly amusing to me
i think this is just your average coming of age story, except pretentious (think sally rooney but less weird occurrences). it follows a very typical american 4 year college experience where in your freshman year youre meeting a gazillion new people, getting exposed to a lot of ideas and thoughts that make you pretentious, and falling for the first person to give you a smidgen of attention (like, obsessively falling for)
then the trip through europe was fun, especially for an inexperienced american. the language is nice because it generally lacks any judgment, as though you as the reader are meant to draw your own conclusions.
i absolutely do not recommend this book however unless all of the above appeals to you, and you don't mind 400 pages of it
i genuinely think this is one of the only few western WWII era books worth reading (this and the lovely war, but i have to reread it now that i have really developed my taste)
a lot of people complained about the epistolary format, but i really enjoyed it. i would have absolutely hated to have read this book from any one character's point of view (especially juliet's), so being able to hear every character speak about their experiences during the occupation of guernsey on top of modern day events of trying to find out about elizabeth and take care of her child was made much more interesting
lots of extraneous stuff, though. nothing regarding juliet and her various romances was worth however much page space was wasted on it
i'm not even 100% sure where to start, but i'll give it a go. this is one of my favorite books of all time.
it sounds sadistic, but i like reading books where there are traumatic experiences i have personally experienced and/or can relate to. in this case, mary jane living a fearful life under the roof of her bigoted, judgmental conservative parents hits incredibly close to home, and i found myself tearing up as mary jane learns that what she thinks and feels and believes are all valid, only her parents are telling her that there's something “wrong” with her. it was incredibly moving to see her open up and become an integral part of the cone family, all while helping jimmy recover and being the best fake-big sister to izzy. this book gave me a tight hug and reminded me that i don't have to be a product of my parents if i don't want to, and that there's nothing wrong with being me.
also i was 100% imagining sebastian stan as tommy lee for jimmy so that certainly helped my enjoyment
400 pages of white people wanting so bad to be oppressed but just being completely incapable of properly communicating and caring for each other
i liked the itty bitty bits of love letters to literature, and how this book made fun of pretentious lit majors. but also this book is for those very pretentious lit majors lol
the fun part about a lot of greek myths is that there is room for interpretation with why various figures did various things, and i think that this book has an interesting take on ariadne x theseus, as well as phaedra x theseus, but falls short really exploring the complex relationship between ariadne and dionysus (mostly because this book paints dionysus as a golden retriever husband and not a twisted sexual deviant cult leader)
the connecting thread of motherhood and the role of mothers in the home grows thin and almost invisible throughout the story, especially with regards to phaedra and her sisterly relationship with ariadne. i think that the emphasis of starting a hero's (e.g. dionysus, theseus, heracles etc) story with the mother was quite stark to me, however. will be looking to see how authors approach this in the future
also, needed more hera. not enough pissed off hera, because most greek myth stories are equally as much about pissed off hera as they are about zeus and his uncontrollable sperm donations
but good discussions of why dionysus differs from the other olympians, and why that kind of weaves into his whole schtick as a god. felt for the dude at times, then remembered that he's the root of the term “bacchanal”, which imo is used too liberally these days given the origins in uhhh tearing people apart
i know this sounds like a lot of criticisms for a 4 star review but i think just about everything else was knocked out of the park. ran out of correctly colored tabs several times throughout reading this, hi can someone pls send more thx
THIS WAS MCFREAKIN' DELIGHTFUL
this book was so much fun, from the banter to the shenanigans, and steamy, with mari-approved smut, to the heartstring-pulling conversations around the complications of unconventional family structures. fell in love with delilah, absolutely adored claire, iris made me laugh often, and astrid somehow in the end became my favorite character
i am SO excited for astrid's book!!
outsold the iliad and the odyssey lbh
women have always gotten the short end of the stick in greek mythology, and while a thousand ships doesn't mean to change their endings, at least they are now given the chance to have their side of the story told. stories like klytemnestra's and penelope's feel especially loud in this context, as their stories are so complicated and they are such complex people, but are reduced to “so-and-so”'s wife to most people. let them be remembered as the vengeful queen and the queen who deserved better!