I'm a Fan

1.5

stop making beautiful and fun covers for bad books I beg you

A contemptuous book. Other reviews here on the site have said what I think about this book in a far better way already, but I really did not care about this and should have DNF'd it tbh.

Talking briefly about the good. I liked the style and snappiness of the book. Chapters were often short and digestible to really coherent thoughts or streams of thoughts or actions. The narration style also was something I enjoyed, being a glimpse into the unnamed narrator's mind about different things going on. Time span was a little hard to pinpoint but also kinda irrelevant so it made it easy to view this as a memoir of notes about a person's life.

However I basically detested everything else about this book. No single character was likable, certainly including the main narrator, and I think that's largely because their viewpoint was so venomous and filled with spite. Painted in that lens nobody is going to be likable. The main character's motives were so sad and pitiable and their view of everything and everyone around them was so marred with distrust and inhospitality that I kept thinking the entire time how much I never wanted to meet anyone in this book but especially not her. The narrator really needed to get over herself but also this one guy she's following.

One thing I was particularly disappointed in was the narrator's view on race and gender. She tackled both of these social topics, and a few more, several times over the course of the book, but never with any coherence or lingering thought. It was always unbridled rage about the situation she and others like her were in. She complained endlessly about white people and about men and frankly I agree with her and I think it's important to expose those things. However, she didn't really actually SAY anything interesting or useful about them. She kinda just beat the points over with a bat and said they're unequivocally bad and that they make her life miserable. And I'm sorry if that's the case, and she's right that she is a victim of the patriarchy and of race relations. But really, is that all we're going to do here? It felt apropos to the book as it was always talked about with a sting of venom, and much like the rest of the book it was entirely pointless and didn't have anything interesting to say whatsoever.

It should be noted that I listened to the audiobook of this, narrated by the author, which I think contributed to the tone of the book significantly, so I gave it some gusto for that, but it also furthered my disdain for this book since it drove home how sad it was that the author is so clearly just fiery over this stuff she really needs to get a grip over and solve in a more well-meant manner. If she really cares so much about this one guy, and about her role as a brown skinned person, then use that power and the voice and platform she has to actually say or do something more than just spit at others blindly.

A contemptuous book. Other reviews here on the site have said what I think about this book in a far better way already, but I really did not care about this and should have DNF'd it tbh.

Talking briefly about the good. I liked the style and snappiness of the book. Chapters were often short and digestible to really coherent thoughts or streams of thoughts or actions. The narration style also was something I enjoyed, being a glimpse into the unnamed narrator's mind about different things going on. Time span was a little hard to pinpoint but also kinda irrelevant so it made it easy to view this as a memoir of notes about a person's life.

However I basically detested everything else about this book. No single character was likable, certainly including the main narrator, and I think that's largely because their viewpoint was so venomous and filled with spite. Painted in that lens nobody is going to be likable. The main character's motives were so sad and pitiable and their view of everything and everyone around them was so marred with distrust and inhospitality that I kept thinking the entire time how much I never wanted to meet anyone in this book but especially not her. The narrator really needed to get over herself but also this one guy she's following.

One thing I was particularly disappointed in was the narrator's view on race and gender. She tackled both of these social topics, and a few more, several times over the course of the book, but never with any coherence or lingering thought. It was always unbridled rage about the situation she and others like her were in. She complained endlessly about white people and about men and frankly I agree with her and I think it's important to expose those things. However, she didn't really actually SAY anything interesting or useful about them. She kinda just beat the points over with a bat and said they're unequivocally bad and that they make her life miserable. And I'm sorry if that's the case, and she's right that she is a victim of the patriarchy and of race relations. But really, is that all we're going to do here? It felt apropos to the book as it was always talked about with a sting of venom, and much like the rest of the book it was entirely pointless and didn't have anything interesting to say whatsoever.

It should be noted that I listened to the audiobook of this, narrated by the author, which I think contributed to the tone of the book significantly, so I gave it some gusto for that, but it also furthered my disdain for this book since it drove home how sad it was that the author is so clearly just fiery over this stuff she really needs to get a grip over and solve in a more well-meant manner. If she really cares so much about this one guy, and about her role as a brown skinned person, then use that power and the voice and platform she has to actually say or do something more than just spit at others blindly.