Piranesi

One-Sentence book review
Insightful book that makes you think about your being while unraveling an interesting mystery throughout the book's story.

Summary, thoughts and notesThe book's narrative is told through a series of journal entries from the main character, Piranesi spends his days wandering through a house made up of a labyrinth of an endless amount of rooms, these rooms are usually filled with statues, all of them different, as well as some wildlife like birds. The basement of the house itself has an ocean with rising tides which on high tide floods the upper, main floors.Piranesi writes on his journal about his daily life, as well as meeting another person twice a week, a person he only calls "the Other", until one day, the Other tells Piranesi to be wary of another person that might get in contact with him. This makes Piranesi very excited, but also doesn't want to make the Other upset, since he's his only acquaintance. The third person manages to get in contact with Piranesi, and gives him clues that lead him to his oldest kept journals, where he documented how he got to where he currently is and the mystery starts unraveling while at the same time Piranesi starts struggling with coming to terms with who he really is.This book really resonated with me, I am definitely in the group of people who love this book, and it's frankly hard to put into words all of my thoughts on it, but suffice it to say that what I've read as points against the book, the repetitive descriptions, boring first half of the book, were not a problem for me. I found the descriptions interesting, they were mostly about statues, sure, but they were interesting. Additionally, I didn't think it was that slow, the second half definitely picks up the pace, but the first half is not really what I would consider slow paced. I love that it's on the shorter side, (< 300 pages in length), the author had a story in mind and didn't add any unnecessary fluff, that plus the themes that really resonated with me, make this one of my favorite reads of the last few years.I thought the book was fantastic, rarely do I read books and still think about them months after finishing them. It feels weird to say that the philosophical themes of the book have stayed with me, but they have. Thinking about who I am, and what makes me... me? Is something I've been thinking since I read this book, and I still think about it.I think the idea of pondering what defines you as a person is the main driving force of the story. Piranesi all throughout the book is enamored with the house, despite acknowledging he doesn't remember anything before the last few years. The author managed to make me think about who I am, and what makes me, me. This is something I hadn't really thought about before, and the fact that it's now been over a week since I read the book and I'm still thinking about it, is a testament to the author's success in transmitting this idea.I've read a few reviews of this book, opinions are very divided in both extremes, most either love it or absolutely hate it. For me, personally, this is a fantastic book, which I'm sure I will re-read in the future and whenever I do so, I'll probably ponder about the same things, although with a new point of view given an older age/more experience, and that's something I'm really looking forward to.I think I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone looking for a straight up mystery book, this is not it, the mystery is not the focus of the book, more an instrument that's used to delve deep into its themes, which are more psychological/philosophical in nature. Similarly, I think that anyone not too keen on somewhat repetitive descriptions will fall short for people who the book isn't "clicking with" either.