Poor Things

I've heard enough at Chapter 25 it was just all blabber for me.
I think I'm better off watching the movie.

Simply unreadable!

Gave up at 27%.

Took me months and I kind of hated the book, but then I kept reading and learned that “Bella” also hated this book so...I guess I just hated the book-within-the-book, but liked the actual book quite a lot? It's confusing.

Sinceramente, Poor things es un buen libro está muy bien escrito, me gusta que McCandles sea el encargado de dirigir al lector, pero es un libro que se me ha hecho muy pesado y me ha costado muchísimo terminar, tengo que admitir que he saltado algunas páginas porque me costaban mucho de digerir.

Aún así, creo que es un buen libro, no es una lectura para cualquiera, en inglés sobre todo es un poco compleja pero al final se deja entender bastante bien.

Bella Baxter me parece un personaje increíble, verla madurar durante todo el libro es fascinante, como la ayudan a ver cómo es de verdad el mundo y salir de su pequeña burbuja es muy interesante. También me ha gustado mucho que la relación entre Bella y McCandles tiene muchísimo más sentido que en la película, es decir, realmente hay una relación entre ellos no como en la película.

En resumen, es buen libro pero le pongo tres estrellas porque se me ha hecho demasiado denso por el final, creo que en otro momento podría volver a revisarlo.

“You made me strong and sure of myself, God, by teaching me about the fine and mighty things in the world and showing I was one of them. You were too sane to teach a child about craziness and cruelty.”

Imperfect but so so rich.  Feminist and sexist at once. 

I loved the movie and I loved the book. Two different beasts - where one is a visual feast with outstanding directing/art design and acting they chose to follow the main recounting of events but removes itself from being a POV perspective.

The book, instead, is strongly POV, the first familiar to the movie viewer, the second, form “Bella's “POV which , of course sows confusion and doubt.

A strange story that melds the gothic horror of the 19th century with the Scottish politics of the 1970s. A mysterious and marvellous tale that will leave you with questions not fully answered.

To talk to much about it would be near impossible so I'll say I can't for it would spoil the plot.

I loved it, Gray's imagination is as huge as ever and the illustrations are divine. My only regret is that I read it on my phone and didn't get to fully appreciate them - I know what I'll be asking for for my birthday!

Fazia tempo que eu não lia um livro assim.

Eu imaginei que seria apenas o filme contado de maneira mais detalhada, mas logo no começo já vi que seria diferente - da melhor forma possível.
Não apenas temos toda a evolução e reflexão de Bella/Victoria como mulher, também temos a reflexão sobre a evolução da Europa, do capitalismo, da cultura e do visão patriarcal.

Triste ver como pouco mudamos do séc. XIX para cá, principalmente no que falamos sobre a liberdade sexual da mulher. Por mais que as mulheres tenham direitos e leis que as apoiem hoje em dia, sabemos que muitos homens (e algumas mulheres) ainda pensam de forma análoga aos personagens deste livro.

Mas acho que o melhor do livro foi o final. A maneira como o autor traz outra narradora para dar a visão dela da história e deixa a nós, os leitores, a decisão sobre o que realmente aconteceu... Maravilhoso.

É simplesmente um daqueles livros que ficam com a gente pra sempre.

4,5☆

3,5*

the movie actually ruined this for me.

such a weird book ! totalmente lo lei para apaciguar el fomo q tenía d la película y fue interesante! probablemente empiece a leer más libros con adaptaciones cinematográficas....

la trama es absurdamente original, dándole todos los twists posibles a frankenstein, siendo a su vez adaptado de otro libro, lo cual tiene su mérito, es innovador y fue muy valiente para la época.

no deja d ser silly y tener diálogos y comentarios chistoso, cosa q se agradece con un tema tan tabú

tiene partes q son DREADFUL y eso le resta puntos, pero lo extraño y misterioso y gracioso sostiene todo lo anterior.

es tan arriesgado q la hayan adaptado y no hubiera podido ser otro q yorgos spicing things a little bit more

I enjoyed the premise, if not the execution. Not sure I'd recommend it.

Such a thought-provoking and beautifully layered tale.

Odd, occasionally glacial, but in the end incredible epistolary novel. Truly curious to see how it's going to work as a film, totally worth a read if ya like anarcho-humanistic weirdo historical fiction like Pynchon. Took me a bit to get through some of the bits but the narrative is super easy to follow and enjoyable as hell, loved the dedication to maintaining ambiguity through it all.

Poor Things is a book that grows with you, like all the best books do. The first time I read it I was twenty-one, and I found it intriguing, but difficult and a little baffling. Over the years I've come to love it dearly, discovering something new each time I pick it up, and just when I thought I couldn't love it any more, here we are.

Despite Alasdair Gray's iconic status in Scotland, reading this book reminds me that he's still massively underappreciated. Poor Things is nothing short of a masterpiece, exploring an array of far-reaching themes including feminism, the morality of medicine and the ethics of science, class distinctions and social inequality, colonialism, memory, and identity, both personal and national. It's a narrative within a narrative within a narrative, with not one but two unreliable narrators, giving Nabokov a run for his money, and at the heart of it all lies an exquisite Frankenstein-esque pastiche of the Victorian Gothic that is endearing and terrifying and everything in between. On top of all that, as if that wasn't enough, it's a love letter to Alasdair's beloved Glasgow.

If you haven't already, I urge you to pick it up - then gimme a ding when you're done so we can chat about it!