The Centre

Couldn't get into this. I may try again later this year

Ugh, I finished it. This book took me in so many directions and not in a good way. I guess I'd just say I was confused for most of it. There are so many things that are touched on but not really developed at all. Another reviewer stated that the main character was not likable and that's very true. It took a conversation from one of her ex-lovers halfway through the book for me to realize that. I wasn't really putting my finger on it until then. When you read about the Centre you know there is a secret and one starts hypothesizing what it could be. What it actually is was disturbing and I almost stopped reading the book there. Basically the book wasn't satisfying in any way.

I think I'll need to sit with this book for a while to really understand how I felt about it, but here's my gut reaction:

I didn't know much about this book before reading it — I'd kept deferring my Libby hold for months, and so I had forgotten where I heard about it and what it was about. I found this book really intriguing and the writing was quite readable.

As someone who tends to enjoy all types of slow burns, I thoughtThe Centre was well executed and avoided plot bloat for the sake of tension. The climax of the book was startling and I didn't see it coming, despite the foreshadowing.

There was a lot of commentary on class, love, gender norms, friendship diaspora, and more throughout the book. I do think that there were some interesting ideas there, but that the book either needed to be longer to dig into them more or shorter and cut some of the scenes.

For example, I don't think Adam needed to come back — her conversation with him doesn't materially change her behavior or thinking and it doesn't advance the plot.

This book asks a lot of questions and leaves many of them unanswered, sometimes in a way that feels intentional and other times not so much. But overall, I did find it compelling and I'll definitely be thinking about it.

This kept me wanting to keep reading, but it literally took forever to get to anything creepy or weird.
I really wish this would have been darker

Kept me engaged and guessing for most of the book. Loved the unlikable narrator and the complex dynamics between her and the rest of the characters. The ending was a huge letdown down though. I like ambiguous endings but this one just felt like a cop out and left me wanting more/better answers. 

Enjoyed this world, it cleanly and visually builds - I can see this translating well onto film or TV. The protagonist has a fresh, accessible, thoughtful, aware and self deprecating contemporary voice which lends well to keeping the mixed controversial themes on the table in a conversational sense without it turning it heavy . My irk was that I felt it was a great set up to another novel (I went to an evening with the author and she has no plans to write another sadly) - I felt it offered a lot of exciting possibilities.

I honestly don't know how I'd rate this book... certain chapters, especially those that touch on ‘The Centre', the language bits, (sans the whole dark side) felt quite interesting and intriguing. I'd have rated it higher had it not been bad Muslim rep and certain other parts that made me want to rate it as low as 1-star

Gorgeous cover. Great writing. But overall anti climatic. More of a general fiction than thriller or horror.

This is a great premise, and I was very interested to see where the story was going. But it feels like it ended too abruptly and didn't have the resolution I was looking for.

This was pretty good. I liked the conversations and ideas that were brought up over the course of the book. The only thing keeping me from giving it a 5 is that I wanted more suspense/thrilling moments. I wanted to be on the edge of my seat and I wanted the sinister level to bump up to 11. That being said, I enjoyed the book. I don't know why it has such low ratings.

I was expecting cannibalism the whole time and really wanted to be surprised
It was a pretty fun read overall though, the atmosphere is really nice.

I enjoyed this one a lot. It covers a lot of topics but it never feels forced. The writing style was beautiful, the pacing was steady, the relationships between the characters and their evolution felt real. It's aggressively unpretentious and that's perhaps the thing that surprised me the most about it. Its cleareyed celebration of friendship between women was also absolutely delightful. It's not the most action packed book but it's a good book.

despite the unique concept, essentially a rehash of every literary contemporary privileged millennial woman complains about life book written in the past few years.

What a good read, damn.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gillian Flynn Books for giving me early access to this audiobook for review.

This was a wild one for sure, and it may need a second reading for me to really grasp the whole thing. There are many things however that it says about womanhood and being a woman of colour that felt very really and struck a cord with me.

Also as a linguistics major I absolutely adored how this book looked at and talked about language, how it relates to us and our culture as well as how these things make us who we are.

It is a bit of a think piece and there is a lot of nothing that does seem to happen with my interest in languages and my love of reading about different POC it was enjoyable but I think it might not be for everyone.

I do think that once it comes out I may give it another read as I imagine this is the type of book that benefits from multiple reads.

There was a lot I liked in here, a central character who is engaging if not necessarily likeable, some vivd writing and worthwhile messages. But ultimately when a book is sold on having an amazing mystery and a great twist, then it had better deliver on those promises and this didn't for me. I'd love to have been blown away by the revelations, but it was more of a shrug. Enjoyable but inessential.