nhi

sometimes i'll be reading this and im like jesus, jack!!! get over yourself!!! but i really liked his character at the end of the day. more than anything it was the prose that kept me going and the images robinson wanted to paint for us. there's sooo much sorrow. its so tender. the ending just left me in despair. hard to say if i can recommend this to anyone though. i think if you did like gilead you will appreciate this. 

reliving the same tragedy over and over but each time never feels the same—the pain manifests itself differently with each recollection. the repeating images—a gun on the table, a pharmacy of light, a chlorinated pool—it's as if he were taking a memory at different stages of grief and analyzing it over and over, trying to piece together the different angles, the inconsistencies, the open ends, trying to make sense of it all.

one drawback is not necessarily a flaw but a significant feature of the works; it feels...rather youthful? i say this as a kid in their early 20s but the intensity and the obsession with which siken writes, it feels like reading through the emotions of someone my age, how exaggerated and overblown it seems but only in hindsight. however since i am young i love it. i love and i relate to the total desperation of the pieces featured here.

whenever i revisit this collection i always find something new to love. i feel like i will never find anything that affects me as much as crush (though hieu minh nguyen's “not here” comes especially close).