ren sparks
way too much going on and the author, despite their very best efforts, could not get me to care about any of it. so sorry :/
this book is the perfect example of why sometimes synopses are necessary. I was fully shipping Juno and Legs for a hot minute LMAO
not even sure what this was about. seemed like random ramblings that did not tie together in any meaningful way.
“Night means darkness, darkness means introspection, introspection dredges up all kinds of monsters and my god, do those bastards keep us busy until dawn.”
“I was never ambitious, but I was practical. As a kid, I pretty much lived in the library. I read voraciously, because words on a page felt committed in a way words said out loud were not”
“I never asked for this. I have never claimed to be special; I only want my life to be normal, easy. A world I can face each day without being overwhelmed with anxiety.”
“And then I wake up and this, this is what happened.
And then I wake up.
And then.”
“I need you to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man. I'll give you mine.”
everyone seems to love this book and i just don't.... get it.
i love a good “no plot, just vibes” type of book. but not like this. you have to give SOMETHING. whether that's captivating character studies, lyrical writing, fascinating subject matter, or LITERALLY anything that this did not have.
for me, this needed more to balance out the fact that it is just people talking about nothing, and believe me they don't stop talking. back to back to back “he said”, “she said”, “they said”, “the woman said”, “the man said”, “Maria said”, “Carter said”, “Helene said”, “BZ said”, “Jeanelle said”, “Ivan Costello said”, “Freddy Chaikin said”, “Susannah Wood said”, “the boy at the gate to the bathhouse said”. like OKAY can we please switch it up maybe just once to give a little variety so I don't fall asleep for the 3rd day in a row while trying to read???????? the characters were insufferable and lacked dimension, and the writing was boring and frankly hard to follow because of the lack of nuance and the NAME DROPPING of like thousands of random people. this book is tired. idk how else to explain it.
all of that being said, I will probably read Didion's nonfiction works since I have heard great things and maybe her fiction just isn't my thing.
felt like a sequel just for the sake of having a sequel. i wish there would have been another big jouneey/mission like in the first one.
I want to give credit to Native Lady Book Warrior on Youtube. after reading this, I felt as a white person I could definitely use some perspective on this story and all of its details rather than just reviewing it in a very surface level way. her video recap and review was great and it really gave me more appreciation for the book as a whole. her video: https://youtu.be/OR_tYYGDrKQ
2.75 cause sometimes i would get into it and other times it just felt so ......? like it was going no where and didn't mean ANYTHING. the story line that faded in and out was interesting but I think the author was doing other things that I just don't get.
“If there are infinite worlds, how do I find the one that is uniquely, specifically mine?”
some of the essays were weird and funny and absurd. and then some were just weird and absurd. let's just say, i'm glad the author is in therapy <3
very much camp. very much ambiguous. very much an ode to the horror genre itself. almost loved but liked a lot.
also, are Paul Tremblay and Stephen Graham Jones besties or something? like why did he name a character after him that was super random
I can't rate this book.
I am revolted by the subject matter. the tone was so callous and disturbing. I found it very hard to read but at the same time couldn't stop because the author did an amazing job of maintaining such a captivating narrative through the unsettling plot.
however, I can't really tell what point the author was trying to make. sure, there were some interesting theming about the judicial system and victim blaming that inevitability happens in situations like these. BUT was it enough to make me believe that was the author's true intention in writing this? not really no.
in my opinion, it gave more “shock value” than anything and I don't necessarily gain anything from that in books personally. I feel like if you are crossing the lines that this book crosses, there needs to be a point and to me there just isn't a point valid enough to justify the absurdity.
so while I think the author is talented (and bold for even writing this) I wouldn't recommend this to literally anyone.
i think i might have done a disservice to myself by making this my first book read by Agatha Christie. it felt like a nancy drew book and NOT in a good way. that being said, it wasn't terrible but it also felt very repetitive and i didn't like the ending. oops
3.5. I think I'm biased because I loved the movie when I was a teenager. (yikes)
I liked the vibes but i wish the narrators weren't the little weirdo neighborhood pervs. I don't mind that aspect of the story itself because it really paints the picture of how “elusive” the girls seem to be, but I definitely would've preferred an omniscient narrator.
anyways, rip to the Lisbon sisters y'all would've loved Lana Del Rey.