Play It as It Lays
Ratings33
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings33
Average rating3.7
A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The Last Thing He Wanted and A Book of Common Prayer.
Reviews with the most likes.
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.
Absolutely haunting prose. I couldn't put this down in the best and worst of ways. Make sure to read this in a good headspace; it's devastating.
Didion is a genius... play it as it lays is good how boxers are good, one, two hits, it's poison or sedatives(what does it matter) slowly dripping into your IV bag.
