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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
I love a book that's a journey to read. Does the book take like 300 pages to get the protagonist born? Yes. Will you be bored? No. The story weaves in every single thread perfectly and Rushdie's writing is vibrant and alive. It's also weird as fuck, which I love.
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Five stars if Saleem would have wrapped up his amazing story about 50+ pages earlier. While I did thoroughly enjoy it, as well as feel completely immersed in the politics and culture of India/Pakistan during the rise, successes, and failures of independence - in all of its iterations, I couldn't help but feel like Saleem should have come to the end of his tale just a bit sooner. Otherwise, just brilliant!
Oof. I've tried (twice now) to love Salman Rushdie because I felt as if he belonged to a caliber of writer about whom I should have an opinion and now I am, I fear, oh-for-two.
To be fair to Mr. Rushdie I'm beginning to think that it is perhaps the whole genre of magical realism that I struggle with as opposed to his writing in particular. I don't fux with Marquez or Borges, though I remain enamored by Morrison but I worry that that particular convention (which causes it to stray to close to other genre fiction of which I am certainly not a fan) is just one that may never be for me.
Midnight's Children is assuredly well-crafted, and I suspect has some compelling ideas (obfuscated behind magical... noses. I know) that will forever remain a mystery. I couldn't hang, Mr. Rushdie, I'm very sorry.
To be fair to Mr. Rushdie I'm beginning to think that it is perhaps the whole genre of magical realism that I struggle with as opposed to his writing in particular. I don't fux with Marquez or Borges, though I remain enamored by Morrison but I worry that that particular convention (which causes it to stray to close to other genre fiction of which I am certainly not a fan) is just one that may never be for me.
Midnight's Children is assuredly well-crafted, and I suspect has some compelling ideas (obfuscated behind magical... noses. I know) that will forever remain a mystery. I couldn't hang, Mr. Rushdie, I'm very sorry.
mysterious
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I'm not entirely sure what I made of this book. It took me over a month to read, which is extremely slow by my standards. Part of that I can put down to being very busy so had little time for reading, and the fact I effectively stopped to read another book midway through. However I feel that had I been really captivated by this book I would have made time to read it, even if only a few pages a day. And therein lies the problem. I never felt the book's spell fully take hold of me, I never felt that compelling need to finish what I was doing so I could get back to reading it.
The first half I found slow. The author spends half the book building the backstory before he even begins to build the action. From the midway point he finally begins to build towards the climax, however in the end it felt anticlimactic and rushed. I recognise this was a literary technique on the part of the author emphasising that the main character was running out of time, but for me it didn't work. I would have preferred less backstory and more time devoted to the main action of the book.
The saving grace of this book was the language. It is beautiful and poetic, bringing to live a country, a city and a culture with all its sounds and smells. While reading the language would cast something of a spell on me, driving me on, though once I ceased reading the spell would be broken and I didn't feel that urge to continue till I made myself pick it up again. For language alone I give it three stars.
I suspect part of my problem may be the way I read it. I think this is one of those books you can't dip in and out of. It needs a few days of uninterrupted dedicated reading to draw you in and captivate you. Perhaps had I been able to give this book the attention it requires my rating would have been higher.
The first half I found slow. The author spends half the book building the backstory before he even begins to build the action. From the midway point he finally begins to build towards the climax, however in the end it felt anticlimactic and rushed. I recognise this was a literary technique on the part of the author emphasising that the main character was running out of time, but for me it didn't work. I would have preferred less backstory and more time devoted to the main action of the book.
The saving grace of this book was the language. It is beautiful and poetic, bringing to live a country, a city and a culture with all its sounds and smells. While reading the language would cast something of a spell on me, driving me on, though once I ceased reading the spell would be broken and I didn't feel that urge to continue till I made myself pick it up again. For language alone I give it three stars.
I suspect part of my problem may be the way I read it. I think this is one of those books you can't dip in and out of. It needs a few days of uninterrupted dedicated reading to draw you in and captivate you. Perhaps had I been able to give this book the attention it requires my rating would have been higher.