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3.19 AVERAGE
3.19 AVERAGE
medium-paced
While "Universal Harvester" didn't super work for me as a whole, I can't help but give it 3.75 rounded up. Darnielle is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors-- that man can WRITE. The descriptions of late 20th/early 21st century Iowa are Grant Wood level talent.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Car accident, Death of parent
Leaving this unrated for now, because I’m not quite sure.
this book sucked. end of story. nothing happened. it marketed itself as a thriller and was literally the most boring thing i’ve ever read. and to top it all off, what a complete WASTE of a beautiful cover??? the idea was so so good but the execution was so bad i had to listen to this book on 3x speed on libby just to force myself through it. absolutely AWFUL.
it’s not what i expected, but i didn’t dislike it. it took me about a whole month to read part one—i fell asleep a few times—and then the last three quarters of the book came easily. the prose reads like a maze until you imagine it in darnielle’s voice, his literal voice, in the cadence of going to georgia or similar songs of his. he writes prose like he writes music, and that’s not everybody’s preferred style. i was simultaneously surprised and… completely unsurprised to see donna tartt’s name in the acknowledgments. the style bears a lot of similarity to hers, but i didn’t know she and darnielle were connected to each other at all.
i was expecting this book to be scary, the concept was terrifying for me, and really it was a puzzle box of interwoven mundane tragedies. the mundanity doesn’t make them any less tragic. it’s the kind of story dave malloy would make a musical about.
in fact, can someone inform dave malloy this book exists? has john darnielle ever considered writing a musical? is this the collab i never knew i was waiting for?
i was expecting this book to be scary, the concept was terrifying for me, and really it was a puzzle box of interwoven mundane tragedies. the mundanity doesn’t make them any less tragic. it’s the kind of story dave malloy would make a musical about.
in fact, can someone inform dave malloy this book exists? has john darnielle ever considered writing a musical? is this the collab i never knew i was waiting for?
Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a bad book by any means. It was very well written and I can tell why it's getting all the accolades that it is. However, for me, it just didn't have the cohesion that I wanted it to. It felt like a bunch of short stories that had minor threads piecing them together. If it had been presented to me as such, I would have been fine with that...but it wasn't. Maybe I'm not smart enough to read into the answers that Darnielle provided (in fact, that's entirely possible) but it shouldn't be as difficult as it is to discern why the entire premise of the book was even happening in the first place.
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Car accident, Death of parent
Moderate: Violence, Kidnapping, Abandonment
Minor: Torture, Trafficking, Pregnancy
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
The beginning was so promising, however the ending was underwhelming.
challenging
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is one odd little … book. I don’t really know that I liked it, but the writing was good and the whole experience is atmospheric.
The book drops you down in a small midwestern town, where nothing really happens and nobody gets up to much. That trend continues throughout the entire book, more or less. There’s some homemade videos that start appearing on returned video rentals, and the guy working at the video store investigates it with almost a disinterested attitude, but he just can’t let it go. He follows it passively for years.
A couple things stand out to me with this book.
First, unlike almost every other book I’ve ever read in my life, this is not a story that follows either exceptional people or exceptional events. Everyone in the story is an Average Joe. Simple folk. And the events are occasionally a bit strange but nothing super remarkable. It’s a book about life, and loss, and moving on. It’s not a special story, and I think that is precisely the intent of the author.
Additionally, this is not a book that provides a coherent narrative. The chapters are given to us, in a somewhat logical order, sometimes with large jumps in time. It feels like a puzzle, except that now that I’ve finished it, I’m very confident it’s not. Not because there’s nothing to theorize about or speculate on, but because there’s no answer. This isn’t a book that explains itself. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just there for the reader to experience and that’s it, really.
The book drops you down in a small midwestern town, where nothing really happens and nobody gets up to much. That trend continues throughout the entire book, more or less. There’s some homemade videos that start appearing on returned video rentals, and the guy working at the video store investigates it with almost a disinterested attitude, but he just can’t let it go. He follows it passively for years.
A couple things stand out to me with this book.
First, unlike almost every other book I’ve ever read in my life, this is not a story that follows either exceptional people or exceptional events. Everyone in the story is an Average Joe. Simple folk. And the events are occasionally a bit strange but nothing super remarkable. It’s a book about life, and loss, and moving on. It’s not a special story, and I think that is precisely the intent of the author.
Additionally, this is not a book that provides a coherent narrative. The chapters are given to us, in a somewhat logical order, sometimes with large jumps in time. It feels like a puzzle, except that now that I’ve finished it, I’m very confident it’s not. Not because there’s nothing to theorize about or speculate on, but because there’s no answer. This isn’t a book that explains itself. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just there for the reader to experience and that’s it, really.