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dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I love the writing style, the classical allusions, the magical realism. I was very engaged, even and especially when I didn’t agree with the characters’ choices.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Cursing, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Death of parent
Minor: Animal death, Cancer
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I fucking loved this book. Loved the writing. Absolutely hilarious and heartbreaking. I don’t want to relate to Lucy but I do. I see her. A human’s need to be loved and chosen is so powerful it feels like it can swallow you whole. How can we live any life and know it will never ever be enough?
-.5 stars because I feel like there are some loose ends and questions I wish would’ve been addressed. Also TW animal cruelty.
-.5 stars because I feel like there are some loose ends and questions I wish would’ve been addressed. Also TW animal cruelty.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Suicide attempt
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death
dark
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
(AUDIOBOOK)
“I believe in love more than anything. But I think I am very bad at it.”
The Pisces is a deeply reflective study on the modern woman's obsession with loving and being loved and sex and sexuality. The book designates that each of these elements are wholly separate, disparate Entities that can make or break us; but this is brought about through the eyes of a generally unlikable-yet-relatable FMC and in a world where the average Man is so distant from the female experience, he might as well be a mythical creature.
I was captivated by this story. While I wouldn't consider myself love or sex addicted, the parts that make up the whole of Lucy's id are so familiar to myself and, I assume, women at large. An excellent example, from early in the book: “I had felt, for a long time, that if I started crying I would not stop—that if I finally ripped, there would be nothing to stop my guts from falling out. I was scared of what might come out of me: the things I would see, what others would see. I was scared the feelings would eat me. Feelings were a luxury of the young, or someone much stronger than me—someone more at ease with being human. It was too late for tears. I was to keep going, to move forward on the same track in spite of life’s unsatisfying lifeness. I was not to ask where I was going or if it was where I really wanted to go. I was not to ask if I was actually going anywhere at all. But now, somehow, I was sobbing.”
Melissa Broder so eloquently will lay out a reality, like Lucy's inability or unwillingness to be a women who cries, and we agree and we see her and we feel it... and then she's sobbing. And we, too, see this and feel this. The combination of realities and perversions and a switch-flip to a mythical reality is done so frequently, that this book reads like life- unexpected and surprising and familiar, like the waves of the sea. A constant coming and going that soothes and overwhelms.
A FEW MORE QUOTES I WANT ON HAND:
“Was it ever real? The way we felt about another person? Or was it always a projection of something we needed or wanted regardless of them?”
“I, myself, had a very complicated relationship with emptiness, blankness, nothingness. Sometimes I wanted only to fill it, frightened that if I didn’t it would eat me alive or kill me. But sometimes I longed for total annihilation in it—a beautiful, silent erasure. A desire to be vanished.”
“I loved him too. But at the same time, who knew what love was exactly? I still didn't have it figured out. I remembered what Dr. Jude had said. The question is not what is love, but is it really love I'm looking for?”
“I believe in love more than anything. But I think I am very bad at it.”
The Pisces is a deeply reflective study on the modern woman's obsession with loving and being loved and sex and sexuality. The book designates that each of these elements are wholly separate, disparate Entities that can make or break us; but this is brought about through the eyes of a generally unlikable-yet-relatable FMC and in a world where the average Man is so distant from the female experience, he might as well be a mythical creature.
I was captivated by this story. While I wouldn't consider myself love or sex addicted, the parts that make up the whole of Lucy's id are so familiar to myself and, I assume, women at large. An excellent example, from early in the book: “I had felt, for a long time, that if I started crying I would not stop—that if I finally ripped, there would be nothing to stop my guts from falling out. I was scared of what might come out of me: the things I would see, what others would see. I was scared the feelings would eat me. Feelings were a luxury of the young, or someone much stronger than me—someone more at ease with being human. It was too late for tears. I was to keep going, to move forward on the same track in spite of life’s unsatisfying lifeness. I was not to ask where I was going or if it was where I really wanted to go. I was not to ask if I was actually going anywhere at all. But now, somehow, I was sobbing.”
Melissa Broder so eloquently will lay out a reality, like Lucy's inability or unwillingness to be a women who cries, and we agree and we see her and we feel it... and then she's sobbing. And we, too, see this and feel this. The combination of realities and perversions and a switch-flip to a mythical reality is done so frequently, that this book reads like life- unexpected and surprising and familiar, like the waves of the sea. A constant coming and going that soothes and overwhelms.
A FEW MORE QUOTES I WANT ON HAND:
“Was it ever real? The way we felt about another person? Or was it always a projection of something we needed or wanted regardless of them?”
“I, myself, had a very complicated relationship with emptiness, blankness, nothingness. Sometimes I wanted only to fill it, frightened that if I didn’t it would eat me alive or kill me. But sometimes I longed for total annihilation in it—a beautiful, silent erasure. A desire to be vanished.”
“I loved him too. But at the same time, who knew what love was exactly? I still didn't have it figured out. I remembered what Dr. Jude had said. The question is not what is love, but is it really love I'm looking for?”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Melissa Broder explores the shadow self better, the unnerving psyche, the subconscious better than any author I've read. Her books are dark, weird, challenging, and stir up a variety of uncomfortable feelings that we'd all rather ignore. Lucy is a difficult main character because she's acting entirely from the darkest corners of desire, with no regard for the consequences. She is painfully reminding me of every time I made the same bad decisions.
This book very much feels like a first novel: the metaphors are heavy handed (the dog dies! the dog is her care for herself, her will to live, her connection to others! the dog does worse as she abandons all that! ), the narrative felt drawn out at the end, the character growth happens quite slowly and then all at once. But I also liked it, and I really liked it for being unique and divisive and as provocative as a merman who represents all the bad parts of men and relationships and abandoning yourself.
This book very much feels like a first novel: the metaphors are heavy handed (
Yes, it certainly seemed like the human instinct to get high on someone else, an external entity who could make your life more exciting and relieve you of your own self, your own life, even for just a moment. Maybe once that person became too real, too familiar, they could no longer get you high -- no longer be a drug -- and that was why you grew tired of them. ... It was so much easier for someone to be the drug before or after the relationship. When they were absent, they were exciting. When they were right there, it was a different story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt
Moderate: Animal death
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
god it took me so fucking long to finish this. i got maybe 40% of the way through then i gave up for several months. when i read the plot summary, i thought i was going to be reading an entirely different book. i didn’t enjoy being sucked into lucy’s nothingness.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt
funny
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Post-breakup woman meets merman, sex-laden unraveling ensues.
While I love Melissa Broder's writing, I hated this narrator. She's basically a more earthy Carrie Bradshaw, a self-obsessed writer who's desperate for men to like her. She represents our worst versions, our crippling insecurities and unfounded meanness. The entire situation with the dog I know is supposed to be metaphorical, but was so sinister. And the poor sister. This would be ideal to read right after a break-up, or mid-situationship, but exhausting otherwise.
I appreciated the exploration of missing pieces, wanting a relationship to solve our own issues, and ignoring the love right in front of us. "The Pisces" uses shock factor to illustrate the sacrifice we're willing to make, especially as women, for the fantasy and the delusion. They may not be the most groundbreaking themes, but really entertaining and creative in execution.
While I love Melissa Broder's writing, I hated this narrator. She's basically a more earthy Carrie Bradshaw, a self-obsessed writer who's desperate for men to like her. She represents our worst versions, our crippling insecurities and unfounded meanness. The entire situation with the dog I know is supposed to be metaphorical, but was so sinister. And the poor sister. This would be ideal to read right after a break-up, or mid-situationship, but exhausting otherwise.
I appreciated the exploration of missing pieces, wanting a relationship to solve our own issues, and ignoring the love right in front of us. "The Pisces" uses shock factor to illustrate the sacrifice we're willing to make, especially as women, for the fantasy and the delusion. They may not be the most groundbreaking themes, but really entertaining and creative in execution.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Cancer, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship
dark
emotional
funny
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Completed the Melissa Broder novel trifecta! “The Pisces” was definitely the darkest of the three, but (other than the very end) I really enjoyed it. MB captures the feelings and sensations of obsessions in such a visceral way, it almost makes you anxious, but it’s so compelling
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Suicide attempt
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Toxic relationship
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt
The main character is so desperate and hard to read that it’s hard to get through this book
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death