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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
I just finished Prophet Song and have to write my thoughts out, to process.
The book was hard to get into at first because of Lynch’s particular style of writing. The way he wrote the characters’ spoken and internal dialogue was confusing to follow: choppy, ambiguous, kind of all over the place, moving from one thought directly into the next. But that style was intentional, meant to convey the narrator’s experience as her life, family, state, and reality slowly dissolve and slide into totalitarianism and civil war.
Once I got used to the style and pace, it became deeply effective. I truly felt that dissolution. I felt like a frog in a heating kettle, experiencing the slow, terrifying slide into a new, unrecognizable reality. It was hard not to see parallels with the current state of the United States, where norms are breaking down, people are pledging allegiance to political parties in ways that feel irrational and destabilizing, and individuals are literally disappearing. Courts are being weaponized to erode the law. Emergency powers are invoked in response to so-called internal threats. People are labeled enemies for “agitating.” Others look around and ask, “How is this happening here?” You think you know someone, or could guess at knowing them, but then discover they hold the most intense and alarming beliefs, and you wonder how you both exist in the same version of reality.
The book was published in 2023 and is set in a near-future Ireland, but it feels like Lynch foresaw 2025 America and left us a testament to what could happen. And what already has, in many places.
I was completely immersed. I could not put the book down. I devoured it. I needed resolution that was never going to come. I do not WANT to live in Lynch’s world, but I NEED to live in Lynch’s world, even though it is dark, terrifying, and filled with dread.
This is also a shout out to the power of public libraries, especially at a time when books, news sources, and libraries themselves are being politicized, weaponized, targeted, and defunded. I do not know if I would have picked this book up or felt compelled to read it right away otherwise. It was published and won the Booker Prize a couple of years ago, after all. But I randomly picked it up during a library visit, and now it feels like this book has burrowed into my psyche.
The book was hard to get into at first because of Lynch’s particular style of writing. The way he wrote the characters’ spoken and internal dialogue was confusing to follow: choppy, ambiguous, kind of all over the place, moving from one thought directly into the next. But that style was intentional, meant to convey the narrator’s experience as her life, family, state, and reality slowly dissolve and slide into totalitarianism and civil war.
Once I got used to the style and pace, it became deeply effective. I truly felt that dissolution. I felt like a frog in a heating kettle, experiencing the slow, terrifying slide into a new, unrecognizable reality. It was hard not to see parallels with the current state of the United States, where norms are breaking down, people are pledging allegiance to political parties in ways that feel irrational and destabilizing, and individuals are literally disappearing. Courts are being weaponized to erode the law. Emergency powers are invoked in response to so-called internal threats. People are labeled enemies for “agitating.” Others look around and ask, “How is this happening here?” You think you know someone, or could guess at knowing them, but then discover they hold the most intense and alarming beliefs, and you wonder how you both exist in the same version of reality.
The book was published in 2023 and is set in a near-future Ireland, but it feels like Lynch foresaw 2025 America and left us a testament to what could happen. And what already has, in many places.
I was completely immersed. I could not put the book down. I devoured it. I needed resolution that was never going to come. I do not WANT to live in Lynch’s world, but I NEED to live in Lynch’s world, even though it is dark, terrifying, and filled with dread.
This is also a shout out to the power of public libraries, especially at a time when books, news sources, and libraries themselves are being politicized, weaponized, targeted, and defunded. I do not know if I would have picked this book up or felt compelled to read it right away otherwise. It was published and won the Booker Prize a couple of years ago, after all. But I randomly picked it up during a library visit, and now it feels like this book has burrowed into my psyche.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Ein Buch, das Schullektüre sein sollte.
Eine erschreckend real wirkende Dystopie. Die erste Hälfte des Buches könnte auch in Trumps Amerika spielen. Ein Buch, das einen zwischendurch nicht Luft holen lässt. Es ist über Faschismus und die unmittelbaren Auswirkungen auf eine Familie aus Sicht einer Mutter. Sehr bedrückend und eindrücklich. Ich mag den unkonventionellen, direkten und ununterbrochenen Gedanken- und Lesefluss, der das Buch sehr immersiv und direkt macht.
Eine erschreckend real wirkende Dystopie. Die erste Hälfte des Buches könnte auch in Trumps Amerika spielen. Ein Buch, das einen zwischendurch nicht Luft holen lässt. Es ist über Faschismus und die unmittelbaren Auswirkungen auf eine Familie aus Sicht einer Mutter. Sehr bedrückend und eindrücklich. Ich mag den unkonventionellen, direkten und ununterbrochenen Gedanken- und Lesefluss, der das Buch sehr immersiv und direkt macht.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Violence, War
Moderate: Death, Police brutality, Dementia, Grief, Murder
Minor: Pedophilia, Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexual harassment
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Going in blind, I was expecting a bit more tonal dynamism than it did - it starts of as bleak and remains pretty relentlessly bleak throughout…all the way until the final page, which leaves it very much open to interpretation, rather than offering any form of catharsis.
I respect the realism of the book and Paul Lynch’s refusal to indulge in any plot armour or Hollywood flourishes, but the trade off is that you have a book that I didn’t particularly enjoy, which I image was the point. That said, I got through it pretty quickly because I wanted to know what would happen next.
My biggest difficulty was that I found Eilish, Bailey and Simon pretty insufferable at various points, with the former two making a few absolutely baffling decisions that disrupted the empathy I was supposed to feel for those characters.
Bailey in particular was such an annoying little prick that his death lacked the heft it should have had due to the barbarity of it - and I don’t think the pacing of those events was sufficient to build the tension it deserved.
Overall, it’s a really emotionally resonant and well written work of dystopia, and I think Eilish, though frustrating and foolish at points, was a very suitably developed and complex heroine, particularly in her resentment towards her sister and how that hums softly in the background throughout.
I respect the realism of the book and Paul Lynch’s refusal to indulge in any plot armour or Hollywood flourishes, but the trade off is that you have a book that I didn’t particularly enjoy, which I image was the point. That said, I got through it pretty quickly because I wanted to know what would happen next.
My biggest difficulty was that I found Eilish, Bailey and Simon pretty insufferable at various points, with the former two making a few absolutely baffling decisions that disrupted the empathy I was supposed to feel for those characters.
Overall, it’s a really emotionally resonant and well written work of dystopia, and I think Eilish, though frustrating and foolish at points, was a very suitably developed and complex heroine, particularly in her resentment towards her sister and how that hums softly in the background throughout.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Eating disorder, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Dementia, Trafficking, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Murder, Gaslighting, War, Injury/Injury detail
I enjoyed this book, it was different to my normal reading preference and I would not be able to read another book like this anytime soon but this novel was a reading experience. Ryan did a wonderful job writing as a female character and all that was her mind. The way the book slowly builds up around you, the war progressing, things becoming just part of how the family lives now, the choices, tension and thought processes, were well done and added to the experience of reading this book.
3.5. A bleak, barren landscape of a book that you trudge though hoping to eventually see the sun peak over the horizon. Plenty of impressive writing to notice along the difficult journey, and it almost makes it worth it, but had I known how heavy this was going to be I might not have picked it up.
I had to put this book in the freezer. Not because it was scary in the traditional sense, but because it was scary in the "this is happening right now sense." It's an eerie depiction of how authoritarian governments take over, subdue its citizens through imprisoning them, disappearing them, and silencing the rest.
It takes place in Dublin, Ireland, one of those places that people think "It can't happen here." But it can. And it does. First, the protagonist's husband is taken in for questioning. He is never seen again. Then, as our protagonist tries to maintain some semblance of normalcy for her children, thinking her husband will be returned, she is unable to get a passport for her newborn son to visit her sister in Canada for the holidays. Then she is unable to keep her oldest son from joining the rebellion. Then the schools shut down. Then food becomes scarce. Then things descend into violence, as the city becomes a battleground between the authoritarian regime and the rebellion. And now, it is too late to get out of Ireland. All roads are blocked by government checkpoints. Our protagonist, thinking it couldn't possibly get this bad, is now a refugee, attempting to escape to Northern Ireland so she can get a boat out, toting her children with her. But not before her younger son is shot and killed.
The style of this novel is really unique, with no paragraphs, quotation marks, or any other formatting to break up the text. The entire thing reads urgently, as if this is all happening at once, and it is overwhelming.
Given what is going on right now in the U.S., this book is terrifying. We all think it couldn't happen here. This novel proves otherwise. I really really really hope we don't let it happen here.
It takes place in Dublin, Ireland, one of those places that people think "It can't happen here." But it can. And it does. First, the protagonist's husband is taken in for questioning. He is never seen again. Then, as our protagonist tries to maintain some semblance of normalcy for her children, thinking her husband will be returned, she is unable to get a passport for her newborn son to visit her sister in Canada for the holidays. Then she is unable to keep her oldest son from joining the rebellion. Then the schools shut down. Then food becomes scarce. Then things descend into violence, as the city becomes a battleground between the authoritarian regime and the rebellion. And now, it is too late to get out of Ireland. All roads are blocked by government checkpoints. Our protagonist, thinking it couldn't possibly get this bad, is now a refugee, attempting to escape to Northern Ireland so she can get a boat out, toting her children with her. But not before her younger son is shot and killed.
The style of this novel is really unique, with no paragraphs, quotation marks, or any other formatting to break up the text. The entire thing reads urgently, as if this is all happening at once, and it is overwhelming.
Given what is going on right now in the U.S., this book is terrifying. We all think it couldn't happen here. This novel proves otherwise. I really really really hope we don't let it happen here.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated