Scan barcode
michael_benavidez's review
5.0
I believe I should put up a disclaimer that this book is not for everyone.
This is a romance novel, but a horror story, a thriller, a tale that weaves in and out of time like something from ancient myths.
Charlie, Forever and Ever is a unique story. There's no chapter breaks. The words are stream of conscious, sometimes vague, sometimes overly descriptive, time is a ball of wire that Natalie Sierra plays with however she damn well pleases.
I don't know how to break this story down into a review. It's an LSD trip that will either captivate you or turn you off. It's free flowing style leads the reader through this imaginative world of fantasy that's very much real but feels like something so out of reach. Sierra plays with language, with story, with the format.
Every little trick is broken down, and used to perfection. The relationship detailed is equal parts romantic, erotic, suffocating, scary, and just so real that even if you don't understand the story you understand the feelings.
This is very much a book meant to evoke emotions, and is at its best when we get insights into Charlie's mental state, her journal entries, her soul that just flies in between each passage. I'm not trying to be poetic about this, this is just what Sierra evokes with her beautifully crafted, poetically charged prose.
As someone who searches for prose that can be used in ways beyond simple story telling, this book has captivated me and left me with a hangover that I'm not sure how long it'll last.
This is a romance novel, but a horror story, a thriller, a tale that weaves in and out of time like something from ancient myths.
Charlie, Forever and Ever is a unique story. There's no chapter breaks. The words are stream of conscious, sometimes vague, sometimes overly descriptive, time is a ball of wire that Natalie Sierra plays with however she damn well pleases.
I don't know how to break this story down into a review. It's an LSD trip that will either captivate you or turn you off. It's free flowing style leads the reader through this imaginative world of fantasy that's very much real but feels like something so out of reach. Sierra plays with language, with story, with the format.
Every little trick is broken down, and used to perfection. The relationship detailed is equal parts romantic, erotic, suffocating, scary, and just so real that even if you don't understand the story you understand the feelings.
This is very much a book meant to evoke emotions, and is at its best when we get insights into Charlie's mental state, her journal entries, her soul that just flies in between each passage. I'm not trying to be poetic about this, this is just what Sierra evokes with her beautifully crafted, poetically charged prose.
As someone who searches for prose that can be used in ways beyond simple story telling, this book has captivated me and left me with a hangover that I'm not sure how long it'll last.
13alyssa's review
5.0
This book was a trippppp.
It takes you on such an intense and satisfying ride.
Throughout you are accompanied by feelings of dread, hope, despair but the important part is— you are feeling.
The story follows Charlie, a young and hopeful scientist who views the world differently than others but who is starting to show positive symptoms of schizophrenia. She falls into a whirlwind romance with a young tech mogul who pulls her into his world but all the while we get flashes of Charlie’s inner life, how she got here.
It’s beautifully written in prose and there were lines I found myself reading over and over again for I wanted to memorize them, burn them into me.
Sierra captures something so intricate and little known in her debut novel, a woman, working in tech and struggling with mental illness in the 90s. She weaves an expert tale about love, loss, science, and our futures. I’m in awe, it’s a book I didn’t know I needed in my life.
Highly recommend.
It takes you on such an intense and satisfying ride.
Throughout you are accompanied by feelings of dread, hope, despair but the important part is— you are feeling.
The story follows Charlie, a young and hopeful scientist who views the world differently than others but who is starting to show positive symptoms of schizophrenia. She falls into a whirlwind romance with a young tech mogul who pulls her into his world but all the while we get flashes of Charlie’s inner life, how she got here.
It’s beautifully written in prose and there were lines I found myself reading over and over again for I wanted to memorize them, burn them into me.
Sierra captures something so intricate and little known in her debut novel, a woman, working in tech and struggling with mental illness in the 90s. She weaves an expert tale about love, loss, science, and our futures. I’m in awe, it’s a book I didn’t know I needed in my life.
Highly recommend.
More...