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3.31 AVERAGE
3.31 AVERAGE
This was all a little bit of nothing so maybe I just was not the audience - DNF
1 star
The book is a blend of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. This follows the intertwined lives of two protagonists, Shawna and Harrison, who are both struggling to find their place in the world.
I seldom find a literary award nominee or winner that I enjoy. And this was one of them which I just could not grasp.
Not my cup of tea. DNF@30%
Happy Reading!!
The book is a blend of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. This follows the intertwined lives of two protagonists, Shawna and Harrison, who are both struggling to find their place in the world.
I seldom find a literary award nominee or winner that I enjoy. And this was one of them which I just could not grasp.
Not my cup of tea. DNF@30%
Happy Reading!!
Unrelentingly grim and moody, with smashingly gruesomely excellent descriptive prose, mostly exercising its excellence on depictions of surpassingly strange happenings and despairing, disconnected people. Splashes, eddys, and ripples of Alasdair Grey and HP Lovecraft. This is a highly skilled and accomplished work. If this description appeals to you, check it out.
So... why not more stars? Well, however well described it is, I'm just not sure I want to sit and wallow in sucking cold mud, be it physical, spiritual, surreal, or all of the above.
The book jacket and many reviews see the work as containing brilliant moralising over the failure of Brexit. Brexit was mentioned explicitly once, that I noticed, but even as a subtext, I just can't see it as a theme for the whole work. Unless you automatically hold Brexit to blame it for all our ills, much as Thatcherism was the demonic force in Alasdair Grey's Lanark. But no matter. I don't think I would like it more if I could see it as a condemnation of Brexit.
This is a work I respect greatly for its skill. But I wish I liked it more.
So... why not more stars? Well, however well described it is, I'm just not sure I want to sit and wallow in sucking cold mud, be it physical, spiritual, surreal, or all of the above.
The book jacket and many reviews see the work as containing brilliant moralising over the failure of Brexit. Brexit was mentioned explicitly once, that I noticed, but even as a subtext, I just can't see it as a theme for the whole work. Unless you automatically hold Brexit to blame it for all our ills, much as Thatcherism was the demonic force in Alasdair Grey's Lanark. But no matter. I don't think I would like it more if I could see it as a condemnation of Brexit.
This is a work I respect greatly for its skill. But I wish I liked it more.
An eerie, unsettling book with an ending that creeps up slowly and then pounces for a startling finish.
challenging
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A little too much and also too little structure ruins it but enjoyable in that creepy wet english way.
slow-paced
Un libro strano e difficile da classificare, che non so se consiglierei ad altri. Ho sentito paragonare Harrison a Pynchon, Eco, Burroughs e Woolf, ma a me ha dato più l'impressione di David Lynch che riscrive La maschera di Innsmouth.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
I have no idea what this book is about. I ended up stopping at page 156, after reading this passage, which pretty much sums the entire book up:
'It hasn't got much of a story, ' she said. 'This book of yours.'
Shaw admitted that it hadn't. Line by line it was as disorganised as The Water House itself. Stories reproduced from every type of science periodical appeared cheek-by-jowl with listicle and urban myth. These essentially unrelated objects were connected by grammatically correct means to produce apparently causal relationships. Perfectly sound pivots, such as 'however' or 'while it remains true that', connected propositions empty of any actual meaning, as if the writer had learned to mimic sentence structure without having any idea how to link it to its own content. It would be incorrect, Shaw thought, to describe the data as 'cherry-picked', since that would imply an argument they had been chosen to fit. Instead. they were part of an endless list.
Honestly, who has the time for this rubbish?
'It hasn't got much of a story, ' she said. 'This book of yours.'
Shaw admitted that it hadn't. Line by line it was as disorganised as The Water House itself. Stories reproduced from every type of science periodical appeared cheek-by-jowl with listicle and urban myth. These essentially unrelated objects were connected by grammatically correct means to produce apparently causal relationships. Perfectly sound pivots, such as 'however' or 'while it remains true that', connected propositions empty of any actual meaning, as if the writer had learned to mimic sentence structure without having any idea how to link it to its own content. It would be incorrect, Shaw thought, to describe the data as 'cherry-picked', since that would imply an argument they had been chosen to fit. Instead. they were part of an endless list.
Honestly, who has the time for this rubbish?
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes