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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
It took me 209 pages to get into this, and it's a partial miracle I didn't give up sooner. I haven't read anything else by the author, but had the sense throughout that she was trying to do too much. Instead of doing it all concisely, which would have taken some paring and drastic cuts, but would have left her with a gorgeous slice of a story, she left it all in, perhaps even added more when she was feeling uncertain. This slightly bloated feeling nagged at me, even when she had moments and lines that blew my mind. The beginning of the boy's narrative section was magical, and she nearly makes you believe for a while that we have a new narrator (this is something people have such a hard time with, changing rhythms mid-story).
It's no easy feat, to write a novel in which everything disappears, but I think Luiselli has almost done it. If you can stick it out, it's worth the read.
It's no easy feat, to write a novel in which everything disappears, but I think Luiselli has almost done it. If you can stick it out, it's worth the read.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Hard to explain why two complete strangers might suddenly decide to share an unbeautified portrait of their lives. But perhaps also easy to explain, because two people alone in a bar at two in the morning are probably there to try to figure out the exact narrative they need to tell themselves before they go back to wherever they’ll sleep that night.
Far and away the best book of the millennium, absolutely incredible. The characters were so real, the book was constructed like nothing I have seen before (multimedia), and the writing twisted in a way that necessitated engagement to an unrivaled extent
File under: best books of the millennium, page turners, incredible characters
Learned about: the woes of marriage, the Apache people, acoustemology, archive
Recommend for: people that are quarantined so they can’t go anywhere or see anyone so they need a traveling plot line and touchable characters, people who have critiqued academia/academic thought, people who appreciate kids
File under: best books of the millennium, page turners, incredible characters
Learned about: the woes of marriage, the Apache people, acoustemology, archive
Recommend for: people that are quarantined so they can’t go anywhere or see anyone so they need a traveling plot line and touchable characters, people who have critiqued academia/academic thought, people who appreciate kids
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Experimental, philosophical, politically relevant, poignant. This was just a beautiful story of a family on a roadtrip that was underscored by the suffering of those past and present deemed unacceptable by White America. I did not expect this book to hit me in quite the way that it did but it made me cry and unable to put it down just to get to the end.
Wow, I don’t even know where to begin. This was stunning, powerful and felt completely unique for me. If it hadn’t have been a library copy there would have been scores of underlines and annotations for me. I hope to revisit this again in the future and do exactly this. I now need to read the rest of Luiselli’s work.
Smart and unsettling. "All I see in hindsight is the chaos of history repeated, over and over, reenacted, reinterpreted, the world, its fucked-up heart palpitating underneath us, failing, messing up again and again as it winds its way around the sun."
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Book 4/18 from the 2020 Tournament of Books shortlist.
Beautifully written & very insightful. Highly recommended.
Beautifully written & very insightful. Highly recommended.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes