Reviews with content warning for Cursing - Piranesi

It's been a few weeks since I read this now and I'm still thinking about it. The character of Piranesi is really loveable and innocent and the mystery that unravels the further you get into the book is enough to get you hooked. It's not a long book at 245 pages but it leaves a lasting impression. I'll be picking up more of Susanna Clarke's books in the future.

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juliloops's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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bicyclefrog's review against another edition

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dark inspiring mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

Initially I gave this book 4.5/5 but here I am 2 months later bumping my rating up to 5. This book is so emotionally accurate that Clarke anticipated my own emotional journey during a life change before I even saw it coming. Gorgeous world building, realistic characters, and some of the best writing I’ve come across. Can’t get it out of my brain.

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nikenacs's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

[Book club - December 2021]
The most five-star-y five-star book I read this year (sorry, Song of Achilles). I could talk about it for two hours (and I did, in book club) and still not mention everything about it that I liked.

Piranesi is a mystery, a puzzle box waiting to be solved, but unfortunately your narrator has no idea the puzzle even exists. It takes the term "unreliable narrator" to a whole other level. The reader constantly knows way more than the main character, even though he is our only way of knowing things in the first place. It fascinated and engaged me like few books before.

Piranesi is a drop-dead gorgeous experience even apart from the mystery. Susanna Clarke's world feels incredibly tangible and lived-in (even though so very few people live in it). The House and its Statues will live in my mind rent-free for quite a while.

But above all, and at the risk of sounding incredibly cliché, Piranesi is an exercise in humanity. It is, fundamentally, a book about what makes a person human and what makes society tick (even if that society consist of one guy, his distant colleague, a few dead bodies and a whole lot of birds and statues). Piranesi's caregiving, his rituals, his morality, his near-religious interpretation of his World, his refusal to harm even his supposed enemy, and, in the end,

his desire for community over comfort - even being stripped of almost all personal identity,

he still remains the most human(e) character of all.

Susanna Clarke, I will sell my soul to you. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell has already moved in on my To Read shelf. Thank you for this absolute gem of a novel.

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rieviolet's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I think what I liked the most was Piranesi himself as a narrator, how we slowly discover the house and the story connnected to it from his point of view.

It is a very imaginative story and certainly very unique, I was really captured by the first half and I still enjoyed the second one, but I think that as the plot progressed and we discovered the darker aspects of it, some of the initial brillance got lost, at least for me. It was still a very enjoyable read that I had trouble putting down (a good half of it I read in just one sitting) and a very well crafted story.

I also had some personal quibbles over the treatment of certain topics (mailny the only depiction of queerness and also a quite fatphobic description at the very end of the story that really annoyed me) that dimmed my general enjoyment of the book.

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shelfofunread's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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the_clueless_tourist's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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massivepizzacrust's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

I was excited to see the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell published something new and I was not disappointed! I pretty much devoured this over the course of two days. I think you're best off going into this book knowing as little as possible so I won't talk about plot. But the dark academia vibes are strong and I have a lot of love for the main character.

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