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beckchicken's review against another edition
2.5
The whole idea of this book seems to be retelling of various mythologies using the same set of characters throughout the book, told from two perspectives. I think the idea is cool, but this book didn't quite do it for me for a few reasons.
The language is very flowery and at times very nice, but it is so overly descriptive of certain things at the expense of sometimes describing basic elements of the setting. For example, you'll know what a character's skin smells/feels/looks like before you know the basic layout of a room during scenes when it matters or before you know if two characters are even interacting in the same room.
Also some of the writing is just really cringey. There's a very erotic way of describing every character in the book, lots of licking random things/people or having a character describe that they want to lick random things/people. Lots of hair and skin sniffing and overuse of the word "stink" and almost every scene between our two main characters ends with them having sex. Characters are constantly defined or described by their sex life, or how they seem they would be in bed. "She'd be good at sex, he understood, without knowing how" (page 18).
The scenes are also not quite descriptive enough to be smut either, so the whole style is just a bit confusing and by the end I was cringing and eye-rolling. There's also this theme in the book that leads us to believe the worst thing you can be is fat. Characters are basically described at their rock bottom when they become fat, which felt dumb.
Overall, I liked what this book was trying to do. A relationship told from two sides with two different, valid, perspectives, and two characters enabling each other's toxic traits in a way that keeps them both satisfied is a story I would have loved to see told with depth and nuance. In some ways this was explored, and in some ways it was even achieved.
The language is very flowery and at times very nice, but it is so overly descriptive of certain things at the expense of sometimes describing basic elements of the setting. For example, you'll know what a character's skin smells/feels/looks like before you know the basic layout of a room during scenes when it matters or before you know if two characters are even interacting in the same room.
Also some of the writing is just really cringey. There's a very erotic way of describing every character in the book, lots of licking random things/people or having a character describe that they want to lick random things/people. Lots of hair and skin sniffing and overuse of the word "stink" and almost every scene between our two main characters ends with them having sex. Characters are constantly defined or described by their sex life, or how they seem they would be in bed. "She'd be good at sex, he understood, without knowing how" (page 18).
The scenes are also not quite descriptive enough to be smut either, so the whole style is just a bit confusing and by the end I was cringing and eye-rolling. There's also this theme in the book that leads us to believe the worst thing you can be is fat. Characters are basically described at their rock bottom when they become fat, which felt dumb.
Overall, I liked what this book was trying to do. A relationship told from two sides with two different, valid, perspectives, and two characters enabling each other's toxic traits in a way that keeps them both satisfied is a story I would have loved to see told with depth and nuance. In some ways this was explored, and in some ways it was even achieved.
kecb12's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
What a book. There is SO MUCH in this book that speaks to the reality of being married—what it means to know someone, to choose someone, to be with someone. But there is also this beautifully-rendered picture of how to continue to be yourself, an individual, in the midst of also being in a marriage of two. It’s a complicated question—how to maintain selfhood and autonomy when eternally attached to another person—and I so appreciated Groff’s take on it. This feels like the more well-written, thoughtful, reality-based version of Gone Girl. I will think about this book for a long time.
jlk64's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
catbrigand's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to give this an additional star because I loved the second half and the writing, though heavy handed with metaphors, swept me away at times. But alas, I loathed and was let down by the ending.
kdawn999's review against another edition
3.0
A bit too gross and sex-centric for me to really like. The value here is in the imagistic and non-linear narration.
cmccotter's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
bywell's review against another edition
4.0
Beautifully written…. loved the opera, wish there was someone with the talent and interest to take it to production. I will be first in line to buy a ticket.
booksandlists's review against another edition
I think I just picked this up at a bad time - I wasn’t looking for something serious, so this book wasn’t what I needed.
j_m_alexander's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
A story of a marriage, two individuals, and how much we know those we love most.
[He knew her; the things he didn’t know about her would sink an ocean liner; he knew her.]
...but also a book about art and power and sex and death and rage.
“[Grief is for the strong, who use it as fuel for burning.]”
This book has been around for a while now (2015, so 9 years at the time of my reading - that's a while) and I feel like everyone has read it, it's reached the level of just being somewhat in the cultural atmosphere, yet somehow I was still so surprised by this book - continuously, I don't think I ever really figured out where it was going before it delivered me to the next destination. I know Groff is a masterful writer on a sentence level (I loved Matrix), I knew the basic setup/plot and also that this book does some interesting things with form, but all of that said I still found myself constantly surprised. Groff sets the tone for half of the book by focusing on one perspective within the marriage, but once you get to the Furies section, it's an immediate revelatory shift and destruction of the heretofore basically linear form, that makes you think about every single thing you thought you knew and had read for the first 200 pages or so. This is the kind of thing that could seem gimmicky if the story, characters, and writing were not great, but what have I been saying? It is!
“Paradox of marriage: you can never know someone entirely; you do know someone entirely.”
I can imagine there would be people that might find the first half a bit of a slog, but I found Groff's writing to be engaging enough to read the fairly linear story of a man (Lotto) and his marriage, plus you are lulled into liking the characters even through shitty, thoughtless, and self-centered behavior. I would tell those that find it to be dragging in the beginning to hang with it, it'll be SOO worth it, because Mathilde is the far more interesting character, far more grey, far more biting, far more dynamic, and everything she shares adds layers to what your learned from her husband.
“Please. Marriage is made of lies. Kind ones, mostly. Omissions. If you give voice to the things you think every day about your spouse, you’d crush them to paste. She never lied. Just never said.”
This is two for two for me with Groff. So far my take is that she writes stories that are darkly shaded with wry humor, but also contain plenty of beauty and strength. My thanks to the Fates for measuring my particular thread out long enough to allow some reading of Groff!
[He knew her; the things he didn’t know about her would sink an ocean liner; he knew her.]
...but also a book about art and power and sex and death and rage.
“[Grief is for the strong, who use it as fuel for burning.]”
This book has been around for a while now (2015, so 9 years at the time of my reading - that's a while) and I feel like everyone has read it, it's reached the level of just being somewhat in the cultural atmosphere, yet somehow I was still so surprised by this book - continuously, I don't think I ever really figured out where it was going before it delivered me to the next destination. I know Groff is a masterful writer on a sentence level (I loved Matrix), I knew the basic setup/plot and also that this book does some interesting things with form, but all of that said I still found myself constantly surprised. Groff sets the tone for half of the book by focusing on one perspective within the marriage, but once you get to the Furies section, it's an immediate revelatory shift and destruction of the heretofore basically linear form, that makes you think about every single thing you thought you knew and had read for the first 200 pages or so. This is the kind of thing that could seem gimmicky if the story, characters, and writing were not great, but what have I been saying? It is!
“Paradox of marriage: you can never know someone entirely; you do know someone entirely.”
I can imagine there would be people that might find the first half a bit of a slog, but I found Groff's writing to be engaging enough to read the fairly linear story of a man (Lotto) and his marriage, plus you are lulled into liking the characters even through shitty, thoughtless, and self-centered behavior. I would tell those that find it to be dragging in the beginning to hang with it, it'll be SOO worth it, because Mathilde is the far more interesting character, far more grey, far more biting, far more dynamic, and everything she shares adds layers to what your learned from her husband.
“Please. Marriage is made of lies. Kind ones, mostly. Omissions. If you give voice to the things you think every day about your spouse, you’d crush them to paste. She never lied. Just never said.”
This is two for two for me with Groff. So far my take is that she writes stories that are darkly shaded with wry humor, but also contain plenty of beauty and strength. My thanks to the Fates for measuring my particular thread out long enough to allow some reading of Groff!
mtro's review against another edition
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5