Reviews

Nunez’s books are endlessly fascinating to me. I suspect that she, like me, is an over-thinker, and I sometimes think she just takes all the ideas that are charging around in her head and puts them in the mouths of different characters at a coffee shop, or languishing on sofas in a luxury apartment. That way she can theorize about controversial topics but it’s not her (or her semi-autobiographical narrator) who is speaking.

Anyway. This is a novel about ideas and the people who have them. It’s also about writing and the pandemic and the gorgeous parrot the narrator is taking care of for a friend of a friend. It would be unbearably pretentious except that occasionally she says things like, “There was a time in childhood when I was obsessed with dinosaurs. You could never have made me believe that, in later life, years would go by without a brontosaurus lumbering across my mind.” I enjoyed it, maybe not quite as much as the other two of hers I’ve read (The Friend and What Are You Going Through).

louwalt's review against another edition

Go to review page

slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

teresac's review

Go to review page

reflective 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? It's complicated

4.75

menziesreads's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

More...