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alic59books's review
challenging
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
leigh_ann_15_deaf's review against another edition
2.0
I want to start off by stating that I clearly don't understand the novel. The story is not what the blurb really promised, as far as I can tell. But I did finish it, and came across some problematic themes.
I liked that this story plays with memory (including the forgotten ones), and slowly unravels the life of an impoverished, postwar--or prewar, I'm unclear on that--childhood.
One thing I'm not sure worked well is the sort of teasing, queer-baity aspect of the novel. The vet is at first insinuated to be, then outed as, homosexual, and is the reason he was essentially run out of town. But the author repeated circles back to Karlo (the vet) and Daniel's (the narrator's brother) relationship, which Dada entertains might have been sexual in nature. The author led me to believe that Dada would uncover that her brother's death was not, in fact, by suicide, but perhaps the same perpetrators who beat Karlo accidentally or purposefully murdered Daniel. That was not the case.
The book is chock-full of casual, outdated racist terms/slurs/stereotypes (seemingly based on American Westerns) and remnants of nationalism/patriotism. Also, the mentally ill and addicted persons of the novel generally go untreated and ignored, even killed off. I found myself cringing throughout the novel at these.
I'm sure all this is supposed to be a metaphor for something or other, but I don't know what it is.
I liked that this story plays with memory (including the forgotten ones), and slowly unravels the life of an impoverished, postwar--or prewar, I'm unclear on that--childhood.
One thing I'm not sure worked well is the sort of teasing, queer-baity aspect of the novel. The vet is at first insinuated to be, then outed as, homosexual, and is the reason he was essentially run out of town. But the author repeated circles back to Karlo (the vet) and Daniel's (the narrator's brother) relationship, which Dada entertains might have been sexual in nature. The author led me to believe that Dada would uncover that her brother's death was not, in fact, by suicide, but perhaps the same perpetrators who beat Karlo accidentally or purposefully murdered Daniel. That was not the case.
The book is chock-full of casual, outdated racist terms/slurs/stereotypes (seemingly based on American Westerns) and remnants of nationalism/patriotism. Also, the mentally ill and addicted persons of the novel generally go untreated and ignored, even killed off. I found myself cringing throughout the novel at these.
I'm sure all this is supposed to be a metaphor for something or other, but I don't know what it is.
grahamiam's review against another edition
Edit, review: http://therumpus.net/2016/02/adios-cowboy-by-olja-savicevic/
Official review up later, but basically the book has amazing language and the prose is just really smart. I'm especially a fan of how it's firmly aware of the modern digital world without making a spectacle of it (most books either ignore it or push it to the front too much).
However, the plot isn't doing much work at all, especially in the first half of the book.
Official review up later, but basically the book has amazing language and the prose is just really smart. I'm especially a fan of how it's firmly aware of the modern digital world without making a spectacle of it (most books either ignore it or push it to the front too much).
However, the plot isn't doing much work at all, especially in the first half of the book.
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