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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
This book totally stuck with me. I've been thinking about it since finishing it.
It's a portrait of someone who has suffered some the absolute worst treatment imaginable (thankfully, sexual abuse is absent), and the various decisions she makes along the way.
It vaguely illustrates the uselessness of bureaucracy. Effective leadership is completely absent from this book: all people are out for themselves and believe unsparingly in The Cause.
It's told nearly completely from the point of view of a woman named Sara T. Chestnut, who by a school mistake early in life goes by Sarat Chestnut.
This was a tough book to read. I don't think it'd be enjoyable to sit down and read the whole thing cover to cover. I spaced my experience out over seventeen days. I would read some until I got too depressed about the horrible people or the awful decisions people were making, then I would stop for a while.
I always came back. I wanted to find out what happened to Sarat.
This is a difficult book to recommend. It is fairly profound, disturbing, surreal, and it feels like a reasonable prediction of what the country might end up like soon, the way things have been going lately.
It is very much a book for Right Now. I don't know how well it will hold up, but if you follow politics, if your Twitter feed scares you as much as mine does, if you feel, as I do, that something profound is happening in American politics and American culture, you should read this book.
It's a portrait of someone who has suffered some the absolute worst treatment imaginable (thankfully, sexual abuse is absent), and the various decisions she makes along the way.
It vaguely illustrates the uselessness of bureaucracy. Effective leadership is completely absent from this book: all people are out for themselves and believe unsparingly in The Cause.
It's told nearly completely from the point of view of a woman named Sara T. Chestnut, who by a school mistake early in life goes by Sarat Chestnut.
This was a tough book to read. I don't think it'd be enjoyable to sit down and read the whole thing cover to cover. I spaced my experience out over seventeen days. I would read some until I got too depressed about the horrible people or the awful decisions people were making, then I would stop for a while.
I always came back. I wanted to find out what happened to Sarat.
This is a difficult book to recommend. It is fairly profound, disturbing, surreal, and it feels like a reasonable prediction of what the country might end up like soon, the way things have been going lately.
It is very much a book for Right Now. I don't know how well it will hold up, but if you follow politics, if your Twitter feed scares you as much as mine does, if you feel, as I do, that something profound is happening in American politics and American culture, you should read this book.
For the first two thirds of the story, it is an amazing read. You are drawn in, you learn to love the characters but the last third... I don't know. I just had no sympathy left for the main character, just the supporting ones that were hurt from her actions.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Don’t stumble over the fact that this dystopian novel posits a second American Civil War between North and South. Omar El Akkad doesn’t necessarily aim for American readers to lean on our past, our “first” Civil War, for reference and plausibility, but asks us to have empathy for other internal conflicts supported by external powers in the present day Middle East. In that light the story is powerful and necessary. I couldn’t put it down.
4.5 stars. I really enjoyed reading this book. The premise was particularly intriguing, and I loved the perspective from which it was told. A very relevant story for current times.
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes