Reviews with content warning for Death - The Book of Goose

Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

12 reviews

weenyreads's review against another edition

challenging reflective sad

The writing is beautiful and poetic but I had to stop reading from very graphic and constant talk of child and infant death

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lasivaranasi's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny sad medium-paced

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

4.25

Die Charaktere entwickeln sich nur sperrig und mir hat etwas eine Reflexion von Agnes gefehlt, darüber wie sie die Freundschaft später wahrnimmt. Außerdem fand ich persönlich den Schul-Abschnitt zu einseitig/lang.
Dennoch habe ich die Schreibstil geliebt und viele Sätze und Analogien markiert, um sie mir zu behalten. Alles in allem ein gutes Buch. Ich würde es jedoch nicht empfehlen, wenn man es in Buch lesen möchte in dem viel passiert/ sich die Charaktere stark weiterentwickeln.

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scmiller's review against another edition

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reflective sad slow-paced

Loveable characters? No

2.5

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lemmonflowers's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective fast-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? Yes

3.75

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applesodaperson's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

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

4.25

So this book was good, but it wasn't absolutely incredible or anything. I would put this book into a very niche sub-genre of books, that also includes Dogs of Summer and My Brilliant Friend. These books are all about two young/preteen girls growing up in rural Europe (or near Europe), where the narrator is the less dominant friend, and their friend is the cool aloof one, but the main character is more book/school smart.

The similarities continue because in all three books, either the main character or their friend gets sexually assaulted. They also all end with the two girls growing apart.

So yeah these three books felt like basically the exact same story. And even though this book is my favorite out of the three, I think I would have liked it more if I read it first, because it would have felt less like a repeat of two other books I have read this year. That heavily impacted my reading experience. I will say that the writing style in this book was very good.
Read from the BYU library.

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graceesford's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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yoursam's review against another edition

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emotional sad fast-paced

4.0

there's a tumblr post that goes something like "isn't it all about old friends? like all of it?", this book is just that. i feel like most stories about love tend to be romantic, most stories about breakups tend to be romantic too. but there's a very particular type of pain in having a friend go away from you. people fade in and out of your life constantly, that's true, but with friends especially, there is usually no closure. it happens. you wake up one day and you can't remember the last time you spoke, the last messages you sent each other are birthday wishes three years ago.

it's a very sharp kind of heartbreak.

there's a passage from the book itself that mentions this too, here's a little extract of it:

It baffles me that often songs and poems are written about love at first sight: those who claim to experience the phenomena have preened themselves, ready for love. There is nothing extraordinary about that. Childhood friendship, much more fatal, simply happens.

the book of goose is sort of about that. but, more specifically, it's about why it's all so painful. it's about the before, the lead up. it's about teenage girls and how intense their relationships can be. possessive, obsessive. teenage girls that are sometimes not as likeable as most want them to be, with their ugly urges and ugly wants.

i believe yiyun li has that part down to a t. these two girls have their souls knotted together, they took needle and thread and sewed them with neat precise stitches. and yeah, it hurts to do that to the very fabric of your being but so what? at least now it's one big thing we share. it's ours. us instead of me and you.

how terrifying, to see two people love each other like that.

and for the characters themselves, how terrifying AND reassuring to know they will never love anyone else the way they love each other.

But I had loved her all my life. I had loved her before we knew what the world was, what love was, and who we ourselves were.

alright rambling (and praise for this part of the book) aside, there are some things i didn't particularly love. not stuff that i hated, mind you, just things that brought down my enjoyment.

here and there, the writing gets slightly repetitive. the very beginning especially and some parts throughout the novel. it's the sort of intentional repetition that works most times, but when it doesn't it makes the flow clunkier. little bumps in the road. it's fine though, it doesn't happen that often, it simply felt noticeable to me when it did.

second thing, about three quarters of the way through the story starts dragging. which creates a small domino effect that ends up with a slightly rushed finale, imo. it's a good finale!! it is! but personally i found it didn't have the space to stretch.

i don't mind when a book leaves you with questions, some stories are complete just like that. but sometimes, among those Good Leftover Questions are some Well You Could Have Told Us That Questions. if that makes any sense lmao

that's it, i think. there's a lot of good insight here, to me it felt like a very human book. with all the ugliness that that implies.

another little quote for good luck:

How could Fabienne and I have been fair to him when we were young? How could we have been fair to anyone but ourselves?

last thing actually, while i love the title i do believe there might have been better ones for this particular story in the text itself <3 then again what do i know about choosing a book title lmao

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