Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

3 reviews

seventhswan's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

This one's for the gifted and mildly traumatised girlies who had a weirdly intense, homoerotic friendship in high school that never went anywhere and fizzled out around the same time that their giftedness did... but in 1950s rural France. Which is a relief, or I might have thought parts of the book were about me. Everything in this story was impeccably constructed and I felt genuinely sad for both Agnes and Fabienne throughout, despite - or perhaps because of - some of their actions being borderline indefensible. I've been loving novels with rural settings lately and this was a huge win on that front too. 

I do wish the novel hadn't opened with

Fabienne's death.

I think it would have been more impactful to not be certain what happened to her until the end of the book. Otherwise, though, I could have read a book twice as long about these characters and their world. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship

Moderate: Animal death and Child death

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Racism, War, and Homophobia

mollybryann's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense slow-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

3.0

The prose was graphically beautiful. The friendship between the two main characters was a bit hard to follow at times as to what Fabienne was trying to do with certain actions, though I suppose that might be the point. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Animal cruelty, War, Child death, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Minor: Classism, Blood, War, Racism, Miscarriage, Rape, Animal cruelty, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Emotional abuse, Animal death, Violence, Murder, Grief, and Gore

“When I was first married to Earl, he often took pleasure in teaching me things that I had not known. Once, he explained to me about the Mohs scale, which was used to test the hardness of minerals and gems. Diamond is the hardest, he said, and diamond can scratch any gem on the scale, but every other gem can leave only a scrape on those softer than itself. None of them would do anything to a diamond. Perhaps I was born a material different from my parents. I was born a hard person, harder than most people in my life, so I have only myself to blame when I cannot feel the love of others, my parents among them. Love from those who cannot damage us irreparably often feels insufficient; we may think, rightly or wrongly, that their love does not matter at all.” “But her personality, I now understand, was impaired by her desire to be good and to be right. To be good was in her nature. She took genuine pleasure in being good. However, where does the desire to be right lead one, if not to the wrong place? Knowing Mrs. Townsend's mind and speaking on her behalf-these Catalina did with perfect ease and confidence, as she must have spoken on behalf of other authorities before Woodsway, and would continue to do so after Woodsway. I was too young then to dread a person like her. I have since encountered other versions of Catalina; each time I have to reeducate myself in avoiding people's good intentions.”

yoursam's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Animal cruelty, Death, Racism, War, and Terminal illness

none of the content warnings are spoilers for the book, i promise. and everything is dealt with that kind of teenage ease; throwaway lines and the idea of some stuff just being 'a part of life'.