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3.06 AVERAGE
3.06 AVERAGE
3.5/4 stars - I find it so hard to rate this book! It's incredibly imaginative and original, and I loved diving into the psychology of the three main characters, and the way the story unfolds through the masterful narrative structure. But, I never fully connected to the story and that definitely hampered my enjoyment.
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Suicide, Grief
Moderate: Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping
While flawed, this book is flawed at the highest level. There were bits and pieces I didn't like or that I didn't think worked, but I mean that in the same sense one might talk about something like 'Shakespeare's lesser works': the worst one is still right on the money. With this qualification in mind, here's my review:
This is a beautiful book. If you read it, you will be moved. Promise.*
*One further qualification. There's a lot of sexual content in the book, which I know that some people can find distracting. I would only point out that it is all presented, and I mean literally every instance, in an emotional context. The respective passages are not pornographic, anatomical descriptions of who does what to whom, but rather who does what and why.
This is a beautiful book. If you read it, you will be moved. Promise.*
*One further qualification. There's a lot of sexual content in the book, which I know that some people can find distracting. I would only point out that it is all presented, and I mean literally every instance, in an emotional context. The respective passages are not pornographic, anatomical descriptions of who does what to whom, but rather who does what and why.
I am sad that the average review for this one is hovering near 3 stars, because I found it one of the better books I've read this year. Maybe that's just because I spent so much time sunk into crazy Vorkosigan-land, but there was a lot here for me to like.
It's not perfect, but the magic is done well; there is no airy-fairy shit in this book. I don't usually cry when reading books, but the scenes in the hospital got me pretty close; even though the whole thing is crazy and manufactured, there is very obvious, well-written pain in Titania and Oberon.
I was a little slow (read: pretty damn slow) picking up the connections between the characters [oh, that Ryan, etc.]) but that was down to me rather than the book.
Recommended!
It's not perfect, but the magic is done well; there is no airy-fairy shit in this book. I don't usually cry when reading books, but the scenes in the hospital got me pretty close; even though the whole thing is crazy and manufactured, there is very obvious, well-written pain in Titania and Oberon.
I was a little slow (read: pretty damn slow) picking up the connections between the characters [oh, that Ryan, etc.]) but that was down to me rather than the book.
Recommended!
Overall, the story is good, but the ending is rushed and I did not understand much of Adrian's character development. He tried to make Titania a hero but it just did not work, and in the end I really felt sorry for Puck, the villian of the story, though I do not believe it was Adrian's attention for the reader to feel sorry for him.
This book does one amazing, 5 star thing for me - it goes to battle against grief using whimsy as a weapon. Not surprising though, coming from an author who is a pediatric oncologist. Many years ago, I spent quite a bit of time in this hospital ward, when my friend's child developed brain cancer. The ward did battle in the same way, with its bright colors, toys, posters, games, glitter, face paint, etc.
But while grief underpins the book, the story itself is a magical romp, drawing on elements from A Midsummer Night's Dream. It isn't a retelling of Shakespeare - although it did get nearly as convoluted in parts. There are fairies, magic, Peter Pan-like lost boys, a play within a play (Soylent Green!), and three lovelorn adults who are each lost in their own way. And there's lots of fairy sex :)
The only thing that kept me from rating this book higher was the need for tighter editing, especially when it came to wandering in the park/forest. I think it would also have benefitted from more breaks in the layout - there were too many pages of dense text, barely broken by paragraphs or dialogue. I think by the end I was feeling a bit exhausted and less able to make connections between story threads and characters.
But while grief underpins the book, the story itself is a magical romp, drawing on elements from A Midsummer Night's Dream. It isn't a retelling of Shakespeare - although it did get nearly as convoluted in parts. There are fairies, magic, Peter Pan-like lost boys, a play within a play (Soylent Green!), and three lovelorn adults who are each lost in their own way. And there's lots of fairy sex :)
The only thing that kept me from rating this book higher was the need for tighter editing, especially when it came to wandering in the park/forest. I think it would also have benefitted from more breaks in the layout - there were too many pages of dense text, barely broken by paragraphs or dialogue. I think by the end I was feeling a bit exhausted and less able to make connections between story threads and characters.
Chris Adrian is clearly an intelligent and creative author with his words and their combinations. He writes his characters with beautiful detail and heartbreaking insight. However, the over arching narrative was jumbled and broken. Often important events of in the plot were skimmed over, like a writer that forgets his audience isn't inside his head. The magical element was not as interesting as I anticipated and the climax moment (although unexpected) was reinforced only through quick changes between character voice. The description of the novel was so enticing, yet I was overall disappointed. Perhaps the most redeeming element of the book happens in the beginning with a description of a parents struggle through a child's leukemia treatment.
I was hoping for more connection to Shakespeare's Midsummer. There were elements that referenced to the play, but his use of the characters were classically defined as new media that conglomerates and fuses the new to the old. More importantly, this book should be put in the genre of San Francisco literature, as it felt very local in both the settings and the topic.
Themes explored: loss, sexuality, self-definition, magic v. reality
"Titania was the only one among them ever to have ridden on a roller coaster, but she didn't offer up the experience as an analogy, because it seemed insufficient to describe a process that to her felt less like a violent unpredictable ride and more like someone ripping out your heart on one day and then stuffing it back into your chest the next."
"Other people had become a whole lot more interesting since he had been freed from the labyrinthine solipsism of his self-enforced misery"
"Henry had done just the opposite thing, it seemed to him, falling every day more deeply into love while Bobby lifted himself ever higher out of it, until they could not possibly have been farther away from each other"
"He could not eat a cream puff without considering how it was filled to bursting with cream the way he was filled to bursting with love for her. Meta-pastries like these were obvious, and even pathetic, and generated by the worst part of him, not the best."
"He was just the handsome tricycle the world meant her to pedal a few yards down the road to recovery, and once she saw that she could see he wasn't actually necessary to the work. She could just like here and transport herself, by force of will, those same few yards."
"Henry had trouble trusting pediatricians who couldn't laugh at a nice dead-baby joke; it suggested to him somehow that they weren't sufficiently traumatized by their common experience."
I was hoping for more connection to Shakespeare's Midsummer. There were elements that referenced to the play, but his use of the characters were classically defined as new media that conglomerates and fuses the new to the old. More importantly, this book should be put in the genre of San Francisco literature, as it felt very local in both the settings and the topic.
Themes explored: loss, sexuality, self-definition, magic v. reality
"Titania was the only one among them ever to have ridden on a roller coaster, but she didn't offer up the experience as an analogy, because it seemed insufficient to describe a process that to her felt less like a violent unpredictable ride and more like someone ripping out your heart on one day and then stuffing it back into your chest the next."
"Other people had become a whole lot more interesting since he had been freed from the labyrinthine solipsism of his self-enforced misery"
"Henry had done just the opposite thing, it seemed to him, falling every day more deeply into love while Bobby lifted himself ever higher out of it, until they could not possibly have been farther away from each other"
"He could not eat a cream puff without considering how it was filled to bursting with cream the way he was filled to bursting with love for her. Meta-pastries like these were obvious, and even pathetic, and generated by the worst part of him, not the best."
"He was just the handsome tricycle the world meant her to pedal a few yards down the road to recovery, and once she saw that she could see he wasn't actually necessary to the work. She could just like here and transport herself, by force of will, those same few yards."
"Henry had trouble trusting pediatricians who couldn't laugh at a nice dead-baby joke; it suggested to him somehow that they weren't sufficiently traumatized by their common experience."
I tried with this book, but I could focus or something. I wanted to read it because it was recommended by the NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour people, but it felt like I was slowly slogging through a book in a foreign language. I gave up fairly early after deciding that summer (my main reading season) is too short or read books that I dislike. Someone else read it and convince me to give it another shot! I hate abandoning books, but sometimes it feels necessary.