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3.32 AVERAGE
3.32 AVERAGE
twospoons's review
3.0
A few wonderfully written sections, capturing honest inner landscapes. Cusk has a gift for using metaphors to capture the essence of emotions.
torgla's review against another edition
4.0
Dreamlike passages, each narrated by a new character with the others glimpsed around the edges, giving shape to their shared history. Scattered across time and regions, they are linked by Columbia's decades-long conflicts and the ripples of violence, displacement, and uncertainty.
Gut-wrenching at times, but cathartic and verging on magical realism. Excellent readers on the audio.
Gut-wrenching at times, but cathartic and verging on magical realism. Excellent readers on the audio.
leahkendall's review
emotional
medium-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
3.25
annegreen's review
4.0
This book is billed as a novel but it's actually five separate stories, linked nebulously by two or three characters. There’s a passage in it spoken by one of the characters who appear consistently (albeit often briefly) in each of the stories. This is Serena, a young woman ostensibly successfully combining career (journalism) and motherhood. She writes a regular column for a national newspaper based on her own family experiences and those of other women she knows. She says, when asked what it is she does - “I’m trying to write about feminism in the context of the family. About how inequality runs through the veins of how we live together and love and reproduce.”
This appears to be Cusk’s overarching theme – the conflicts, struggles and violent contradictions inherent in being a parent and a spouse. Interestingly this book was written a year after her controversial autobiographical account of her own experiences of parenting –
‘’A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother”. Neither book presents a particularly optimistic view of motherhood.
In this book there is no character who’s found a way of rationalising their hopes, dreams and aspirations as individuals with the responsibilities and obligations that come with marriage and children. They’re all struggling in various ways, but then if they weren’t there wouldn’t be a basis for a book. Cover to cover versions of happy families might be too saccharine, as well as unrealistic. And Cusk is not an author to embrace anything but gritty realism overlaid with a consistent bleakness that in her skilled hands seems somehow just the way it should be.
It’s the prose and the spare but authentic dialogue that makes the reading of this book far more rewarding than its subject suggests.
This appears to be Cusk’s overarching theme – the conflicts, struggles and violent contradictions inherent in being a parent and a spouse. Interestingly this book was written a year after her controversial autobiographical account of her own experiences of parenting –
‘’A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother”. Neither book presents a particularly optimistic view of motherhood.
In this book there is no character who’s found a way of rationalising their hopes, dreams and aspirations as individuals with the responsibilities and obligations that come with marriage and children. They’re all struggling in various ways, but then if they weren’t there wouldn’t be a basis for a book. Cover to cover versions of happy families might be too saccharine, as well as unrealistic. And Cusk is not an author to embrace anything but gritty realism overlaid with a consistent bleakness that in her skilled hands seems somehow just the way it should be.
It’s the prose and the spare but authentic dialogue that makes the reading of this book far more rewarding than its subject suggests.
madelinepuckett's review against another edition
5.0
I will be consuming ANY writing Pachico publishes from this point forward.
This was a moving, engaging, haunting, powerful piece of writing. It's an example of how a good writer can use fiction to explore historical trauma, to investigate many sides of a complex issue. Pachico did an amazing job with this debut.
The stories focus on events and unrest in Colombia in the 1990s and early 2000s (with a few chapters set in 2013). I knew nothing of this (very recent) history, and everything about this writing made me keen to do some research on my own. While the politics and violence is very present in the narrative, the stories focus on the characters and a look into their individual lives. This is very effective and more emotionally impactful when we do come across the vaguely historical references.
Reading some reviews, I was confused by other readers' confusion…they said it didn't read like a novel but like short stories.
Me: Duh, it's a short story collection??
But then I saw that it was marketed as a novel in the states, and as short stories in the UK (and Australia, which is where I found my copy).
It works so much better categorized as short stories. I picked this book up seeing it as a collection of short stories, with no other context, no knowledge of the subject matter, no nothing. And I was immediately pulled into the narrative.
I loved the way Pachico pulled her short stories together, linking them through different characters and different contexts. It reminded me of Jennifer Egans's A Visit from the Good Squad for which she won - hey! - the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Each story builds on each other, so that you find yourself flipping back to find more depth and revelation from the stories before. I thought this took great craftsmanship on Pachico's part, especially as a debut work.
This book struck me as a work that stands incredibly strong as a text, but was somehow mis-marketed or misconstrued, leaving readers either disappointed or confused.
This is frustrating to me, because so often in publishing the OPPOSITE happens: reviewers and literary critics make assumptions about a novel and spew the same conclusions over and over, so when you read the text itself, it falls incredibly short OR it is misaligned with the conclusions of mass reviews (for example: Animal by Lisa Taddeo and Normal People by Sally Rooney.
When did we as readers start paying attention more to the marketing blurbs and reviews than to the text itself??
update: I found this author interview and it resonated SO MUCH!
https://peakreads.wordpress.com/2018/10/04/in-conversation-with-julianne-pachico-from-colombia-to-sheffield/
This was a moving, engaging, haunting, powerful piece of writing. It's an example of how a good writer can use fiction to explore historical trauma, to investigate many sides of a complex issue. Pachico did an amazing job with this debut.
The stories focus on events and unrest in Colombia in the 1990s and early 2000s (with a few chapters set in 2013). I knew nothing of this (very recent) history, and everything about this writing made me keen to do some research on my own. While the politics and violence is very present in the narrative, the stories focus on the characters and a look into their individual lives. This is very effective and more emotionally impactful when we do come across the vaguely historical references.
Reading some reviews, I was confused by other readers' confusion…they said it didn't read like a novel but like short stories.
Me: Duh, it's a short story collection??
But then I saw that it was marketed as a novel in the states, and as short stories in the UK (and Australia, which is where I found my copy).
It works so much better categorized as short stories. I picked this book up seeing it as a collection of short stories, with no other context, no knowledge of the subject matter, no nothing. And I was immediately pulled into the narrative.
I loved the way Pachico pulled her short stories together, linking them through different characters and different contexts. It reminded me of Jennifer Egans's A Visit from the Good Squad for which she won - hey! - the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Each story builds on each other, so that you find yourself flipping back to find more depth and revelation from the stories before. I thought this took great craftsmanship on Pachico's part, especially as a debut work.
This book struck me as a work that stands incredibly strong as a text, but was somehow mis-marketed or misconstrued, leaving readers either disappointed or confused.
This is frustrating to me, because so often in publishing the OPPOSITE happens: reviewers and literary critics make assumptions about a novel and spew the same conclusions over and over, so when you read the text itself, it falls incredibly short OR it is misaligned with the conclusions of mass reviews (for example: Animal by Lisa Taddeo and Normal People by Sally Rooney.
When did we as readers start paying attention more to the marketing blurbs and reviews than to the text itself??
update: I found this author interview and it resonated SO MUCH!
https://peakreads.wordpress.com/2018/10/04/in-conversation-with-julianne-pachico-from-colombia-to-sheffield/
fiandaca's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed this collection of interconnected short stories, but it was promoted as a novel, which it definitely is not. The vignettes were largely interesting, with some well-drawn characters as well as the very interesting and sometimes terrifying backdrop of Colombia.
metzti's review against another edition
3.0
The stories were interesting in terms of how they were all connected, however I didn't find the wealthy characters interesting and would have rather preferred reading more on the guerrillas and servants, as well as the class and ethnic differences that played a part in the war that has pretty much defined Colombia for several decades. In terms of structure, it was difficult at times to figure out who was narrating which story which probably was the intention considering the subject matter.
jbshap's review against another edition
3.0
Stories about Columbia and the FARC, guerrilla fighters and war....how it affects a community of rich ex-pats ..I love that this book is about something I knew nothing about and it really brings it to life. Really well told...feels almost like magical realism...but it's mostly just real. I didn't like that it is more interconnected stories than a novel. I really, really, really wanted to know what happened to the girl in the beginning...but, spoiler alert, you never really find out.
andibz's review against another edition
4.0
Story beautifuly told, upsetting but hard look at lives in Colombia during drug wars and civil conflict