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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
Hiding this because of a lot of swearing. Maybe some spoiling? Mostly just swearing.
Shit. Shiiiiiiiiiit. Shit. All I could think while reading this. All I can think after reading this. It is awful and beautiful and powerful. I felt physically ill the entire time yet couldn't put it down for a second. Yes, it's graphic, but it is "graphic" wielded to its best and most powerful, a literary tool rather than the literary crutch a lot of authors use it as. An impending sense of doom-hope-doom you can't escape and instead rush towards just like the characters. Yes, some flaws, some really blunt metaphor, but mostly...The intricacies of physical and emotional abuse are blow wide open and honest through absolutely magnificent, MAGNIFICENT, writing. Holy hell Tallent.
Spoiler
Shit. Shiiiiiiiiiit. Shit. All I could think while reading this. All I can think after reading this. It is awful and beautiful and powerful. I felt physically ill the entire time yet couldn't put it down for a second. Yes, it's graphic, but it is "graphic" wielded to its best and most powerful, a literary tool rather than the literary crutch a lot of authors use it as. An impending sense of doom-hope-doom you can't escape and instead rush towards just like the characters. Yes, some flaws, some really blunt metaphor, but mostly...The intricacies of physical and emotional abuse are blow wide open and honest through absolutely magnificent, MAGNIFICENT, writing. Holy hell Tallent.
I'm really struggling with this one. On the one hand, I understand why some people love it. Turtle's character is fascinating. Who doesn't want to root for a gutsy, self-sufficient character who so desperately needs help? On the other hand, quite aside from the shock value of the language and the content and the fact that the story of an abused young girl was told from the perspective of an older white man. . . (all of which has already been discussed at length in other reviews here), I also struggle with the fact that so much of this story could have been prevented by at least a dozen characters who all conveniently didn't act, and that the ending of the story just felt so intensely and maybe even unnecessarily melodramatic. The entire time I read I waffled between thinking that the language Turtle uses to talk about herself makes sense given her upbringing while also wondering how realistic and researched any of this is.
I did finish this one, and I will be thinking about it and mulling over it for a while, which is where the rating comes in, but I can't honestly say I would recommend it to very many people. If you're looking for the story of a child in intense circumstances that manages to keep pushing forward toward a whole life and you're fine with lots of heavy language, I'd pick up The Goldfinch instead.
I did finish this one, and I will be thinking about it and mulling over it for a while, which is where the rating comes in, but I can't honestly say I would recommend it to very many people. If you're looking for the story of a child in intense circumstances that manages to keep pushing forward toward a whole life and you're fine with lots of heavy language, I'd pick up The Goldfinch instead.
beautiful and terrible. only complaint is that people don’t talk like the boys in this book...
A riveting page turner if rather too unpleasant in parts for me
This book was difficult to read in that you need some emotional guts to get through it. Also, some of the passages with technical or scientific detail were waaaaay too long. I don't need to read 5 paragraphs about how to set up a tent with every possible vocabulary word related to setting up a tent.
Holy hell. I got this book to read on my trip to visit my family. As I was reading it on my first flight it just kept getting worse and worse for this poor girl. I was thinking maybe it will get better and continued to push through. But the scene that happened right before we landed left me feeling nauseous.
I popped into a bookstore here at the airport and asked one of the sellers for some recommendations. I mentioned that I was reading this book and asked if she had read it. She said “Oh, that one.” I asked if it got any better and she said, “No, it actually gets much worse.” I was on page 40 when I stopped.
I’m sure there must be some benefit to this and there is a strong imagination with this writer or else they’ve been some pretty awful things. I just personally couldn’t handle the subject matter. For anyone that has been through these things I am so sorry and I send you my love.
I popped into a bookstore here at the airport and asked one of the sellers for some recommendations. I mentioned that I was reading this book and asked if she had read it. She said “Oh, that one.” I asked if it got any better and she said, “No, it actually gets much worse.” I was on page 40 when I stopped.
I’m sure there must be some benefit to this and there is a strong imagination with this writer or else they’ve been some pretty awful things. I just personally couldn’t handle the subject matter. For anyone that has been through these things I am so sorry and I send you my love.
There are books you read which will never leave you. My Absolute Darling is one of those books. The horror of Turtle Alveston’s reality plays a sharp contrast to the beauty of her surroundings. Gabriel Tallent is appropriately named, as his descriptions of the unique flora and fauna of the Mendocino (California) area is quite impressive from a debut author. The natural landscape itself becomes a character with the vivid conjuring Tallent’s imagery evokes. Turtle knows this natural world well. She is isolated from the rest of society with her father in the bizarre world of survivalism and arms he has created in their small cabin in the woods where a Black Widow lives in the bathtub and the window sill is covered in mushrooms. Turtle is a fascinating character among the other depictions of small town Northern Californians, the hippie mom, the precocious, well-read high schoolers, the paranoid isolationist, and the surfing teacher. Turtle’s experience is harrowing, and immensely heartbreaking and you root for her long after the last page. - Lisanne E.
The writing in this was beautiful, kind of haunting. But the story itself really felt flat and unrealistic, which kept me from finding it memorable.
I also dreaded picking it up to read more, which I’ll count as a point in favour of the book given the subject matter.
I also dreaded picking it up to read more, which I’ll count as a point in favour of the book given the subject matter.
I was looking forward to this and was not only disappointed but actively disliked both the content and the writing style. In addition to cringy dialogue and unrealistic young characters, the constant swearing, incest, and violence felt gratuitous and smutty. Not recommended at all.