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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
I did enjoy this book but can’t really stand the ‘new character per chapter’ format personally. I also hope Egan has gotten the experimental writing techniques used in many chapters out of her system - lots of whiplash!
Wow wow wow. As a “Goon Squad” skeptic, I wasn’t expecting to love this, but its premise was too much to resist. “The Candy House” revisits many of the characters from “Goon Squad”, picking up on narrative threads from the first book, snipping them, burning them, tying them up in lovely bows.
I expected a sci-fi thriller of sorts, some Black Mirror-esque story in which the Own Your Unconscious technology played central, antagonistic role. Instead, this is a stunning novel (though I would argue it is better categorized as a collection of short stories) about authenticity and memory. It’s a reminder that knowing everything is like knowing nothing: “without a story, it’s all just information.” The technology is simply a fact in Egan’s world, not necessarily a cautionary tale, but a form of the social media networks in which we increasingly reside. The premise of a collective, global consciousness is gargantuan, but Egan has managed to craft a work of art that is humanistic and intimate despite its scale. Also, that spy chapter was fucking dooooope.
I expected a sci-fi thriller of sorts, some Black Mirror-esque story in which the Own Your Unconscious technology played central, antagonistic role. Instead, this is a stunning novel (though I would argue it is better categorized as a collection of short stories) about authenticity and memory. It’s a reminder that knowing everything is like knowing nothing: “without a story, it’s all just information.” The technology is simply a fact in Egan’s world, not necessarily a cautionary tale, but a form of the social media networks in which we increasingly reside. The premise of a collective, global consciousness is gargantuan, but Egan has managed to craft a work of art that is humanistic and intimate despite its scale. Also, that spy chapter was fucking dooooope.
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book felt like that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia meme where Charlie is standing in front of the cork board with a bunch of papers pinned up with strings in between them. There are so many characters that are introduced and have their plots resolved for a 320 page long book, and their interconnections revealed, that it towards the end it makes it really difficult to piece it all together. The only reason I was able to breeze through this so quickly is because I had a ton of time on planes to read this. Were I to go back and read this again, I would probably want to read it in smaller chunks and with a group of people. There's simply so much to digest, both with the character/plot development and with the commentary Egan has about a world adopting and evolving with an ever increasing privately-run surveillance state, that to have someone else to theorize with might've made this an even richer experience. I do think, though, that the experience is almost too rich. It just doesn't really feel like Egan stuck the landing here. There were too many different characters with too many connections for me to feel like the plot had resolved itself. To end with a narrative about the family it did just didn't do it for me.
The writing in the book is really impressive. It reminded me a lot of Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury", which is in my personal "Top 5 Books of All Time" because there are times where the narration style switches to portray who is speaking to the reader. One of the many chapters is written from a teenage girl's perspective and another from a government spy's perspective, and another was written by someone who is labeled in Egan's constructed society as a "counter". There were times where I thought it wasn't done perfectly, where I was thinking about how difficult it must be to write from the perspective of someone who has a different occupation or demographic background as you, but it was still something I did not expect in reading the book and had me excited to keep reading to see how else the narrative style would change.
The building up of the characters through the beginning and middle and even near the ending of the book made me feel like I was reading something really special. There were multiple moments where I had a "eureka moment" realizing how characters were connected, but the ending felt unresolved and I had to take off a half star because of that.
The writing in the book is really impressive. It reminded me a lot of Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury", which is in my personal "Top 5 Books of All Time" because there are times where the narration style switches to portray who is speaking to the reader. One of the many chapters is written from a teenage girl's perspective and another from a government spy's perspective, and another was written by someone who is labeled in Egan's constructed society as a "counter". There were times where I thought it wasn't done perfectly, where I was thinking about how difficult it must be to write from the perspective of someone who has a different occupation or demographic background as you, but it was still something I did not expect in reading the book and had me excited to keep reading to see how else the narrative style would change.
The building up of the characters through the beginning and middle and even near the ending of the book made me feel like I was reading something really special. There were multiple moments where I had a "eureka moment" realizing how characters were connected, but the ending felt unresolved and I had to take off a half star because of that.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
What a book! I last felt like this reading Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow. And I guess A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I didn't realize I had more or less read in high school, the subtext far beyond me.
Reading it back to back now, even the smallest of things like a souvenir from a trip nods to a whole other chapter and time of life. I loved how time feels in this book — that everyone from everywhere is just a short connection away from each other. And The Conduits connect us all!
I guess we did away with the T, or, we expanded on it with Own Your Unconscious and all of that. It's fascinating, to think that people would either dump their thoughts into the cloud to gain access to others, like Ancestry but for life moments. Or, would elude to be off the grid.
Breaking life into storyblocks broke my brain as well. My favorite characters were probably Lulu, La Doll, and Chris. There's just so much life in those pages, it makes you view the ones in your life in a new way.
Time and technology will change us all, but before that happens, I too will bury myself in a memory pre-internet, pre-handheld phones, in a simpler time.
Reading it back to back now, even the smallest of things like a souvenir from a trip nods to a whole other chapter and time of life. I loved how time feels in this book — that everyone from everywhere is just a short connection away from each other. And The Conduits connect us all!
I guess we did away with the T, or, we expanded on it with Own Your Unconscious and all of that. It's fascinating, to think that people would either dump their thoughts into the cloud to gain access to others, like Ancestry but for life moments. Or, would elude to be off the grid.
Breaking life into storyblocks broke my brain as well. My favorite characters were probably Lulu, La Doll, and Chris. There's just so much life in those pages, it makes you view the ones in your life in a new way.
Time and technology will change us all, but before that happens, I too will bury myself in a memory pre-internet, pre-handheld phones, in a simpler time.
I was mostly disappointed by this. I read Goon Squad 8 years ago and was totally floored by it. This felt much more inconsistent, and I don't think the stories really cohere. Some of the individual entries just weren't very good IMO. I was motivated to read it after I listened to the chapter that was in the New Yorker, which I think is extremely compelling. I think the main tension here is that Egan actually does better with ambitious and complex storytelling, and the simpler 'family drama' moments felt forced. Most characters didn't have a satisfying arc to them, and despite it being the nominal subject of the book, the implications of the consciousness-sharing technology felt underexplored and kind of shallow. IDK I love Jennifer Egan - The Emerald City is one of my favorite collections - but this didn't spark much for me.
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
interesting/confusing structure (overall enjoyed) - intriguing commentary on social media and information sharing
I’ve never used the idiom “never trust a candy house,” but I like it. This book was hard for me to follow, but I did enjoy the writing and the ideas and the characters. And maybe there’s a lesson in there, like enjoy the ride or something.
slow-paced
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No