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writerreader's review against another edition
1.25
[spoilers]
Not even sure where to start. Another award winning novel that falls so far short of any kind of decent bar I have to assume coke and bribes were made to have it win so much acclaim. Or maybe it's me. I swear this would have done better as a short story... but that just might be me again. The premise is pretty intriguing. An entirely exact plane lands with the exact same people on it as another flight that had experienced turbulence some time ago. Filled with duplicate people, this mystery now needs to be solved. But it isn't. Not even in the realist sense that we couldn't possibly know (it seems most settle on it being the result of us living in a simulation) but it doesn't dive into the true reactions humanity would have to both that realization and how each person would deal with having a "duplicate" around.
So in the end the idea was great, but both not fully realized as well as not truthful to how people act in such situations.
Not even sure where to start. Another award winning novel that falls so far short of any kind of decent bar I have to assume coke and bribes were made to have it win so much acclaim. Or maybe it's me. I swear this would have done better as a short story... but that just might be me again. The premise is pretty intriguing. An entirely exact plane lands with the exact same people on it as another flight that had experienced turbulence some time ago. Filled with duplicate people, this mystery now needs to be solved. But it isn't. Not even in the realist sense that we couldn't possibly know (it seems most settle on it being the result of us living in a simulation) but it doesn't dive into the true reactions humanity would have to both that realization and how each person would deal with having a "duplicate" around.
So in the end the idea was great, but both not fully realized as well as not truthful to how people act in such situations.
silviaamaturo's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
sehalpin's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
tinlun's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
mollyhee's review against another edition
4.0
It’s a good book overall, but you do have to overcome the great confusion that’s the first half of this book.
aml1's review against another edition
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
severine_aurelia's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
Note: I read the (original) French version.
If I squint, I can see why it won the Prix Goncourt: there were some beautifully and cleverly constructed phrases, some moments where I genuinely appreciated it as a piece of writing. There were chapters that might have made fantastic short stories. As a novel, however, or even as a story more generally, I found it a disappointment. This is the first book I've read by Le Tellier, and my initial impression is that he's a good writer but a lacklustre storyteller.
The premise was interesting, but the way it was approached and handled was clumsy and facile. Many aspects of the government reaction to the crisis were completely implausible bordering on laughable, which would have been fine if it had been in the service of making some interesting point. It seemed, however, that Le Tellier genuinely wanted the reader to accept his proposed reactions to the anomaly as believable, and it just didn't work. In addition, quite a few of the main characters came across as generic archetypes rather than fully fleshed out people.
The choice to include fictional versions of real-world individuals (Macron, Stephen Colbert, Trump, Xi Jinping, etc.) was also a mistake in my opinion; the portayals felt amateurish and thus a distraction.
If I squint, I can see why it won the Prix Goncourt: there were some beautifully and cleverly constructed phrases, some moments where I genuinely appreciated it as a piece of writing. There were chapters that might have made fantastic short stories. As a novel, however, or even as a story more generally, I found it a disappointment. This is the first book I've read by Le Tellier, and my initial impression is that he's a good writer but a lacklustre storyteller.
The premise was interesting, but the way it was approached and handled was clumsy and facile. Many aspects of the government reaction to the crisis were completely implausible bordering on laughable, which would have been fine if it had been in the service of making some interesting point. It seemed, however, that Le Tellier genuinely wanted the reader to accept his proposed reactions to the anomaly as believable, and it just didn't work. In addition, quite a few of the main characters came across as generic archetypes rather than fully fleshed out people.
The choice to include fictional versions of real-world individuals (Macron, Stephen Colbert, Trump, Xi Jinping, etc.) was also a mistake in my opinion; the portayals felt amateurish and thus a distraction.