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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
genuinely cannot figure out how i ultimately feel about this so i’m going to let it sit for a bit before i rate it
(update 7/23) - this was utterly BIZARRE / i essentially spent the entirety of this book trying to figure out if this was meant as religious propaganda or as an exploration into infatuation and worship and i ultimately decided that (to me, at least) it’s the latter, giving a very fascinating look at what we believe in and why it affects us so deeply, and just how far we are willing to go for the things and people we place all of our hope and dreams in - the ending was a bit extreme but i have nearly half the book underlined because it was just so beautifully written
(update 7/23) - this was utterly BIZARRE / i essentially spent the entirety of this book trying to figure out if this was meant as religious propaganda or as an exploration into infatuation and worship and i ultimately decided that (to me, at least) it’s the latter, giving a very fascinating look at what we believe in and why it affects us so deeply, and just how far we are willing to go for the things and people we place all of our hope and dreams in - the ending was a bit extreme but i have nearly half the book underlined because it was just so beautifully written
This book is so intricately written - even if it at first feels somewhat familiar, it changes as the book progresses. and there are a number of unexpected moments throughout. I do not want to give away spoilers - but it is a fascinating view on literature, obsession, youth, desire, friendships, and so much more. It is akin to a book like The Secret History, but the differences make it all the more delightful.
4.5 stars.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the chance to read this book!
4.5 stars.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the chance to read this book!
"'I'm sorry,' he'd said - she does not remember this part very well - "there's been an accident," as if the only wicked things that happen in this world are the ones that happen by mistake."
A surprisingly wonderful and absolutely stupefying read. Total page burner; I've got a lot of thoughts.
I can say with certainty that my least favorite thing about this one was its prose. I think I might just be picky about writing styles - who knows? But while I enjoyed the inherent simplicity intermixed with flowery, diaphanous descriptions, the weird awkwardness of some lines (like ones where a name gets repeated over and over again, instead of just substituting it with pronouns) got annoying, and fast. I really had to refrain from judging a lot of the dialogue interactions too hard considering they're high schoolers, and yeah, sure, teenagers are usually pretty stupid and self-important, so maybe having Ralph say cringe every other sentence isn't that big of a deal, whatever. But if I ever have to read the words "sclerotic modern world" again, so help me god...
Anyway, the other thing I can say for certain is that this book just gets better and better as you read it, regardless of the prose. I might just be biased, given I'm a full-fledged character reader, but man, these characters are /fun/. Ridiculously fun, and flawed, and dynamic, so pumped full of delusional prep school grandiosity and whim. And it feels as though Burton wrote every line with intention. Every action, every decision, every move - it all seems to circle back to something else, to explain for something later, to answer a question before you've even thought to ask it. The plot was always swimming, never just treading water; and it wasn't cluttered with useless filler, either.
Bonnie and Brad are interestingly enough some of the most compelling characters for me. I love how Bonnie seems like a real high school girl, obsessed with trends and fads and what's new and what's hot, borderline Barbie doll-esque; I love her interference with the choir cult and her transformation into a goth icon later, after the accident. I love Brad's melancholy strangeness and repression; I love all the clues hinting at his interest in Laura, especially the scene on the cliffs where he offers to jump so Laura won't have to.
I was also really fascinated by the dynamic between Virginia and Isobel, how they seem to be foils in that Virginia comes from a progressive Jewish family that would absolutely have accepted her, even flaunted her, for the things she ran away from, and how that caused her to turn to the other side of things entirely, toward God and repression and hate; whereas Isobel's family would never have accepted her for her queerness, so she chose to rebel against her vision of the establishment to find purpose in an identity she would never relinquish, not for anything. I thought it was interesting that Miranda says Virginia doesn't use sex as anything but a means to an end, a manipulation game to get what she wants - when we've seen that sex, and the desire for sex and real, raw intimacy with someone she loves, seems to sit heavy and terrible in the core of her being. But given she tells Laura the only way she can love her is by telling her how to live, maybe sex as manipulation is the only sex Virginia thought she was allowed to have.
And Laura, poor Laura. So impossibly meek and spineless, right up to the very end. The way her loneliness makes her an enabler is embarrassingly relatable; how to maintain friendships, she makes excuses. Her fight with Virginia, when Virginia slaps her for refusing to hold her accountable, really struck me for some reason, so intensely - especially when viewing it under the lens of Virginia's relationship with Isobel, completely opposite from her in almost every regard. Isobel poses a legitimate challenge, to both Virginia's actions and her values. Laura is a doormat. She challenges nothing, save for the moment she watches Virginia's sex tape, which doesn't accomplish anything. I was happy to see her come to the conclusion that Webster's book was actually quite mediocre, that she had wasted so much time being so committed to him, and that at the end of the day, it's not your best bet, ever, to base so much of your life on the unattainable, the unreal - the fictitious, impossible things we attach ourselves to when exploring things like books.
The ending was sick. Both like, actually sick and sick in the way of, holy shit, that was awesome - horrible but awesome. All the boys dead; Virginia dead; Isobel dead. Like, what? It felt so deserved. Like the whole book had been leading up to that moment, to that undoing. I don't think I would've been satisfied if it had ended any other way.
It's been a while since a book has made me think this hard about its eccentricities and intentions, which is cool, and makes it well worth all the things it has wrong with it. It was fun, complicated, well-interwoven and all the more interesting for it. Takes a bit of getting into, but once you're there you just cruise. I'm still sitting here like, Did Virginia actually love Isobel? Did she actually love Laura, or Brad or any of the boys in any conceivable way, or did she few everyone as a pawn in her game? Did she see herself as God, and chose to love God to fulfil her feelings of total exaltation? To be worshiped? Or did she just want to be loved?
A surprisingly wonderful and absolutely stupefying read. Total page burner; I've got a lot of thoughts.
I can say with certainty that my least favorite thing about this one was its prose. I think I might just be picky about writing styles - who knows? But while I enjoyed the inherent simplicity intermixed with flowery, diaphanous descriptions, the weird awkwardness of some lines (like ones where a name gets repeated over and over again, instead of just substituting it with pronouns) got annoying, and fast. I really had to refrain from judging a lot of the dialogue interactions too hard considering they're high schoolers, and yeah, sure, teenagers are usually pretty stupid and self-important, so maybe having Ralph say cringe every other sentence isn't that big of a deal, whatever. But if I ever have to read the words "sclerotic modern world" again, so help me god...
Anyway, the other thing I can say for certain is that this book just gets better and better as you read it, regardless of the prose. I might just be biased, given I'm a full-fledged character reader, but man, these characters are /fun/. Ridiculously fun, and flawed, and dynamic, so pumped full of delusional prep school grandiosity and whim. And it feels as though Burton wrote every line with intention. Every action, every decision, every move - it all seems to circle back to something else, to explain for something later, to answer a question before you've even thought to ask it. The plot was always swimming, never just treading water; and it wasn't cluttered with useless filler, either.
Bonnie and Brad are interestingly enough some of the most compelling characters for me. I love how Bonnie seems like a real high school girl, obsessed with trends and fads and what's new and what's hot, borderline Barbie doll-esque; I love her interference with the choir cult and her transformation into a goth icon later, after the accident. I love Brad's melancholy strangeness and repression; I love all the clues hinting at his interest in Laura, especially the scene on the cliffs where he offers to jump so Laura won't have to.
I was also really fascinated by the dynamic between Virginia and Isobel, how they seem to be foils in that Virginia comes from a progressive Jewish family that would absolutely have accepted her, even flaunted her, for the things she ran away from, and how that caused her to turn to the other side of things entirely, toward God and repression and hate; whereas Isobel's family would never have accepted her for her queerness, so she chose to rebel against her vision of the establishment to find purpose in an identity she would never relinquish, not for anything. I thought it was interesting that Miranda says Virginia doesn't use sex as anything but a means to an end, a manipulation game to get what she wants - when we've seen that sex, and the desire for sex and real, raw intimacy with someone she loves, seems to sit heavy and terrible in the core of her being. But given she tells Laura the only way she can love her is by telling her how to live, maybe sex as manipulation is the only sex Virginia thought she was allowed to have.
And Laura, poor Laura. So impossibly meek and spineless, right up to the very end. The way her loneliness makes her an enabler is embarrassingly relatable; how to maintain friendships, she makes excuses. Her fight with Virginia, when Virginia slaps her for refusing to hold her accountable, really struck me for some reason, so intensely - especially when viewing it under the lens of Virginia's relationship with Isobel, completely opposite from her in almost every regard. Isobel poses a legitimate challenge, to both Virginia's actions and her values. Laura is a doormat. She challenges nothing, save for the moment she watches Virginia's sex tape, which doesn't accomplish anything. I was happy to see her come to the conclusion that Webster's book was actually quite mediocre, that she had wasted so much time being so committed to him, and that at the end of the day, it's not your best bet, ever, to base so much of your life on the unattainable, the unreal - the fictitious, impossible things we attach ourselves to when exploring things like books.
The ending was sick. Both like, actually sick and sick in the way of, holy shit, that was awesome - horrible but awesome. All the boys dead; Virginia dead; Isobel dead. Like, what? It felt so deserved. Like the whole book had been leading up to that moment, to that undoing. I don't think I would've been satisfied if it had ended any other way.
It's been a while since a book has made me think this hard about its eccentricities and intentions, which is cool, and makes it well worth all the things it has wrong with it. It was fun, complicated, well-interwoven and all the more interesting for it. Takes a bit of getting into, but once you're there you just cruise. I'm still sitting here like, Did Virginia actually love Isobel? Did she actually love Laura, or Brad or any of the boys in any conceivable way, or did she few everyone as a pawn in her game? Did she see herself as God, and chose to love God to fulfil her feelings of total exaltation? To be worshiped? Or did she just want to be loved?
2.5
Unfortunately, very disappointing. I went in with high expectations because that BLURB sounded incredible. But all the characters were paper thin, the story felt so full of itself, and the writing was nothing special. It was all very two-dimensional and underwhelming.
Unfortunately, very disappointing. I went in with high expectations because that BLURB sounded incredible. But all the characters were paper thin, the story felt so full of itself, and the writing was nothing special. It was all very two-dimensional and underwhelming.
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A book supposedly fueled by the charismatic power of a main character that lacks any charisma whatsoever
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
it's been like 4 months and i still be thinking about this book. the downfalls, the growth, the bonds forged and then broken are illustrated SO beautifully and naturally
New England boarding school. A novelist who dies tragically young. Sapphic yearning. Choir drama.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It’s like the author wanted to include every word that was on the SAT test into this book. What a bunch of selfish, pompous, overbearing characters. This book wanted to be the YA Secret History but it’s more like the CW Mean Girls in a boarding school.