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3.1 AVERAGE
3.1 AVERAGE
challenging
funny
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Wiiiiildly pretentious. Sentences waxing philosophic that lead to paragraphs of just a couple sentences. I rarely struggle with comprehension but like???? Girl. At points I think it was intentional, when in the voice of someone with schizophrenia experiencing delusions or a CEO who had just done coke, but those moments didn’t stand out because the whole book sounds like that. It’s hardly a novel, just collections of unedited thought. “While proper scientists defended true methodology by pouring boiling oil and dropping rocks on the besieging horses of pseudo scientists, with their diets and their herbs, their acupuncture needles and their Ayurvedic spices, their meditation practices and yoga positions, it turned out that some parts of the citadel they were defending were rotten by their own ‘double blind’ standards.”
Also the thee-part division felt entirely random, just that the author didn’t want to write those sections of time.
Also why does Lucy end up with Hunter?? Like she has no interest in him but suddenly he likes her so she just happens to like him back?? Felt soooo icky. Very much written by a man. Same with Hope coming on to Francis.
Redeeming factor is that the character connections (Olivia-Sebastian) were unexpected.
I only finished this because it was the only physical book I had with me and not because I enjoyed it. The moment I finished it I walked into a charity shop and shoved it into a shelf.
3.9 stars. I enjoyed the story, the prose was light and interesting. This would have been more than 4 stars if it weren't for the very abrupt ending, which left me feeling like the story was ultimately incomplete. I felt like there was no closure on any of the characters, there was a build to a climax but the climax didn't actually happen. Listened to it on audiobook, which was enjoyable.
dark
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The plot doesn't quite gel, but St. Aubyn's ambitious subject material, great language, and biting humor work for me.
this whole book felt like one massive SHE task where the author tries to use every single possible word in the english language to meet the word count
The plot of this book felt very half finished, I also felt the language was very indulgent. Like the author went a bit wild with the thesaurus. Why are we using the word ‘transubstantiation’ it feels unnecessary. If you are writing a book with a bunch of philosophical tangents then probably it could just be a book of essays and not a seemingly half finished novel.
Not many of the narrative arcs are resolved by the end, but I enjoyed the ride because of the accurate description of cellular biology and sometimes sublime prose (narrated by the brilliant Benedict Cumberbatch). I also liked the shout-outs to Filipino nurses and [a: Siddhartha Mukherjee|3032451|Siddhartha Mukherjee|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1461962032p2/3032451.jpg].
This was a random pull I did at a local bookshop in Houston, the cover was just gorgeous, and the back of the book pulled me in. I've never read his Patrick Melrose novels so didn't have anything he wrote to compare to. I DID enjoy this read - I just had to re-read many pages because of the "content" being so random in terms of wilding, medical technology, and whatnot. I loved the human context in the characters though. I'm giving it a 3.5! lol