Scan barcode
shadybanana's review against another edition
3.0
Honestly I hate these kind of books. Oliver Twist, Bleak House, Wuthering Heights and all of Brontes and the Austens and Eyres. I don’t even know why. The melancholy and the misery just makes my heart go weird and I don’t like it. And what I don’t like, I don’t rate good. A screwed up logic you say? Yeah sure why not whatever.
BUT this book didn’t fail to amuse me. Firstly I don’t know if I’ve ever said this in a review before but Aubyn does a fantastic job writing this. The words and the flow of the phrases and stuff is praiseworthy. I’m sure there are other authors who’ve written or write at the same if not a better level, but I never reviewed them so.
Anyway the characters are well-rounded (if that’s a thing you can say). Patrick is just adorable. I’ve been told the next books are different and consequential and I must say I can’t wait. As much as I hated David Melrose I also liked him. Same with Nicholas. But if there’s one person I hated it was his mother. I can’t really explain why but David and Nicholas’ behavior frighteningly seems real but her mother is just abnormally dismal. I feel for her but I still can’t help but hate her.
See? I think the reason I liked this book was because I’m not sure which characters I like and which don’t and why I don’t like them. That’s a really neat trick to hook the reader, I’d say.
BUT this book didn’t fail to amuse me. Firstly I don’t know if I’ve ever said this in a review before but Aubyn does a fantastic job writing this. The words and the flow of the phrases and stuff is praiseworthy. I’m sure there are other authors who’ve written or write at the same if not a better level, but I never reviewed them so.
Anyway the characters are well-rounded (if that’s a thing you can say). Patrick is just adorable. I’ve been told the next books are different and consequential and I must say I can’t wait. As much as I hated David Melrose I also liked him. Same with Nicholas. But if there’s one person I hated it was his mother. I can’t really explain why but David and Nicholas’ behavior frighteningly seems real but her mother is just abnormally dismal. I feel for her but I still can’t help but hate her.
See? I think the reason I liked this book was because I’m not sure which characters I like and which don’t and why I don’t like them. That’s a really neat trick to hook the reader, I’d say.
cmgreen's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
caeru's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
kenziestevenson's review against another edition
4.0
much better the second time, originally it was my least favorite in the series but knowing what comes in the rest of the story made it have much deeper meaning. things I thought were boring the first time around were way more interesting and hinted at what was to come. what HORRIBLE people, but it just goes to show how good the writing is.
hrlukz's review against another edition
4.0
Lol let’s get EMOOOO.
I’ve read the Melrose books many times, but my Dad recently bought me a signed compilation of all five volumes with a lovely, insightful introduction by the one and only Zadie Smith. It made for such a nice (if chunky, bordering on 900 pages) addition to my bookshelf that today I thought I’d reread the first in the series, Never Mind.
In all sincerity, the Melrose books are probably the greatest « philosophical thrillers » I’ve ever read. By that I mean they’re so completely unputdownable that you sometimes forget how ludicrously, wickedly clever and insightful they are.
Their grimly hilarious reflections on love, power and coping have served me and countless others as far more than sardonic stories. Instead, they’re helpmates and companions to anyone living what feels to them like an utterly ridiculous life, a life of bizarreness that can only be caused by the vast, confusing contradictions that lay at the centre of it. It is this contradiction, this terror of « a fixed meaning » and our attempts to elude it that are one of the central themes of St Aubyn’s masterpieces.
The Melrose novels are not examples of dressed up, edgy cynicism. They’re guides to living both recklessly and hesitantly, selfishly and in complete service to others. They’re guides to reconciling, most often failingly, what feel like the sweeping dissensions in the hearts of those of us whose plans to CHANGE, to GET BETTER are more often than not blown off kilter, seemingly to the complete expectation of those around us.
It is interesting that such a sly pessimism can only resonate in its full force with the most unwillingly optimistic of us. This is what makes the Melrose novels a source of cynical courage and understanding for all types of troubled thoughts. They offer complex but palatable ruminations on what it means to live a life full of rage, defined and created by rage, and yet so very full of anti-anger; full of forgiveness, but also of sullen bitterness that you can’t leave behind. The Melrose novels explain, at their core, what it is to feel constantly overshadowed by events that define you, and that, perhaps especially because people insist they do not define you, or need not define you, are events from which you can never move on.
Patrick’s (and thus St Aubyn’s) battle to « come to terms with » his rape(s) (for it really is his) is a war that spans his whole life. It is a love letter to those whose greatest obstacle is their own head. Because it simply isn’t a matter of « getting over it » for Patrick Melrose or for Edward St Aubyn, and this character study is one of epic proportions, a study I can explain as a sort of illogical Schopenhauer, a chaotic Rambam, an unloving, nihilistic Gibran. It is a damning condemnation of a stifling upper class society, whose only recollection of the real world that most of us experience is its lack of opportunities for a mind as boundless and an intellect as incredible and intriguing as Patrick’s.
I simply cannot recommend these novels enough.
I’ve read the Melrose books many times, but my Dad recently bought me a signed compilation of all five volumes with a lovely, insightful introduction by the one and only Zadie Smith. It made for such a nice (if chunky, bordering on 900 pages) addition to my bookshelf that today I thought I’d reread the first in the series, Never Mind.
In all sincerity, the Melrose books are probably the greatest « philosophical thrillers » I’ve ever read. By that I mean they’re so completely unputdownable that you sometimes forget how ludicrously, wickedly clever and insightful they are.
Their grimly hilarious reflections on love, power and coping have served me and countless others as far more than sardonic stories. Instead, they’re helpmates and companions to anyone living what feels to them like an utterly ridiculous life, a life of bizarreness that can only be caused by the vast, confusing contradictions that lay at the centre of it. It is this contradiction, this terror of « a fixed meaning » and our attempts to elude it that are one of the central themes of St Aubyn’s masterpieces.
The Melrose novels are not examples of dressed up, edgy cynicism. They’re guides to living both recklessly and hesitantly, selfishly and in complete service to others. They’re guides to reconciling, most often failingly, what feel like the sweeping dissensions in the hearts of those of us whose plans to CHANGE, to GET BETTER are more often than not blown off kilter, seemingly to the complete expectation of those around us.
It is interesting that such a sly pessimism can only resonate in its full force with the most unwillingly optimistic of us. This is what makes the Melrose novels a source of cynical courage and understanding for all types of troubled thoughts. They offer complex but palatable ruminations on what it means to live a life full of rage, defined and created by rage, and yet so very full of anti-anger; full of forgiveness, but also of sullen bitterness that you can’t leave behind. The Melrose novels explain, at their core, what it is to feel constantly overshadowed by events that define you, and that, perhaps especially because people insist they do not define you, or need not define you, are events from which you can never move on.
Patrick’s (and thus St Aubyn’s) battle to « come to terms with » his rape(s) (for it really is his) is a war that spans his whole life. It is a love letter to those whose greatest obstacle is their own head. Because it simply isn’t a matter of « getting over it » for Patrick Melrose or for Edward St Aubyn, and this character study is one of epic proportions, a study I can explain as a sort of illogical Schopenhauer, a chaotic Rambam, an unloving, nihilistic Gibran. It is a damning condemnation of a stifling upper class society, whose only recollection of the real world that most of us experience is its lack of opportunities for a mind as boundless and an intellect as incredible and intriguing as Patrick’s.
I simply cannot recommend these novels enough.
colorfulleo92's review against another edition
4.0
Second book in a short period of time that was not an enjoyable read due to the sheer amount of sadness and difficult time. But a very good book anywho. Seems to be drawn to difficult times in books at the moment but I've been in lunch so far. Will definitely continue on with it mainly cause the ebook as a few novels immersed into one volume so it's easy to keep track of how many I've read so far.
angiepantsdance's review against another edition
4.0
A wacky and unconventional novel, I found it to be totally up my alley. Witty and obscure. The metaphors used were so dark and demonic, I loved it. Main issue for me is that it ended quite abruptly.