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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Suicide attempt, Murder
I was bored at first but damn this book went wild at the end! I liked Kathy when she was sober, but other than that I didn’t really like any of the characters. But still very wild crazy time
The most important things in a book to me (in order) are the story, the characters, the writing, and the setting. I hated all of them in this book. So much.
HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG is basically a story of three characters who are damaged by their circumstances. Colonel Behrani's fall from a life of grace and luxury after immigrating to the US, Kathy's loss of her father's house due to a tax error, and Lester's collapsing relationship with his wife and kids. Their argument over this modest house near the beach, starts as somewhat of an annoyance and escalates into a complete volatile breakdown, all because of their pride, and inability to admit when they may have been wrong, or mistaken.
I understood and was with part one of this novel, the power struggle between a white woman and middle eastern immigrant, both not technically wrong in their plight and trying to do what's best in their mind. But then part two devolved into this ridiculous trailer trash soap opera. I was left genuinely baffled at what message I'm possibly supposed to glean. Also each one of these characters is wholly unlikable, a struggle I have often with adult fiction, but this was worse than most. There are times they're easily presented with the correct thing to do and not only refuse to do so, but run in the exact opposite direction of sanity.
I'm so genuinely baffled as to what is appealing about this novel and why so many people have given it a high rating. Sure, the language is fairly well written and the pacing is decent, but the ending is a literal spiral into insanity. This is the kind of pretentious shlock that writers are constantly being shoved down our throats and told it's art when it's genuinely just as poor an idea as the daytime soap operas. Any interesting message this had in the first half was completely destroyed along with any semblance of likable characters. I'm glad I've read it so I can say that I have, but truly unsure if it was worth it.
SPOILERS FROM HERE ON
OK so let me explain the ridiculousness that is part 2 of this novel and how terrible these characters are. So we know the gist of the plot, Kathy's house that was left to her by her late father (her like only connection to him) is listed for auction because of some ridiculous tax error by accident. Then Cl. Behrani buys it, much to his poor wife's chagrin, to flip it and make some huge profit. So it's this bullshit back and forth struggle of Kathy being all 'it's my house...' and he's like 'tough shit, I legally bought it, so it's mine now'. So he evicts her and starts work on the house while she tries to get legal representation despite not really being able to afford it.
So Kathy is a DISASTER like, ex-alcoholic/drug addict husband who's abandoned her barely makes money from cleaning jobs and steals clothes from a random house's child DISASTER. She meets Les, a detective, who not only takes pity on her but is so turned on by her that he puts her up in a motel and then his cabin and bangs her CONSTANTLY. LIKE. CONSTANTLY. If I have to hear about this man and his penis and all the places he's cum over, inside, and on Kathy one more time I swear to God....this is the exact kind of bullshit that white, male writer hacks (LIKE DUBUS COUGH COUGH and my pretentious ass novel professor who recommended this crap book to me) just cream their pants over...literally. They think it's art and so deep. Like no, no thank you, LITERALLY talk about anything else. Also apparently Lester loves her? And not only that, he's going to literally torpedo his entire life with his wife and two children over this random woman who he doesn't know, but loves. And did his wife do anything to deserve this? Nope. He literally says she's his best friend and favorite person, but in the recent years isn't sexually attracted anymore to her and doesn't wanna boink her...y'know, total grounds for divorce. *heavy stare of judgement*
ANYWAYS so hot mess express Kathy is already the black sheep of her fam, y'know, being an ex addict and all, is desperate to get this house back because she doesn't want to tell her fam that she lost it cuz she doesn't check her stupid mail. She tries a couple times to confront Behrani, but he just flips out at her and tells her the property is his. He says that he'll sell it back to the government for her to get back, BUT only if they pay him like 3 times what he paid in auction. So while he's out Kathy tries to talk to his wife who barely speaks English and explain the situation to her. This is one of the few scenes I really enjoy. They're able to connect with one another. Mrs. Behrani despite the language barrier understands her desperation and wants to try and help, girl didn't want this dumbass house anyway. But when Kathy's leaving Mr. Behrani comes home, threatens her verbally and physically, like LITERALLY leaving bruises on her arm in the shape of his hand to gtfo. Now, why Kathy didn't IMMEDIATELY go to the police then and use this against him?! I will truly never know, nope she just goes back to the cabin to complain.
So this is when Les comes up with this SUPER great idea (heavy sarcasm) to threaten the Behranis with deportation if they don't sell the house back. Remember, this is a COP who came up with this idea. And Behrani is straight up like, nah...and reports him to his superiors, rightfully so. So. Dumb. Does Les go and clear this up super quickly and get a small slap on the wrist? Nope. He goes to tell his wife he's leaving her and destroying their family for this disaster, unstable mess of a woman he's known for like a few days. Kathy meanwhile, convinces herself that Les will work it out with his wife and realize she's the worst and leave her. So she SPIRALS hardcore. She takes his gun which yup, Les, again this man is a cop, left at the cabin with his unstable mistress, and just drives around. Then goes to the mall n goes to different restaurants to drink as much as they'll allow her. Then, drunk like a skunk, drive to the Behranis and threatens to kill herself there. They take her in and are like, plz just stop. Mr. Behrani disarms her and Mrs. Behrani takes care of her. In their effort to be thoughtful they let her use the bathroom to wash up cuz she is looking rough. In there, naturally, she finds a bottle of meds, downs it in hopes to kill herself and lays in the bath naked hoping to die.
This, obviously, is where the book starts to spiral into oblivion. So in pt 2 of this book, Les is all of a sudden given his own POV. The POVs in general are awful. There is no rhyme or reason to how they're broken up as sometimes there are page markers and sometimes there's not. There's no chapters to make it AS confusing as possible, so why not throw in another POV?! I'm extra annoyed cuz at first, Les's POV adds LITERALLY nothing to this book. He tries to explain how 'alive' Kathy makes him feel and why he loves her, it only proceeds to make me more angry because he doubles down on how his fam doesn't deserve this but also all he can think about is being inside Kathy....the power of boners man. So then, on his way to FINALLY clear up his threat charges, he rides past the Behranis house and sees Kathy's car sending up an alarm for him. He goes to check in and instead of just knocking and waiting like a normal person, he decides to BREAK THE FUCK in! THROUGH THE DAMN WINDOW! So he finds his gun that Behrani had dismantled, puts it together and finds them trying to move a half-naked, half unconscious Kathy after forcing her to regurgitate the entire bottle and trying to save her. Instead of trying to sus out the situation, y'know, like a cop, this man is SO blinded by his hardon for this woman, he holds the family at gunpoint to drop her and then LITERALLY holds them hostage in their own bathroom.
He then comes up with his next GENIUS idea to take the dad and son with him to the legal office so they'll sign the papers over to Kathy immediately. At this point, I don't understand why Lester isn't just taking Kathy and running because these two are in DEEP shit and there's no getting out of this. But no, let's just pile on the charges. So at first he tries to keep the son in the car, but the dad's like, fuck that, which can't blame him. But then Mr. Behrani comes up with this dumb AF idea to disarm Les IN PUBLIC to try and citizens arrest him kind of. But now we've got a BROWN CHILD holding a gun at a white dude and his brown father shrieking that 'it's him it's him'. LIKE! BRO! THAT DOES NOT LOOK GOOD! So naturally I saw the writing on the wall and was SO livid cuz of course when the police come they see this poor brown teenager holding a damn gun and so they shoot him, cuz y'know, shoot first ask questions later. He ends up dying, one of the few likable people in this shithole book and I'm just so irritated.
So at first, I thought Les was going to use this to dig himself out of this ginormous hole he's created. But no. He confirms Behrani's entire story of holding these people hostage at gunpoint and is immediately imprisoned, rightfully so, fully flushing his entire life down the drain. Behrani meanwhile is LIVID and wants Les to hurt, so he goes home and throttles the shit out of Kathy. Like, her face turns purple, raises her in the air throttles. Throws her to the ground, she's not moving. Then decides he has basically nothing to live for so he writes a note to his daughter (who's married and apparently chopped liver cuz she's not worth living) saying the house is hers n if she doesn't want it cool, but not to sell it for less than 100k, cause he's learned nothing. Then smothers his wife, the only other likable person left who's done LITERALLY nothing wrong! But he wants her to 'be with their son' NOT LIKE SHE CAN'T BE WITH THEIR LIVING FUCKING DAUGHTER BUT OK. Then ties a bag around his head and asphyxiates himself. Great.
THROUGH ALL THIS!!! KATHY FREAKING SURVIVES!!! But her windpipe is so crushed that the girl can no longer speak. Now AGAIN, I thought she would use this to her advantage to right her life and maybe figure her shit out. NOPE! She implicates herself so she is now in jail as well and when her lawyer is straight up like 'you were drunk and drugged out of your mind, you were suicidal, there is no way you could be held accountable for your actions, TAKE THE OUT' she is like 'nah, i'll lie about all that, send me to jail'. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!?!!? Like yes, she's a horrid person, but wtf?!?!
So yeah...that's how this POS book ends. The white people in jail (rightfully, but wtf) and the Behrani's, innocent or otherwise, DEAD. TELL ME. What is the message I'm supposed to gain from this bleak book?! What is the purpose behind any of this??? I can kind of see pride being the death of these people or whatever, but COME ON! You didn't need to make such ridiculous leaps in logic to obtain this. And I understand the wife and son being, collateral, but WHY?! The only goodness in this book, promptly snuffed the hell out. Also how the heck did Kathy even survive?! HER FACE TURNED PUPRLE! HE SHOOK HER, like pretty sure that means her neck cracked. When her POV started up again I was genuinely convinced this was her spirit or some bullshit because there was no chance she survived. But nope. HOW?!??!!!!??!!!?!
So yeah, don't bother wit this book. The only reason it's 2 and not 1 is because it was entertaining enough, but I truly don't get it. I've read so many YA books that are FAR better plotted and written than this and don't have anywhere near the acclaim of this shlock. Do not bother. And don't believe the pretentious fuckheads who pawn this off as good writing. Honestly, if you meet someone who says this kind of shit is their favorite. RUN.
I understood and was with part one of this novel, the power struggle between a white woman and middle eastern immigrant, both not technically wrong in their plight and trying to do what's best in their mind. But then part two devolved into this ridiculous trailer trash soap opera. I was left genuinely baffled at what message I'm possibly supposed to glean. Also each one of these characters is wholly unlikable, a struggle I have often with adult fiction, but this was worse than most. There are times they're easily presented with the correct thing to do and not only refuse to do so, but run in the exact opposite direction of sanity.
I'm so genuinely baffled as to what is appealing about this novel and why so many people have given it a high rating. Sure, the language is fairly well written and the pacing is decent, but the ending is a literal spiral into insanity. This is the kind of pretentious shlock that writers are constantly being shoved down our throats and told it's art when it's genuinely just as poor an idea as the daytime soap operas. Any interesting message this had in the first half was completely destroyed along with any semblance of likable characters. I'm glad I've read it so I can say that I have, but truly unsure if it was worth it.
SPOILERS FROM HERE ON
OK so let me explain the ridiculousness that is part 2 of this novel and how terrible these characters are. So we know the gist of the plot, Kathy's house that was left to her by her late father (her like only connection to him) is listed for auction because of some ridiculous tax error by accident. Then Cl. Behrani buys it, much to his poor wife's chagrin, to flip it and make some huge profit. So it's this bullshit back and forth struggle of Kathy being all 'it's my house...' and he's like 'tough shit, I legally bought it, so it's mine now'. So he evicts her and starts work on the house while she tries to get legal representation despite not really being able to afford it.
So Kathy is a DISASTER like, ex-alcoholic/drug addict husband who's abandoned her barely makes money from cleaning jobs and steals clothes from a random house's child DISASTER. She meets Les, a detective, who not only takes pity on her but is so turned on by her that he puts her up in a motel and then his cabin and bangs her CONSTANTLY. LIKE. CONSTANTLY. If I have to hear about this man and his penis and all the places he's cum over, inside, and on Kathy one more time I swear to God....this is the exact kind of bullshit that white, male writer hacks (LIKE DUBUS COUGH COUGH and my pretentious ass novel professor who recommended this crap book to me) just cream their pants over...literally. They think it's art and so deep. Like no, no thank you, LITERALLY talk about anything else. Also apparently Lester loves her? And not only that, he's going to literally torpedo his entire life with his wife and two children over this random woman who he doesn't know, but loves. And did his wife do anything to deserve this? Nope. He literally says she's his best friend and favorite person, but in the recent years isn't sexually attracted anymore to her and doesn't wanna boink her...y'know, total grounds for divorce. *heavy stare of judgement*
ANYWAYS so hot mess express Kathy is already the black sheep of her fam, y'know, being an ex addict and all, is desperate to get this house back because she doesn't want to tell her fam that she lost it cuz she doesn't check her stupid mail. She tries a couple times to confront Behrani, but he just flips out at her and tells her the property is his. He says that he'll sell it back to the government for her to get back, BUT only if they pay him like 3 times what he paid in auction. So while he's out Kathy tries to talk to his wife who barely speaks English and explain the situation to her. This is one of the few scenes I really enjoy. They're able to connect with one another. Mrs. Behrani despite the language barrier understands her desperation and wants to try and help, girl didn't want this dumbass house anyway. But when Kathy's leaving Mr. Behrani comes home, threatens her verbally and physically, like LITERALLY leaving bruises on her arm in the shape of his hand to gtfo. Now, why Kathy didn't IMMEDIATELY go to the police then and use this against him?! I will truly never know, nope she just goes back to the cabin to complain.
So this is when Les comes up with this SUPER great idea (heavy sarcasm) to threaten the Behranis with deportation if they don't sell the house back. Remember, this is a COP who came up with this idea. And Behrani is straight up like, nah...and reports him to his superiors, rightfully so. So. Dumb. Does Les go and clear this up super quickly and get a small slap on the wrist? Nope. He goes to tell his wife he's leaving her and destroying their family for this disaster, unstable mess of a woman he's known for like a few days. Kathy meanwhile, convinces herself that Les will work it out with his wife and realize she's the worst and leave her. So she SPIRALS hardcore. She takes his gun which yup, Les, again this man is a cop, left at the cabin with his unstable mistress, and just drives around. Then goes to the mall n goes to different restaurants to drink as much as they'll allow her. Then, drunk like a skunk, drive to the Behranis and threatens to kill herself there. They take her in and are like, plz just stop. Mr. Behrani disarms her and Mrs. Behrani takes care of her. In their effort to be thoughtful they let her use the bathroom to wash up cuz she is looking rough. In there, naturally, she finds a bottle of meds, downs it in hopes to kill herself and lays in the bath naked hoping to die.
This, obviously, is where the book starts to spiral into oblivion. So in pt 2 of this book, Les is all of a sudden given his own POV. The POVs in general are awful. There is no rhyme or reason to how they're broken up as sometimes there are page markers and sometimes there's not. There's no chapters to make it AS confusing as possible, so why not throw in another POV?! I'm extra annoyed cuz at first, Les's POV adds LITERALLY nothing to this book. He tries to explain how 'alive' Kathy makes him feel and why he loves her, it only proceeds to make me more angry because he doubles down on how his fam doesn't deserve this but also all he can think about is being inside Kathy....the power of boners man. So then, on his way to FINALLY clear up his threat charges, he rides past the Behranis house and sees Kathy's car sending up an alarm for him. He goes to check in and instead of just knocking and waiting like a normal person, he decides to BREAK THE FUCK in! THROUGH THE DAMN WINDOW! So he finds his gun that Behrani had dismantled, puts it together and finds them trying to move a half-naked, half unconscious Kathy after forcing her to regurgitate the entire bottle and trying to save her. Instead of trying to sus out the situation, y'know, like a cop, this man is SO blinded by his hardon for this woman, he holds the family at gunpoint to drop her and then LITERALLY holds them hostage in their own bathroom.
He then comes up with his next GENIUS idea to take the dad and son with him to the legal office so they'll sign the papers over to Kathy immediately. At this point, I don't understand why Lester isn't just taking Kathy and running because these two are in DEEP shit and there's no getting out of this. But no, let's just pile on the charges. So at first he tries to keep the son in the car, but the dad's like, fuck that, which can't blame him. But then Mr. Behrani comes up with this dumb AF idea to disarm Les IN PUBLIC to try and citizens arrest him kind of. But now we've got a BROWN CHILD holding a gun at a white dude and his brown father shrieking that 'it's him it's him'. LIKE! BRO! THAT DOES NOT LOOK GOOD! So naturally I saw the writing on the wall and was SO livid cuz of course when the police come they see this poor brown teenager holding a damn gun and so they shoot him, cuz y'know, shoot first ask questions later. He ends up dying, one of the few likable people in this shithole book and I'm just so irritated.
So at first, I thought Les was going to use this to dig himself out of this ginormous hole he's created. But no. He confirms Behrani's entire story of holding these people hostage at gunpoint and is immediately imprisoned, rightfully so, fully flushing his entire life down the drain. Behrani meanwhile is LIVID and wants Les to hurt, so he goes home and throttles the shit out of Kathy. Like, her face turns purple, raises her in the air throttles. Throws her to the ground, she's not moving. Then decides he has basically nothing to live for so he writes a note to his daughter (who's married and apparently chopped liver cuz she's not worth living) saying the house is hers n if she doesn't want it cool, but not to sell it for less than 100k, cause he's learned nothing. Then smothers his wife, the only other likable person left who's done LITERALLY nothing wrong! But he wants her to 'be with their son' NOT LIKE SHE CAN'T BE WITH THEIR LIVING FUCKING DAUGHTER BUT OK. Then ties a bag around his head and asphyxiates himself. Great.
THROUGH ALL THIS!!! KATHY FREAKING SURVIVES!!! But her windpipe is so crushed that the girl can no longer speak. Now AGAIN, I thought she would use this to her advantage to right her life and maybe figure her shit out. NOPE! She implicates herself so she is now in jail as well and when her lawyer is straight up like 'you were drunk and drugged out of your mind, you were suicidal, there is no way you could be held accountable for your actions, TAKE THE OUT' she is like 'nah, i'll lie about all that, send me to jail'. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!?!!? Like yes, she's a horrid person, but wtf?!?!
So yeah...that's how this POS book ends. The white people in jail (rightfully, but wtf) and the Behrani's, innocent or otherwise, DEAD. TELL ME. What is the message I'm supposed to gain from this bleak book?! What is the purpose behind any of this??? I can kind of see pride being the death of these people or whatever, but COME ON! You didn't need to make such ridiculous leaps in logic to obtain this. And I understand the wife and son being, collateral, but WHY?! The only goodness in this book, promptly snuffed the hell out. Also how the heck did Kathy even survive?! HER FACE TURNED PUPRLE! HE SHOOK HER, like pretty sure that means her neck cracked. When her POV started up again I was genuinely convinced this was her spirit or some bullshit because there was no chance she survived. But nope. HOW?!??!!!!??!!!?!
So yeah, don't bother wit this book. The only reason it's 2 and not 1 is because it was entertaining enough, but I truly don't get it. I've read so many YA books that are FAR better plotted and written than this and don't have anywhere near the acclaim of this shlock. Do not bother. And don't believe the pretentious fuckheads who pawn this off as good writing. Honestly, if you meet someone who says this kind of shit is their favorite. RUN.
This is a study on thinking nothing can get worse. But then it does.
I like the characters. They feel real with believable backstories and internal thoughts. Particularly the Iranian man. There was the obligatory discussion of the female character's physique when she was introduced (thanks, male authors everywhere).
The story is interesting. It doesn't go where you think it will go, which I liked
I like the characters. They feel real with believable backstories and internal thoughts. Particularly the Iranian man. There was the obligatory discussion of the female character's physique when she was introduced (thanks, male authors everywhere).
The story is interesting. It doesn't go where you think it will go, which I liked
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I so desperately wanted to like this book, but I just struggled from the very beginning. I'm having trouble pinpointing exactly why, maybe because I didn't really like any of the characters
Wow. Great story, great character development, and surprising ending.
