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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent
dark
emotional
fast-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
lighthearted
tense
slow-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
emotional
medium-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
3.5 rounded down. This was quirky and interesting in the way all of Blake’s works around but I think it was about 100 pages too long.
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
"Christ, it was one thing to bury your father, but how do you bury a god? How do you part with your faith?"
if you strip this book to its core - pull apart the bells and whistles - it's just about family. forget the magic. forget the background noise. this book is about the arduous pursuit of love and the violence inherent in it.
because if you just forget that this is happening amid doomsday things, brothers going electrically haywire, and older sisters performing corporate fraud for the amorphous concept of success, you realize it's about the love that's scattered between all three of them. arthur, meredith, and eilidh are all fucked up in their own myriad of ways - which can be traced back to their childhood - but the one thing that never changed even if they all did was their love for each other. a lot of this book seemed to say that you can experience the same tragedy and go through the same childhood but you never come out the other side exactly alike. you can love the same father but you will never get the same versions of him.
thayer wren is narcissistic billionaire who suffers success more than he grasps it and he would do anything for it. this affected his children in various ways. and he couldn't really face that his children were reflections of him but they were better.
honestly, you will love to hate these characters and you will hate to love them. they are all unlikable to varying degrees. but you know what? you end up rooting for them. because despite the fact that they are marginally terrible people and definitively assholes - the narrative doesn't shy away from that and it, in fact, explicitly tells you that in those words - but... you want them to find happiness. to find love. and to realize that their siblings loved them.
don't go into this book expecting an intricate fantasy world or a complex magic system. this is just a soap opera. this is a family drama. instead of going on a world-saving adventure, you are embroiled in the psyches of these characters. the what, when, where, whys of their motivations. and olivie blake does this brilliantly.
people will have a lot to say about olivie blake's writing style. but, personally, i love the way that she writes. it can read as a bit pretentious, yes, but it's also very tongue-in-cheek. especially in this book. olivie writes in a very absurdist voice in the narrative and it's satirical in a way, bringing a sort of awareness that yes, these people will never suffer in their life, and their status in life will always put them at arm's length from reality. like the narrative is aware of that and it will never make you forget that, at the end of the day, you're just reading about rich assholes.
but it's entertaining. it's good. it's meticulously complex from their morals to their justifications to their actions, their misery.
and, yes, my favorite character is meredith wren. no one can tell me otherwise that she's anything less than amazing. call me jamie ammar with the way i will devote myself to this woman. "we need more complex female characters!!!" you wouldn't even be able to handle meredith honora liang wren.
adventurous
challenging
funny
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Will write later
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes