Reviews

white nights is a collection of thirteen short stories that are connected by their setting, the events, and the characters. each story is from the perspective of a different person living in a village in southern Poland. the writing is so poetic and haunting; each story is imbued with an eerieness that captures the dreamlike setting of this village in poland, where, during the summer months, the sun never fully sets. this was unexpected but i really enjoyed it, and i am excited to read it again one day in the future to hopefully see what else i may take away from it.

whatwasthatbookiread's review

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challenging mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Set in a rural (?) Polish village, each chapter is kind of a short story, each mostly from different character’s viewpoint, at different times, with some of the characters gradually turning out to be related to each other in various ways. Nothing much happens most of the time. A few common unhappy incidents begin to emerge, unclearly, made a little clearer in the last couple of chapters, but not entirely, at least for me. The author deliberately (?) doesn’t give you much help putting it together. If I’d made notes and approached it as as one of those Murdle type logic puzzles (x has a grandmother, at least one sister, y has two sisters, a dead mother. Who was sitting by the window when z grew up?) I might have been able to follow the connections, but it isn’t really that kind of book (is it?). There is not much plot, not much character, not much atmosphere other than grimness, not much sense of time or place, but the is something enjoyable about the writing itself.

bookwormellie's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

geraldinerowe's review

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

These stories are very plot-light which isn't a problem if there is something else going on. There is something else going on here, but I'm not quite sure what. There's plenty of death and misery but I found it difficult to follow exactly what was going on much of the time. The stories went from being weird to confused to completely nonsensical, and ended on one which was unnecessarily nasty. I would have DNF'd this book if it had been any longer.

Content Warnings

staceyechin's review

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4.5

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