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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
When I reflect on The Fates Will Find Their Way all I can think is "No". I understand that that is a strange response for what is supposed to be a thought process, but I was really unimpressed by this novel.
There is nothing that this review will say that other reviews haven't already said in much more charming and articulate ways, but I ultimately feel like this novel was so unnecessarily disappointing.
Clearly, Pittard has writing ability and I respect her for this. However, I do not think she used her skills to the best of her ability and I'm critical of a lot of the decisions she made. First, the fact that she wrote a novel that is uncomfortably (in my opinion) close to The Virgin Suicides is not praiseworthy, but proves unattractive and unoriginal. This is unfortunate because Pittard claims that she stayed far away from The Virgin Suicides while writing The Fates (see interview: http://bit.ly/bs7ec9). Regardless of what Pittard may have done, The Fates still seems highly derivative. Furthermore, I'm fairly unamused by an author who states that her characters originated as stereo-types (see interview again). I feel as though that admission proves a lack of authenticity and demonstrates poor story and character development--both of which are rather noticeable throughout the novel. To be fair for a moment, the characters ultimately served their purpose, but they left quite a lot to be desired.
Lastly, I really did not like Pittard's portrayal of men. I got the sense that she was trying to illustrate something more tender and layered, but she didn't. She gave readers characters that were immature, self-centered and kind of dopey. Pittard presented readers with a caricature of what suburban boys are said to be, and rather than challenging this portrayal, she indulged it.
I sense that Pittard could do better than what The Fates turned out to be, but I don't know if I have the conviction to find out.
There is nothing that this review will say that other reviews haven't already said in much more charming and articulate ways, but I ultimately feel like this novel was so unnecessarily disappointing.
Clearly, Pittard has writing ability and I respect her for this. However, I do not think she used her skills to the best of her ability and I'm critical of a lot of the decisions she made. First, the fact that she wrote a novel that is uncomfortably (in my opinion) close to The Virgin Suicides is not praiseworthy, but proves unattractive and unoriginal. This is unfortunate because Pittard claims that she stayed far away from The Virgin Suicides while writing The Fates (see interview: http://bit.ly/bs7ec9). Regardless of what Pittard may have done, The Fates still seems highly derivative. Furthermore, I'm fairly unamused by an author who states that her characters originated as stereo-types (see interview again). I feel as though that admission proves a lack of authenticity and demonstrates poor story and character development--both of which are rather noticeable throughout the novel. To be fair for a moment, the characters ultimately served their purpose, but they left quite a lot to be desired.
Lastly, I really did not like Pittard's portrayal of men. I got the sense that she was trying to illustrate something more tender and layered, but she didn't. She gave readers characters that were immature, self-centered and kind of dopey. Pittard presented readers with a caricature of what suburban boys are said to be, and rather than challenging this portrayal, she indulged it.
I sense that Pittard could do better than what The Fates turned out to be, but I don't know if I have the conviction to find out.
An interesting point of view is the biggest draw of the novel. It features boys reminiscing over a missing girl, a few various storylines of her possible life are invented and we get to follow along with what might have been. We watch from the sidelines and see how the story of a missing girl affects her schoolmates and her sister.
The boys in her life seem unable to get past the mystery surrounding Nora which is saddening in multiple ways. We hear their thoughts on the type of person she was and what they think she could be, but their own lives play only a small part of the story, only interesting when they are winding their lives through hers. While there is no major climax or mystery that will be solved, the writing fills in the blanks with imaginary tales and make you wonder about those whose lives have crossed with your own.
The boys in her life seem unable to get past the mystery surrounding Nora which is saddening in multiple ways. We hear their thoughts on the type of person she was and what they think she could be, but their own lives play only a small part of the story, only interesting when they are winding their lives through hers. While there is no major climax or mystery that will be solved, the writing fills in the blanks with imaginary tales and make you wonder about those whose lives have crossed with your own.
It’s very weird to say you didn’t particularly care for a novel because most of the story wasn’t “real.” What? You didn’t like a fictional book because it wasn’t real? It sounds like just about the dumbest thing to say ever. Well, besides “it is what it is.” We can all agree that’s the dumbest thing to say ever, right?
But back to this unreal fictional book that I didn’t particularly care for. The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard is, ostensibly, about the disappearance of 16-year-old Nora Lindell. The boys in her town become obsessed with Nora and what could have happened to her, and it’s their narrative of this event and the fallout that provides the voice of the book.
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But back to this unreal fictional book that I didn’t particularly care for. The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard is, ostensibly, about the disappearance of 16-year-old Nora Lindell. The boys in her town become obsessed with Nora and what could have happened to her, and it’s their narrative of this event and the fallout that provides the voice of the book.
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I need to preface this review with a couple of notes — namely, that I’m not usually one to leave reviews, and that I do not fall into the sunk-cost fallacy of reading. If there’s a book I don’t like 20 pages in, I’m not going to waste time finishing it (a sentiment a lot of my friends do not agree with, oddly enough).
That said: I had to finish this book, despite my dislike of it. I was drawn in by the comparisons to Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides, which (somewhat unfortunately) remains one of my most favourite books. A handful of pages in, I was disappointed by how pale of an imitation of TVS this was but I also wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt - essentially, I wanted to try to read it without the comparison in my head, which was clouding my judgement.
In the end, I finished reading it because I wanted more of a reason to dislike it beyond well, it’s not Eugenides, is it?
That, it is not. Perhaps I should have known it wouldn't be when Pittard chose Virgil for the epigraph, rather than Aiskhylos.
Rather than being a novel that highlights the «dream-filled space between childhood and all that follows», this is about a group of suburban boys that do not ever truly become men; who view girls & women through the prism of what is done to them and the roles they play in the boys’ lives; and who condone SA in a very polite, vaguely horrified way but who ultimately do nothing about it.
That there is barely a sense of time and place is yet another fault for the book, as is the explicit mention of nationality (which is also framed as a stand-in for race & ethnicity) for only one character - in such a way that it is important to their ‘character development’, as it were - and a distinct lack of that mention for literally everyone else. The implication of such is that a majority of the characters are the American ‘standard’, aka WASPs.
Ultimately, it felt like the boys’ obsession over the disappearance of Nora Lindell was significantly less about her actual disappearance and more about their strange possessiveness over her narrative, to the point where they don’t truly want to know what happened to her or how her disappearance affected her family. After all, that would mean they would have to consider her personhood in its entirety.
Because I do not want to be negative all the way through, I will share the one passage that I found particularly striking:
That said: I had to finish this book, despite my dislike of it. I was drawn in by the comparisons to Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides, which (somewhat unfortunately) remains one of my most favourite books. A handful of pages in, I was disappointed by how pale of an imitation of TVS this was but I also wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt - essentially, I wanted to try to read it without the comparison in my head, which was clouding my judgement.
In the end, I finished reading it because I wanted more of a reason to dislike it beyond well, it’s not Eugenides, is it?
That, it is not. Perhaps I should have known it wouldn't be when Pittard chose Virgil for the epigraph, rather than Aiskhylos.
Rather than being a novel that highlights the «dream-filled space between childhood and all that follows», this is about a group of suburban boys that do not ever truly become men; who view girls & women through the prism of what is done to them and the roles they play in the boys’ lives; and who condone SA in a very polite, vaguely horrified way but who ultimately do nothing about it.
That there is barely a sense of time and place is yet another fault for the book, as is the explicit mention of nationality (which is also framed as a stand-in for race & ethnicity) for only one character - in such a way that it is important to their ‘character development’, as it were - and a distinct lack of that mention for literally everyone else. The implication of such is that a majority of the characters are the American ‘standard’, aka WASPs.
Ultimately, it felt like the boys’ obsession over the disappearance of Nora Lindell was significantly less about her actual disappearance and more about their strange possessiveness over her narrative, to the point where they don’t truly want to know what happened to her or how her disappearance affected her family. After all, that would mean they would have to consider her personhood in its entirety.
Because I do not want to be negative all the way through, I will share the one passage that I found particularly striking:
«She wanted to be a baby again, to be anything other than a girl. She wanted for sex not to exist. She wanted for Trey Stephens not to exist. She wanted for the aqua-blue aquarium and that basement and those boys to never have existed in the first place. She regretted her uniform. She regretted her legs and the urge ever to have shown off her knees. She regretted skin. Yes, skin. That was it. More than anything she regretted the existence of skin-hers or anyone else's.»
It's a quick and entertaining read. Insightful, but somehow I never really connected with any of the characters - maybe because of the constant first person plural (I still don't know the narrator's name) and maybe because I kept thinking about The Virgin Suicides.
Read this in one sitting, highly successful first library Nook checkout!
Thank god I’m not an insufferable middle aged man obsessed with an idealized version of a 17 year old.
But in all seriousness, it was an interesting book about maturity, grief, longing, and regret. Yes, it is so similar to virgin suicides, but still an interesting read even when I could not stand the narrator (which I believe is purposeful).
But in all seriousness, it was an interesting book about maturity, grief, longing, and regret. Yes, it is so similar to virgin suicides, but still an interesting read even when I could not stand the narrator (which I believe is purposeful).
I read this in a daze while my frantic, thunderstorm-phobic dog kept me up until 4am. So my impression might be a little foggy. Really well-written, but yeah, the extreme similarity to Virgin Suicides was pretty distracting.
I just finished the book this morning and I have lots of thoughts and feeling.
It reminded me of The Virgin Suicides. Not in a bad way though. It has the same first person plural voice and a group of boys who are obsessed with sisters. The story begins with the disappearance of Nora Lindell one Halloween and the neighborhood boys' attempts to reconstruct her final moments. This is similar to the the Greek chorus narrative that Eugenides uses, but the boys in this case are not trying to actively solve the mystery. They are more like gossips, dissecting every new piece of information that comes their way. The first person plural voice makes Pittard's narrators seem like a chimera of teenage boys and the men they become as they hash out their fantasies about Nora and her sister, Sissy, and speculate on course of their own lives.
I really loved how the story unfolded like the boys really were Fates determining Nora's destiny. Was she murdered two counties over the night she disappeared or did she run away and live an amazing life? It reminded me of Doctor Who in a way too. Like the boys were fixed in time, but Nora and Sissy weren't. As long as no one knew what became of the sisters, their lives were full of endless possibilities. This also allowed the men to reflect on their lives, so the focus kept shifting from past to present to future.
Pittard does a beautiful job of creating the incestuous aspects of suburban life in the way that everyone knows each others business and the kind of hive mind that develops from growing up and being friends with the same group of people your whole life. At the same time, she gives life to the individuals in the group, like my personal favorite, the kid who names all his dogs after himself.
I'll leave off with perhaps the most striking thing about the book: just how much life Pittard is able to wring from a sparse 240 pages.
It reminded me of The Virgin Suicides. Not in a bad way though. It has the same first person plural voice and a group of boys who are obsessed with sisters. The story begins with the disappearance of Nora Lindell one Halloween and the neighborhood boys' attempts to reconstruct her final moments. This is similar to the the Greek chorus narrative that Eugenides uses, but the boys in this case are not trying to actively solve the mystery. They are more like gossips, dissecting every new piece of information that comes their way. The first person plural voice makes Pittard's narrators seem like a chimera of teenage boys and the men they become as they hash out their fantasies about Nora and her sister, Sissy, and speculate on course of their own lives.
I really loved how the story unfolded like the boys really were Fates determining Nora's destiny. Was she murdered two counties over the night she disappeared or did she run away and live an amazing life? It reminded me of Doctor Who in a way too. Like the boys were fixed in time, but Nora and Sissy weren't. As long as no one knew what became of the sisters, their lives were full of endless possibilities. This also allowed the men to reflect on their lives, so the focus kept shifting from past to present to future.
Pittard does a beautiful job of creating the incestuous aspects of suburban life in the way that everyone knows each others business and the kind of hive mind that develops from growing up and being friends with the same group of people your whole life. At the same time, she gives life to the individuals in the group, like my personal favorite, the kid who names all his dogs after himself.
I'll leave off with perhaps the most striking thing about the book: just how much life Pittard is able to wring from a sparse 240 pages.
Surprised to like this as much as I did (the book was given to me). Told from the perspective of a group of high school boys who throughout their adulthood still wonder about Nora who vanished during high school. As the boys imagine what has happened to Nora, they tell the story of their lives from awkward teens into adults.