Reviews - The Unbearable Lightness of Being

6.11k reviews for:

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera

3.96 AVERAGE

evybungus's review

3.0

challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I'm going middle of the road 3 because there were aspects of this book that I really liked and aspects that I really despised.

First of all the MMC and FMC were literally MENTALLY ILL. Like I can't dog on them too much because they actually were mentally just not there. At all. Like WHAT ARE YOU DOINGGGGGGGG????????????????!!!?!?!?!?!?!!??!???!?!??!??!??! I HATED Tomas. Please see a therapist. Teresa too. Girl, leave him. For the sake of the good lord, LEAVE THAT WEIRDO!

I was pissed off basically the whole time I was reading. It was unreal.

The nonlinear storytelling of it was very confusing, but I feel like that was the point. The last few sections were way better than the first couple.

I don't really think I understood the tie ins to communism and the soviet union and the Russian occupation. Like I understood it separately from the love plotline, but I felt like I was supposed to be making connections between the ways that the characters were acting and their historical context/surroundings, but I just was not doing that. At all.

Also I disagree with a lot of the conclusions that the author was drawing about human nature and empathy and compassion and such. But also I didn't grow up in a country occupied by a totalitarian and authoritarian Communist regime that destroyed my heritage and my country and eradicated free speech. So, there's that.

I don't know if I recommend this book. Maybe if you really want to read a book that is kind of gross, this one would be good.

kyscg's review

2.25

Word salad alert! Bunch of neurotic people saying neurotic things. I mean, I get why the book is so popular, the style of the prose is very soviet-essay coded and very memorable. The ideas are well-formed, and the characters are well written, and maybe I would have liked this book at some other time, but I simply couldn't read this without forcing myself to.