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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-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
fast-paced
challenging
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I have been listening for about an hour...and -- I am going to let this book go. It is just not to my liking.
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
((via audiobook)) DNF'd
I thought I was in the headspace and mood to take this book on. I should have known very quickly that it was not for me. I stuck it out for about 3 hours, but when I noticed my mind wandering and having learned 0 of the characters names, I decided it was best to just call it quits.
Might try again some day, but probably not tbh (too many racial slurs).
I thought I was in the headspace and mood to take this book on. I should have known very quickly that it was not for me. I stuck it out for about 3 hours, but when I noticed my mind wandering and having learned 0 of the characters names, I decided it was best to just call it quits.
Might try again some day, but probably not tbh (too many racial slurs).
Maybe bc of audio. I know it’s a classic I should read. Just didn’t get into it. Lots of hours trying to
- Story ranking: Letters from Zedelghem > The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish > An Orison of Sonmi-451 > The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing > Sloosha's Crossin' an' Evrythin' After > Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery
- I get what Mitchell was doing with Sloosha's Crossin', but unfortunately it was just so hard to read that it kind of halted my momentum on the book for a good while. I think I'm just generally not a fan of eye dialect (had to look up the term for this), and coupled with the fact that it's set in the post-apocalyptic far future it made it incredibly difficult to understand what was happening from paragraph to paragraph. It’s also particularly grueling to read in short chunks, because every time I started I needed at least a few minutes to re-acclimate myself to the writing style. That being said, conceptually and narratively I still enjoyed it more than Luisa Rey, which was by far the blandest prose-wise and exactly not what I want from a writer who excels at utilizing language (though I admit it does fit that kind of terse genre thriller novel well, so I suppose I'm just generally not a fan of the whole genre).
- I'm growing increasingly tired of self-aggrandizing stories which are about the "the power of storytelling/narrative/fiction/etc." That being said, as far as those kinds of stories go, this was a particularly enjoyable one, in large part due to how varied the tones, styles, and mediums of the individual narratives were. Mitchell excels at bringing the settings of his stories to life: the nineteenth century boating life of Adam Ewing feels nothing like Somni’s dystopic, hyper-capitalistic world, and the characters' perspectives and worldviews feel inextricably tied to their respective environments.
- Frobisher's chapters were the highlight of the book for me; I'm a sucker for erudite characters with big personalities, and the ending was tragic and effective. He’s at once an inspiring figure and a cautionary tale, and immensely entertaining to read about from behind the safety of the fourth wall, and engaging with figures like him - passionate and interesting and opinionated and probably a pain in the ass to deal with in real life - is one of the great joys of fiction.
- Throughout the book I constantly searched for connections between the stories, both literal and thematic, and I was disappointed to realize they were few and far between. Each protagonist consumes the story of the previous one, but the degree to which the story has an impact on them varies wildly. The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish inspires Somni to rise up against the oppression of her people (which I found both poignant and hilarious, considering how comical and relatively light Cavendish's story is. It reminded me of a plot point in the show "Severance", in which the subjugated employees are inspired by a copy of the main character's brother-in-law's trite self-help book - so starved are they for revolutionary sentiment that even the most banal expression of it is able to incite their fervor). On the other hand, "Half-Lives" is just a manuscript that lands on Cavendish's desk, and it doesn't seem to inspire any strong feelings in him one way or another (beyond, apparently, wanting to fuck the author). I'm not saying every story needed to have a huge impact on the next one... okay, but maybe that is what I'm saying? Otherwise it does feel like a cheap gimmick to make this anthology seem more interconnected than it really is. The ending, after all, cements the novel as a grand narrative about the how even the smallest action can have far-reaching effects, and it ends with a legitimately fantastic quote ("what is an ocean but a multitude of drops"), but it would've been more effective to actually see those drops reverberate more clearly throughout the book's centuries-long timeline.
- I get what Mitchell was doing with Sloosha's Crossin', but unfortunately it was just so hard to read that it kind of halted my momentum on the book for a good while. I think I'm just generally not a fan of eye dialect (had to look up the term for this), and coupled with the fact that it's set in the post-apocalyptic far future it made it incredibly difficult to understand what was happening from paragraph to paragraph. It’s also particularly grueling to read in short chunks, because every time I started I needed at least a few minutes to re-acclimate myself to the writing style. That being said, conceptually and narratively I still enjoyed it more than Luisa Rey, which was by far the blandest prose-wise and exactly not what I want from a writer who excels at utilizing language (though I admit it does fit that kind of terse genre thriller novel well, so I suppose I'm just generally not a fan of the whole genre).
- I'm growing increasingly tired of self-aggrandizing stories which are about the "the power of storytelling/narrative/fiction/etc." That being said, as far as those kinds of stories go, this was a particularly enjoyable one, in large part due to how varied the tones, styles, and mediums of the individual narratives were. Mitchell excels at bringing the settings of his stories to life: the nineteenth century boating life of Adam Ewing feels nothing like Somni’s dystopic, hyper-capitalistic world, and the characters' perspectives and worldviews feel inextricably tied to their respective environments.
- Frobisher's chapters were the highlight of the book for me; I'm a sucker for erudite characters with big personalities, and the ending was tragic and effective. He’s at once an inspiring figure and a cautionary tale, and immensely entertaining to read about from behind the safety of the fourth wall, and engaging with figures like him - passionate and interesting and opinionated and probably a pain in the ass to deal with in real life - is one of the great joys of fiction.
- Throughout the book I constantly searched for connections between the stories, both literal and thematic, and I was disappointed to realize they were few and far between. Each protagonist consumes the story of the previous one, but the degree to which the story has an impact on them varies wildly. The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish inspires Somni to rise up against the oppression of her people (which I found both poignant and hilarious, considering how comical and relatively light Cavendish's story is. It reminded me of a plot point in the show "Severance", in which the subjugated employees are inspired by a copy of the main character's brother-in-law's trite self-help book - so starved are they for revolutionary sentiment that even the most banal expression of it is able to incite their fervor). On the other hand, "Half-Lives" is just a manuscript that lands on Cavendish's desk, and it doesn't seem to inspire any strong feelings in him one way or another (beyond, apparently, wanting to fuck the author). I'm not saying every story needed to have a huge impact on the next one... okay, but maybe that is what I'm saying? Otherwise it does feel like a cheap gimmick to make this anthology seem more interconnected than it really is. The ending, after all, cements the novel as a grand narrative about the how even the smallest action can have far-reaching effects, and it ends with a legitimately fantastic quote ("what is an ocean but a multitude of drops"), but it would've been more effective to actually see those drops reverberate more clearly throughout the book's centuries-long timeline.