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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
Beautifully written - I've never written anything quite like it. She uses words as pictures and as poetry. The story is similar to once were warriors, just more objective. So very disturbing
I read this 20 years ago and reread it this year. It's still as haunting and poignant now as it was then.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Violence
This book felt like a long, weird dream, in part because there is a lot of Maori language and culture in the book, and I let it wash over me without really understanding it. In part because all of the primary characters in the book are idiosyncratic and eccentric and confused about their motivations. In part because the last few chapters of the book have a lot of deus ex tohunga, where mystical creatures appear and do things like cure broken arms and cancer. In part because there is so much drinking in the book that I felt uncomfortably drunk just reading it.
I think I enjoyed this book all the more because it was so messy, because it mirrored the messiness of real life.
I think I enjoyed this book all the more because it was so messy, because it mirrored the messiness of real life.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Violence
Moderate: Ableism, Cancer, Chronic illness, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Suicide attempt
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Violence
Moderate: Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Pedophilia
One of my favourite books. Recommended by a special friend during a difficult year and read at a difficult time. It so helped me through that. It's a very spiritual book in the sense that it goes deep into the mechanics of relationships and pain. It moved me to my core.
UPDATE 23 October 2018
I just had this flagged up on this day in history and I really have the urge to read it again. I've just bumped it up to five stars because this book has stayed in my memory over all these years - first read it in 1995.
UPDATE 23 October 2018
I just had this flagged up on this day in history and I really have the urge to read it again. I've just bumped it up to five stars because this book has stayed in my memory over all these years - first read it in 1995.
I wanted to like it but I found the formatting frustrating, the plot slow, and it was generally just not it for me. I was reading it for a read around the world challenge but I really just could not get into it. Also it's like 500 pages and it took me like 10 to read each one while also not being very interesting.
The first third was intriguing and the idiosyncratic, poetic writing style was interesting. In the middle third, that style had outstayed its welcome and become tedious and self-indulgent. In the final third the book degenerates into apologia for child abuse. And I don’t mean that in a snowflake-sensitive Goodreads/Tumblr way, being shocked by a scene where a child gets smacked, or even the all-too-common misconception that portrayal = endorsement. I mean that every sympathetic character excuses or justifies a major character’s brutal bashing of his son which lands the child in hospital for months and permanently deafens him because “he loves him really,” and those Pakeha doctors and social workers and cops who think otherwise are snobs who just don’t understand. No thank you!
Every time i read this, i fall in love all over again. Drawn irresistibly into the strange, disturbing, fascinating, compelling world of Kerewin and Simon and Joe. This time i noticed all of the references to sex and gender—not only is the protagonist calmly and confidently asexual, she even made up neutral pronouns (though she uses she for herself). Such relatively subtle subtexts can be overlooked in this story full of intense trauma and cruel violence. When people say "this is a book about child abuse" they are focusing on the tip of the iceberg. Themes of colonialism, race, indigenous power, sex and gender, age and economics (one character (Maori) works in a factory, another (mixed white and Maori) won the lottery, one (white) may be a disowned member of the royal family), addiction, cancer, politics and legal systems, art, science, Christianity and mysticism come together to form a complex holograph of reality projected from the margins of society. This book is richly layered and meticulously filigreed with some of the most advanced wordplay ever in an English language novel.