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3.23 AVERAGE
3.23 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this novel. The writing style and changing viewpoints can make it difficult to follow at times, and all the characters are awful but themes of religion and the need to be part of something are interesting. I didn't hate it but I didn't like it either. Meh.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
I have no idea what the hype is about this book, but I struggled for a month to finish this short book that seem to go absolutely nowhere. If only I didn’t have some need to finish everything that I start, I would’ve stopped reading this book 3 weeks ago.
Listened to the audio— I think I would have quite liked this, but the narrator was very monotone and I often couldn’t tell when he was switching perspectives. Maybe I was also distracted, but it made it very difficult to follow.
horrendous characters + creepy ass cult + interesting conversations about religion + underwhelming ending + wonderful writing = i have no idea how i feel abt this book
this was fine. well-written but also written in a weird way that was kind of hard to understand at times, like no quotes being put around dialogue, etc. lots of morals gray characters if you’re into that, but it made it hard for me to care about any of them. idk I just felt like a book abt a cult could’ve been more exciting, but it did feel very realistic regardless.
I can see a lot of ppl really liking this, but it wasn’t for me personally
I can see a lot of ppl really liking this, but it wasn’t for me personally
So many mixed feelings about this book... I believe it could have been fantastic, but I felt so distracted by sentence structure and word choices that it took away from what I was hoping it to be. It seemed like Kwon was trying extremely hard to push the artistic nature of prose and the existential ideas that were displayed in the plot through her word choice and sentence structure.
I felt that I was steered the wrong way, misguided, when starting this book. To be honest, the novel did not hold up to my expectations, after hearing so many great things. I believed it to be a harrowing story of a cult and the ties with religion that can bring people we would never expect into the grasps of persuasive leaders hold. Instead, it was about a man's toxic and unrelenting love for his girlfriend and the trials and tribulations throughout their relationship. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it.
I was extremely intrigued by the plot initially, and my interest did hold throughout the novel. Even the dislikability of some (basically all), of the characters kept me turning pages. The contrast between leaving religion behind and trying desperately to grasp towards it was beautiful.
Over all, I think it was worth a read, with some revised expectations regarding the prevalence of the cult-ish theme in the novel.
I felt that I was steered the wrong way, misguided, when starting this book. To be honest, the novel did not hold up to my expectations, after hearing so many great things. I believed it to be a harrowing story of a cult and the ties with religion that can bring people we would never expect into the grasps of persuasive leaders hold. Instead, it was about a man's toxic and unrelenting love for his girlfriend and the trials and tribulations throughout their relationship. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it.
I was extremely intrigued by the plot initially, and my interest did hold throughout the novel. Even the dislikability of some (basically all), of the characters kept me turning pages. The contrast between leaving religion behind and trying desperately to grasp towards it was beautiful.
Over all, I think it was worth a read, with some revised expectations regarding the prevalence of the cult-ish theme in the novel.
2.5 maybe? I think I have to digest that for a while but my initial feeling is that I didn’t love it. I didn’t particularly like any character. Will is a strange and complicated narrator and the lack of a balancing voice made it a little monotonous to me. I’m not sold on Phoebe as narrated by Will, and (I know it’s about a cult and all) but all the He and Him and religious fanaticism just isn’t that interesting to me.
“I believe that we, in the attempt to live, invented Him. But if I could, I'd ask Him to give you everything”
i picked this book on a whim as it was marked down at a book store and had remembered a youtuber who had mentioned it. it’s a fairly short book but it has a lot packed into it. just to get it out of the way kwon’s writing style confused me at first with the three perspectives, but really they were are will’s and what he imagined phoebe and john leal’s perspective to be. another note was on how there is no dialogue in this book which at times made it hard to follow. i found the themes of faith and religion very interesting to read about it as i’m a person who doesn’t have a faith, like our main narrator will. will who lost his faith and becomes enamored with phoebe who has also lost her faith but regains in it essentially a cult. i think this book could of benefited from being longer and have phoebe be more fleshed out and how she truly fell into this cult. we only see the idolized version of her that will puts to life and he has replaced god in his life with her. the john leal chapters seemed slightly out of place and broke up the pacing from time to time but overall this book is a lot of strong ideas it just kind loosely leaves them and the climax was felt unfinished due to us not knowing entirely why john leal’s cult did what they did. i still enjoyed reading about it and will definitely want to see what kwon writes next.
i picked this book on a whim as it was marked down at a book store and had remembered a youtuber who had mentioned it. it’s a fairly short book but it has a lot packed into it. just to get it out of the way kwon’s writing style confused me at first with the three perspectives, but really they were are will’s and what he imagined phoebe and john leal’s perspective to be. another note was on how there is no dialogue in this book which at times made it hard to follow. i found the themes of faith and religion very interesting to read about it as i’m a person who doesn’t have a faith, like our main narrator will. will who lost his faith and becomes enamored with phoebe who has also lost her faith but regains in it essentially a cult. i think this book could of benefited from being longer and have phoebe be more fleshed out and how she truly fell into this cult. we only see the idolized version of her that will puts to life and he has replaced god in his life with her. the john leal chapters seemed slightly out of place and broke up the pacing from time to time but overall this book is a lot of strong ideas it just kind loosely leaves them and the climax was felt unfinished due to us not knowing entirely why john leal’s cult did what they did. i still enjoyed reading about it and will definitely want to see what kwon writes next.
meh.. maybe I would have liked the physical book better.. the narration was kind of flat.
This book was first recommended to me by everyone on the internet, and then by my little brother. It's about losing faith in a Christian God and searching for a human's love to fill that god-sized hole, it's about our traumas and how the lies we tell ourselves chase us into violence, it's about deception in so many forms, it's about refusing to take agency for one's life. It's the closest to poetry I've ever seen in fiction form but, as a reader, I would have liked for there to be more wasted words. Every moment is high-stakes, powerful punches, and I could have used a mental break. That being said, this book is hard to put down- it's one of the first in while that kept me up late at night to finish it.