Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Boulder by Eva Baltasar

10 reviews

kappafrog's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

The writing style really drew me in at first. It's very visceral. But I ended up just feeling nothing for the characters in this book. The relationship was a disaster from the beginning, and it was hard watching the MC just move passively through the world. The only bright spot was her relationship with her daughter. The way that Samsa gets biologically essentialized was kind of weird. Overall, beautiful writing but dull.

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abisnail564's review

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emotional reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Not sure whether I liked this book or not. I found it a bit depressing and didn’t particularly identify with the narrator. But I thought the book conveyed her isolation well.

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atoft's review

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I'm not sure whether I like this book or not. Certainly I found myself with a lot of reservations about the unnamed protagonist, who acquires the moniker of Boulder from her partner Samsa. Starting the story isolated, as a lone cook on a cargo freighter, she finds connection with Samsa. From the start however, she struggles to reconcile Samsa's desire to settle down with her own fierce independence. This contrast in goals and worldviews is interesting and valid, but what's frustrating about Boulder is her tendency to objectify others at the expense of empathising with them. It's great to be physically attracted to someone, but a long term relationship needs to be built on more than that alone. We see this as Boulder and Samsa drift apart. Boulder's commitment to help raise a child seems ill-advised given her own disinterest,
and is ultimately not enough to keep their relationship intact
. At the same time, Samsa seems unable or unwilling to acknowledge that her needs and Boulder's clearly do not align.

The book's prose is heavy with metaphor and evocative imagery. It's often beautiful, although occasionally the metaphor becomes a little overplayed and meandering, perhaps a consequence of the translation. On the whole though, the book works hard at evoking Boulder's emotional states through visuals and analogy, and its concise form makes this not too overwhelming.

Due to the book being written entirely from Boulder's POV, I feel that we often struggle to get insights into other characters, mainly Samsa. In the first half of the book, it takes a long time to learn any details about her at all, beyond her physical attractiveness. It's hard to get a grasp on her personality through Boulder's often conflicted sketches of her. Of course it can be argued that this is a strength of the book as a character study of Boulder, but it does make the world of the novel feel very isolated.

On the whole I found Boulder to be an interesting work. I found value in the prose, imagery, and sense of place. I think I need more time to understand what message to take away from it, and what to make of its flawed characters.


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savvylit's review

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? No

4.0

The most arresting thing about this vibe-heavy novel was Baltasar's gorgeous sentences. Take this for instance, "Maybe love is unfurling above us like an enormous branch that bends and touches all the most sensitive, reticent parts of us." Stunning. There were so many moments where I'd read a sentence like that one and then pause to just absorb its beauty. This is also a testament to Julia Sanchez's skill as a translator.

Beyond the sentence-level craft, Boulder is an emotional and reflective slice of life. Boulder and Samsa's relationship, though portrayed from only one side, was palpable and realistic. This novel often felt like a memoir - that's how immersive and believable it was.

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jayisreading's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

4.5

This was such an interesting dive into a queer woman's mind and negative feelings about children and motherhood. I feel that society still often expects women to have maternal instincts, and for the narrator to so blatantly push back against that is incredibly refreshing. In such a short book, Baltasar unravels her characters to reveal numerous flaws and vulnerabilities, as well as creating a well-crafted claustrophobic tension to reflect the feelings of the titular character (Boulder being a nickname).

I'm looking forward to reading Baltasar's other works, because Boulder scratched an itch for a good character study.

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bookishcori's review

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

3.75


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afion's review

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No idea how to rate this lol but the prose was nice 

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veelaughtland's review

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0


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lidia7's review

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challenging reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5


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tailwhip's review

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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