Reviews - In Watermelon Sugar

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

1.39k reviews for:

In Watermelon Sugar

Richard Brautigan

3.51 AVERAGE

bookish_niamh's review against another edition

2.0

challenging mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

haleyxalexis's review against another edition

1.0

I could not finish this. It was very repetitive.

readingpanda's review against another edition

3.0

It would be easy to dismiss In Watermelon Sugar as disjointed, hallucinatory wanderings. And I'm not saying that's an invalid interpretation; maybe that's all it is. But it's also amazingly tactile and immersive for a book written in short sketches and simple sentences.

If you're going to enjoy it at all, you have to abandon yourself to the experience. Everything is made of watermelon sugar? Okay. There were talking tigers? Sure. They live at a place called iDEATH? Why not. Our nameless narrator talks a little about the world in which he lives, and his job (he's a writer, kind of), and the women and friends in his life. It's a basic story about human nature and simple pleasures thrown into a surrealist setting.

I read that Haruki Murakami considers Brautigan an influence, and I can see the connections. Murakami does more complex world-building, but the combination of the mundane and the surreal, as well as the quiet nature of the narrative are things they have in common. In Watermelon Sugar is a little slip of a book (I read it in two short train rides), but you may find the imagery sticking with you well after you close the book.

Recommended for: anyone who's ever had occasion to say, "that's so *cosmic*, man," people who like Hieronymus Bosch, someone who wants to ease into surrealism.

Quote: "I took her hand in mine. Her hand had a lot of strength gained through the process of gentleness and that strength made my hand feel secure, but there was a certain excitement, too."

regulardragon's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

teddy_jenkins_14's review against another edition

4.5

medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: N/A

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

“Perhaps you were lying in bed, almost ready to go to sleep, and you laughed at something, a joke unto yourself a good way to end the day.

That is my name.

Or you were eating something good and for a second forgot what you were eating, but still went on, knowing it was good.

That is my name.”

This book has the incredible talent of doing so much in such a short space. Just over 100 pages and yet Brautigan has managed to creat an amazingly perplex and strange world, seemingly filled to the brim with such sad, sweet characters.

It seems like such a simple story, one man writing about the goings on around him, who he talks to, what they say, and everything around him, watermelon sugar.

The amazing imagery used by Brautigan throughout this little book leads to the amazing feeling of immersion within the story, feeling both wonder at the amazing little town of iDeath visualised, while also feeling at home almost like everything happening even the changing colours of the sun is completely natural, like you have seen it a thousand times and over.

This book is truly an amazing way for me to start off my year of reading.