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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book broke me in ways I didn’t think were possible. I didn’t cry, but I wept inside instead. The prose of this novella is lyrical and gorgeous and contrasts the gruesome nature of the book so well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, War
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Shit, what do I do now? The story length was perfect, what was told was perfect. I don’t want more. But I want more, I want to be able to erase it all and read it again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
Moderate: Rape
Minor: Animal death
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
So the MC is an orphan, and she reflects on that experience, and then as an adult wanting to parent herself. The book is interspersed with these "four minute" narratives about other people and is supposed to give you an idea of like how you don't really know all that one is going through, but if you spend four minutes getting to know them you can empathize with their plight, that sort of thing. It's a cool concept but this was too short for all these different branches, IMO.
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment
Moderate: Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault
Four minutes is all it takes to accept a stranger. Leah’s fragmented story is interspersed with 9 other tales, each readable in four minutes. A brutal, beautiful non-linear book about motherhood and otherness.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
This book has been on my wishlist forever, and I finally treated myself to a copy for the ‘Eastern European’ prompt for Queer Your Year 2024. Set in Bulgaria, Four Minutes is a bleak story told in vignettes, mostly centred around Leah, her childhood in a brutal children’s home and her adult life, documenting her struggles to adopt as a queer single woman. I was glad for the short chapters because this book is HEAVY. It doesn’t shy away from the terrible things that happen to children lost in the system. Amongst Leah’s story, Deleva intersperses short narratives from an assortment of other people - ageing ballerinas, Syrian refugees, young girls suffering horrific abuse. These are people whose voices are often lost in the melee, confined to the margins. I loved the idea of a literary equivalent of the four minute experiment - the idea that that’s the length of time it takes looking into someone’s eyes for them to stop feeling like a stranger. Moving and impactful, slightly too short.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense