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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
honestly best book I've ever read. it's about love and loss and more loss and more love and isn't selling you any way of life. It's enjoyable, heart-breaking, and makes you want to never stop reading it (which is good because its looooooong).
adventurous
sad
medium-paced
Oh I really don’t know about this book, it is boosted 3 rather than a just missed 5 star. The pace was frequently glacial and sentences often overblown. I had tried to read it in paperback and failed, tried an eversion so the size didn’t daunt me but in the end it was the audiobook that got me through. On a long car journey it didn’t matter that some passages were interminable. And sometimes that long windedness worked in pulling you in. That said it might have been the quality of the narration. I think it was trying very hard to be a majestic literary work and sometimes it succeeded; big themes of loss, yearning, beauty and the fragility of survival of people and things. Unfortunately the story was at base simplistic and too pat. Everything was resolved, oddly there was rarely a real sense of jeopardy. Sometimes the writing was cliched; tip of the iceberg, etc.
But Theo came to life and you end up caring what happens, Boris was rather more cartoon like and unreal as were many other subsidiary characters. I liked it eventually and my morning runs will be more tedious until I find another absorbing listen.
But Theo came to life and you end up caring what happens, Boris was rather more cartoon like and unreal as were many other subsidiary characters. I liked it eventually and my morning runs will be more tedious until I find another absorbing listen.
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i considered dnf-ing this book many times, but wanted to give it a fair shake. extremely character driven and unfortunately i didn't like theo, the main character. this book was just sooooo long and unnecessarily so, in my opinion. i listened to the audiobook and the prose was great at times, but like that didn't justify how long it was. especially theo's time in vegas like it was so repetitive and drawn out, just to find out he didn't even remember it correctly (at least was blacked out for the interesting stuff). i don't think all that was needed to establish his relationship with borris. i did like the "twist" that he hadn't had the painting since vegas, but like the delusion & paranoia combo was so weird to me. like on one hand he's so scared abt the painting and ppl figuring out he stole it, but he's also on drugs & drunk like all the time and thinks no one knows? i guess that's the addict talking but damn
A bit surprised that this won a Pulitzer. Interesting read, wouldn't call it a masterpiece. It's just really long.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent
This book had a really strong and interesting start and I loved it at first. The ending felt like it spiraled into a different genre completely and halted the story instead of moving it forward.
For a long, long time I couldn't see what the point, the meaning, the philosophy was going to be, but the story and the characters kept me going. In the end - the very end, I did appreciate what the writer is trying to say and want to think more about it. If it were another book, I might even read it again to look for threads I missed the first time, but this one is just, too massive.