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missjazzage's review
Not that the book wasn’t bad, but I think I needed something with more plot to it. In a reading slump lately.
theknitpick's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
2.5
I was hoping to be more engaged with the writing, but it was a pretty slow read, not very interesting, ultimately, and full of randomness. Not my cup of tea.
cedrics_mom's review against another edition
3.0
She did it. She wrote a book because she got away from it all. No doubt the lessons were different from what Stevens thought they’d be. The storyline about Ollie going to the island to meet his father was a snoozer and Stevens figured that out. The only story interspersed with the memoir that I liked was about the jerk boss who kept saying “that’s why I love you“ but she never revisited it.
The journey didn’t yield what she expected but it was worth it.
The journey didn’t yield what she expected but it was worth it.
oliviasbookshop's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
alba_marie's review against another edition
4.0
{3.5 rounded up}
Interesting read and really insightful but lacking the spark of Nell Stevens' second memoir, Mrs Gaskell & Me, about her PhD journey. Set on the remote Falkland islands, Nell travels across the world to spend three months in the solitude of Bleaker Island and the nearby archipelago. She can chose anywhere in the world, anywhere she wants, to spend 3 months working on a novel, sponsored by her MFA programme. Weirdly, she chooses Bleaker Island. Her reasoning is twofold - she wants solitude without distraction, and also argues that there has never been a novel set on the Falklands.
She doesn't come away with a novel, at least, not a complete work that she is proud of, but she does walk away with something - this book.. Part memoir, part short story, part travelogue, Bleaker House explores a variety of topics from the difficulty in becoming a writer to the effects of solitude, her own world views and how she recognises them and wants to push their limitations. She discusses the islands themselves and the hardships living her presents, and the challenges and expectations of modern life.
It is not as good as her second book. It is less intimate, less insightful, less invigorating. In her second, Nell opens her heart out and examines relationships, unrequited love, loneliness and breakups without embellishment, while in Bleaker House, she discusses the slightly easier topics of how to write, how to be a writer.
The memoir is interspersed with her own fiction - parts of the novel that never was, a short story about a woman who works for a suicide prevention organisation and a very bizarre character study of a screwed up teen and her teacher's screwed up relationship, which I could have done without.
Nell says that she struggles to separate herself from her work and her characters, but then she also says that she has long been under the impression that she had to both suffer and put herself in difficult or bizarre situations for the good of her writing (hence months on Bleaker Island, working at the suicide organisation, a failed attempt at teaching English in Lebanon, a job in human rights at a NFP). I've never really studied CW, unless you count one class at uni more than a decade ago, and never published anything, but I have read A LOT of books, particualrly recently, and IMO she is getting some bad advice from her teacher at her writing programme, a dude (!) named Leslie (I hope the name has been changed because Leslie, really!?). He has all these bizarre rules they have to follow and as far as I can tell, all they do is limit the would-be writers and make them overthink and doubt themselves. He is also not a very nice person.
Anyway, I thought this genre-bending little book was interesting and I'm intrigued to see if Nell ever publishes any fiction. I'd read it without hesitation, even though I think Nell and I have different reading tastes (she seems very much into contemporary/modern lit when it comes to her fiction and I am very much...not into this genre, preferring historical fiction, mystery, fantasy, magical realism, retellings, scifi, gothic stories and satires).
Interesting read and really insightful but lacking the spark of Nell Stevens' second memoir, Mrs Gaskell & Me, about her PhD journey. Set on the remote Falkland islands, Nell travels across the world to spend three months in the solitude of Bleaker Island and the nearby archipelago. She can chose anywhere in the world, anywhere she wants, to spend 3 months working on a novel, sponsored by her MFA programme. Weirdly, she chooses Bleaker Island. Her reasoning is twofold - she wants solitude without distraction, and also argues that there has never been a novel set on the Falklands.
She doesn't come away with a novel, at least, not a complete work that she is proud of, but she does walk away with something - this book.. Part memoir, part short story, part travelogue, Bleaker House explores a variety of topics from the difficulty in becoming a writer to the effects of solitude, her own world views and how she recognises them and wants to push their limitations. She discusses the islands themselves and the hardships living her presents, and the challenges and expectations of modern life.
It is not as good as her second book. It is less intimate, less insightful, less invigorating. In her second, Nell opens her heart out and examines relationships, unrequited love, loneliness and breakups without embellishment, while in Bleaker House, she discusses the slightly easier topics of how to write, how to be a writer.
The memoir is interspersed with her own fiction - parts of the novel that never was, a short story about a woman who works for a suicide prevention organisation and a very bizarre character study of a screwed up teen and her teacher's screwed up relationship, which I could have done without.
Nell says that she struggles to separate herself from her work and her characters, but then she also says that she has long been under the impression that she had to both suffer and put herself in difficult or bizarre situations for the good of her writing (hence months on Bleaker Island, working at the suicide organisation, a failed attempt at teaching English in Lebanon, a job in human rights at a NFP). I've never really studied CW, unless you count one class at uni more than a decade ago, and never published anything, but I have read A LOT of books, particualrly recently, and IMO she is getting some bad advice from her teacher at her writing programme, a dude (!) named Leslie (I hope the name has been changed because Leslie, really!?). He has all these bizarre rules they have to follow and as far as I can tell, all they do is limit the would-be writers and make them overthink and doubt themselves. He is also not a very nice person.
Anyway, I thought this genre-bending little book was interesting and I'm intrigued to see if Nell ever publishes any fiction. I'd read it without hesitation, even though I think Nell and I have different reading tastes (she seems very much into contemporary/modern lit when it comes to her fiction and I am very much...not into this genre, preferring historical fiction, mystery, fantasy, magical realism, retellings, scifi, gothic stories and satires).
emmafink91's review against another edition
4.0
This book taught me a very important lesson....sometimes you need to be alone to really understand being lonely.
lulunich's review against another edition
2.0
A book about trying to write a book, padded out with bits of OK fiction writing