Reviews

A Disgraceful Affair: Stories (White Nights, A Disgraceful Affair, The Dream of the Ridiculous Man) by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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liac's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

taylorannwright's review against another edition

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4.0

Just finished reading White Nights out of this collection (the main reason I got it (in the future, I plan to read the others)).
I won’t lie when I say this was out of my element, it took a lot to get in the head space of this writing.

But once we hit the drama… SO. GOOD.
was it worth it? I think so.

reila's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

White Nights and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man were pretty enjoyable, more so the latter for that existential goodness. A Disgraceful Affair was semi-interesting; admittedly fell off in the middle of this story because the protagonist was...a bloated mess (on purpose). The side character in that awful household had more character, and easier to sympathize with one's helplessness in that situation (on purpose, I'm sure). Speaking of messed up households:

Gosh, I enjoyed Barb Johnson's short story St. Luis of Palmyra for brevity; a miserable gut-punch back to reality (hello, early 2000's...maybe).