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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
3.5
"What happens when, overflowing with love, you are no longer loved and are left with nothing?"
I liked this book and how it depicted what happens to a woman when, after building her life around a man, she is left by said man and must figure out how to rebuild herself. This book has a big middle portion, taking up around twenty-five percent of the story, in which our main character, Olga, is "trapped" inside her apartment and begins mentally spiraling while dealing with a sick kid and a maybe-poisoned dog. I really did not like this part of the book; I found the constant cycle of entering rooms, explaining her mental state, and repeating this pattern to be really repetitive and boring after a while. That would be my biggest complaint with the book.
I liked this quote, which showed how successful men's achievements are often built on the sacrifices of others—usually women—who give up their careers to do domestic work while the men accumulate sucesses: "They are things you worked on while I was there. I was taking care of you, I was doing the shopping, the cooking. It’s time that belongs to me in a way. Leave everything there."
Decent book, though I didn’t like the ending.
----------------
Quotes
Existence is this, I thought, a start of joy, a stab of pain, an intense pleasure, veins that pulse under the skin, there is no other truth to tell.
It was really true, there was no longer anything about him that could interest me. He wasn’t even a fragment of the past, he was only a stain, like the print of a hand left years ago on a wall.
you said that you had fallen into a void, an absence of sense, and it wasn’t true.You, you don’t know. At most you glanced down, you got frightened, and you plugged up the hole with Carla’s body.
“No. Just when I felt deceived, abandoned, humiliated, I loved you very much, I wanted you more than in any other moment of our life together.”
the circle of an empty day is brutal, and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose.
you’re the one who confronts practical life every day, the obligations, the burden of the children.
Not even in moments of love had I ever sounded childish. A woman is a woman.
he wanted to be my bra so he could hug my chest, and my underpants and my skirt and the shoe stepped on by my foot, and the water that washed me and the cream that rubbed me and the mirror in which I looked at myself;
Wash the body, scent it, eliminate all unpleasant traces of physiology. To levitate. I wanted to detach myself from the earth, I wanted him to see me hovering on high, the way wholly good things do.
“Locks become habituated. They have to recognize the hand of their master.”
And now, now he had left me, carrying off, abruptly, all that time, all that energy, all that effort I had given him, to enjoy its fruits with someone else, a stranger who had not lifted a finger to bear him and rear him and make him become what he had become.
"What happens when, overflowing with love, you are no longer loved and are left with nothing?"
I liked this book and how it depicted what happens to a woman when, after building her life around a man, she is left by said man and must figure out how to rebuild herself. This book has a big middle portion, taking up around twenty-five percent of the story, in which our main character, Olga, is "trapped" inside her apartment and begins mentally spiraling while dealing with a sick kid and a maybe-poisoned dog. I really did not like this part of the book; I found the constant cycle of entering rooms, explaining her mental state, and repeating this pattern to be really repetitive and boring after a while. That would be my biggest complaint with the book.
I liked this quote, which showed how successful men's achievements are often built on the sacrifices of others—usually women—who give up their careers to do domestic work while the men accumulate sucesses: "They are things you worked on while I was there. I was taking care of you, I was doing the shopping, the cooking. It’s time that belongs to me in a way. Leave everything there."
Decent book, though I didn’t like the ending.
----------------
Quotes
Existence is this, I thought, a start of joy, a stab of pain, an intense pleasure, veins that pulse under the skin, there is no other truth to tell.
It was really true, there was no longer anything about him that could interest me. He wasn’t even a fragment of the past, he was only a stain, like the print of a hand left years ago on a wall.
you said that you had fallen into a void, an absence of sense, and it wasn’t true.You, you don’t know. At most you glanced down, you got frightened, and you plugged up the hole with Carla’s body.
“No. Just when I felt deceived, abandoned, humiliated, I loved you very much, I wanted you more than in any other moment of our life together.”
the circle of an empty day is brutal, and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose.
you’re the one who confronts practical life every day, the obligations, the burden of the children.
Not even in moments of love had I ever sounded childish. A woman is a woman.
he wanted to be my bra so he could hug my chest, and my underpants and my skirt and the shoe stepped on by my foot, and the water that washed me and the cream that rubbed me and the mirror in which I looked at myself;
Wash the body, scent it, eliminate all unpleasant traces of physiology. To levitate. I wanted to detach myself from the earth, I wanted him to see me hovering on high, the way wholly good things do.
“Locks become habituated. They have to recognize the hand of their master.”
And now, now he had left me, carrying off, abruptly, all that time, all that energy, all that effort I had given him, to enjoy its fruits with someone else, a stranger who had not lifted a finger to bear him and rear him and make him become what he had become.
Literally on fire. The entire novel is ablaze with anger and loss. A great read!
"Visceral" is a cliche book review term, and I'm sure has been liberally applied to this book, but it really is the most appropriate word I can think of.
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A horrible book. Utterly revolting. Terrifying. Grim and unforgiving. Incredible.
Ferrante is the kind of writer who catches you up and won't put you down even when you would rather not finish a book.
I hate almost every moment of this book, it made me remember heartbreaks and moments of dissacoiation and childish horror. I was so honestly worried for the cast of characters that I felt sick. She's a marvel.
I only hope she never writes a real horror story.
Some of the reviews on here are about how irritating or unrelatable Olga is and I don't understand that at all. Olga isn't trying to win you over, she's trying to hold herself together and judgement from readers on the quality of her character seems to speak of a lack of empathy.
How anyone could read The Days of Abandonment and not be rooting for her is beyond me. She's too human to have anything but love for, and when she makes bad decisions or can't focus all I had was gut wrenching fear for her.
Truly terrifying, gut wrenching fear that she wouldn't be able to put herself together again.
Horrid book, you simply have to read it.
Ferrante is the kind of writer who catches you up and won't put you down even when you would rather not finish a book.
I hate almost every moment of this book, it made me remember heartbreaks and moments of dissacoiation and childish horror. I was so honestly worried for the cast of characters that I felt sick. She's a marvel.
I only hope she never writes a real horror story.
Some of the reviews on here are about how irritating or unrelatable Olga is and I don't understand that at all. Olga isn't trying to win you over, she's trying to hold herself together and judgement from readers on the quality of her character seems to speak of a lack of empathy.
How anyone could read The Days of Abandonment and not be rooting for her is beyond me. She's too human to have anything but love for, and when she makes bad decisions or can't focus all I had was gut wrenching fear for her.
Truly terrifying, gut wrenching fear that she wouldn't be able to put herself together again.
Horrid book, you simply have to read it.
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
“I wanted to like this. It has elements I usually enjoy—grief, rage, unraveling—but it felt more like I was watching it from the outside than feeling it. Kind of a slog, tbh. I see what it’s doing, I just didn’t feel it unfortunately.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
i thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this book !
‘the days of abandonment’ follows our protagonist Olga, as she struggles to stay afloat after Mario, her husband of fifteen years, leaves her. Olga’s personality is so consumed and intertwined in her husbands that when he leaves her, she feels like a part of her has died aswell. this novel follows the subsequent months after, as she tries to piece together her life while everything seems to be unravelling around her.
i loved the exploration of grief in this book, olga’s grief of her marriage is tumultuous, she feels so overcome with emotion, hardly able to keep up with the demands of everyday life. this book touches on what it’s like to be a woman, to be expected to still be the perfect mother and to be put together, to not show emotion and go insane. but love is known to make us insane, olga’s outbursts are real and emotive, we are exposed to her behaviour and how at times, she is cruel and relentless, but we empathise with her, we as women, feel her pain as our own. i loved the exploration of her muddled brain, her fears of no longer being able to parent, her selfishness. this story is grounded in the mundane, as she discovers that without her husband, the small things she never thought about now seem overbearing. like how now that he’s gone she has to be the one to walk the dog.
i loved the exploration on how she no longer felt desirable, how she sought out affection to prove that she was still beautiful. everything about this felt so real and felt like something i would totally do if someone left me so unravelled. watching olga try so hard to be better, to stay alert, she’s so afraid of being unfit to go on. her relationship with everyone suffers, her children begin to despise the person she has become.
the exploration at the end, as she begins to find a way to navigate her own life, as she realises that the man she previously loved is actually not the guy she ever thought he was. it’s all so heartbreaking. she can never get that time back. AHHH i have so much to say but also nothing to say at all, amazing.
‘the days of abandonment’ follows our protagonist Olga, as she struggles to stay afloat after Mario, her husband of fifteen years, leaves her. Olga’s personality is so consumed and intertwined in her husbands that when he leaves her, she feels like a part of her has died aswell. this novel follows the subsequent months after, as she tries to piece together her life while everything seems to be unravelling around her.
i loved the exploration of grief in this book, olga’s grief of her marriage is tumultuous, she feels so overcome with emotion, hardly able to keep up with the demands of everyday life. this book touches on what it’s like to be a woman, to be expected to still be the perfect mother and to be put together, to not show emotion and go insane. but love is known to make us insane, olga’s outbursts are real and emotive, we are exposed to her behaviour and how at times, she is cruel and relentless, but we empathise with her, we as women, feel her pain as our own. i loved the exploration of her muddled brain, her fears of no longer being able to parent, her selfishness. this story is grounded in the mundane, as she discovers that without her husband, the small things she never thought about now seem overbearing. like how now that he’s gone she has to be the one to walk the dog.
i loved the exploration on how she no longer felt desirable, how she sought out affection to prove that she was still beautiful. everything about this felt so real and felt like something i would totally do if someone left me so unravelled. watching olga try so hard to be better, to stay alert, she’s so afraid of being unfit to go on. her relationship with everyone suffers, her children begin to despise the person she has become.
the exploration at the end, as she begins to find a way to navigate her own life, as she realises that the man she previously loved is actually not the guy she ever thought he was. it’s all so heartbreaking. she can never get that time back. AHHH i have so much to say but also nothing to say at all, amazing.
So lame and the main character just sucks I might take it out again later but rn I’m over it
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes