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3.02 AVERAGE
3.02 AVERAGE
After careful consideration I think I’m going to shelve this one on my Science Fiction shelf. This futuristic novel was weird, but intriguing, so I kept reading to find out what the ending held. After I finished I felt somewhat cheated because I was left with way too many questions. What does C.A.S.A. stand for? Wait a minute, there are cameras in almost every room, but Clarissa can’t figure out why she feels like she’s being watched? Duh! What happened to Jim Perrier? Seriously?, only two residents of this complex noticed anything was amiss???Please explain the relationship between bilingual ability and creativity levels? I would have loved to see Clarissa exert some type of revenge on C.A.S.A. before making her exit. While I can understand the motivation for Clarissa’s dreams to be invaded, I don’t think it was necessary for her to be drugged and the extensive invasion of privacy by C.A.S.A. to accomplish their goal. Why would the name of her stillborn son be repeated to her in her unconscious state? Why use the voice of her hypnotist therapist from years ago? I really couldn’t understand the fascination with Virginia Woolf and Romain Gary throughout. I tried to read Mrs Dalloway a few years ago and did not finish. It remains one of the very few books that I have ever given up on. Also, the forecast of not too distant years to come was fairly depressing due to the somber portrait painted of a planet where global warming, pollution, and automation have taken away much of the charm of living here. Let’s hope these visions don’t come to pass.
Set in Paris, authoress and avid researcher of houses and homes, Clarissa Katsef, has recently left her second husband, Francois. Her search for a place to live independently where she can continue her writing has introduced her to the C.A.S.A. artist’s residence housing concept. After being interviewed as a candidate to live there, her application is accepted. Almost as soon as she moves in she feels as if she is being watched. Her granddaughter, Adriana (Andy) and her cat, Chablis also sense that there is another presence. Along with her granddaughter, her first husband, Toby, her daughter, Jordan, and her father form her support network.
Set in Paris, authoress and avid researcher of houses and homes, Clarissa Katsef, has recently left her second husband, Francois. Her search for a place to live independently where she can continue her writing has introduced her to the C.A.S.A. artist’s residence housing concept. After being interviewed as a candidate to live there, her application is accepted. Almost as soon as she moves in she feels as if she is being watched. Her granddaughter, Adriana (Andy) and her cat, Chablis also sense that there is another presence. Along with her granddaughter, her first husband, Toby, her daughter, Jordan, and her father form her support network.
I was simply confused the entire time I was reading this (and then there just wasn’t an ending?)
I was really enjoying this story. It was a book with, I felt, two story lines, both like a mystery- figuring out what happened and the why of events. It was moving along pretty easily and I was really thinking this was going to be a 5 star read. Unfortunately the ending was so disappointing and I wanted the “answers”.
Her writing is so smart so I immediately went to maybe I’m just not seeing the answer in her writing. I like closure in reading (and life) so because I didn’t feel that closure I give this read a 3.5.
I did love the Paris setting!
Her writing is so smart so I immediately went to maybe I’m just not seeing the answer in her writing. I like closure in reading (and life) so because I didn’t feel that closure I give this read a 3.5.
I did love the Paris setting!
Does anyone else think the main character’s real name was Cassandra?
I have mixed feelings about this book. There are plot holes, missed opportunities, unnecessary pieces, and more, yet the writing itself is solid and lovely.
Definitely not what I thought it was going to be! 1984-ish with more underneath. 3.5
I finished "Flowers of Darkness" by Tatiana de Rosnay several days ago, and, yet, cannot get it out of my head. My mind keeps swimming back into Clarissa Katsef's world.
Clarissa is a writer and a woman scorned. Luckily, she is given the opportunity to leave her cheating husband and live in an artists' residence for cheap rent, great views of Paris, and nothing to do but work on her new endeavor: a book written in English & French simultaneously, as Clarissa herself thinks & speaks in both of these languages fluently and fluidly.
However, there seems to be an unspoken catch. Isn't there always a catch when something seems too good?
The world Clarissa lives in is set in a future, sadly, not too many years down the road from us. This world is without plants and bees. This world has massive heat waves where people must barricade themselves inside so as to not roast on the streets like pieces of meat. This world has artificial intelligence. This world is always watching - and they're watching Clarissa and her fellow artists quite closely. But Why?
"Flowers of Darkness" touches on so many events in our current lives and the lives we fear we may find ourselves in in the near future. I felt almost bombarded with issue after issue in our main character's life. And had this book been written by a less experienced author, it would have been too much. However, de Rosnay crafted her story in such a way that it wasn't overwhelming, but instead made you feel compassion and anger and fear and suspicious. It made you FEEL.
I love stories with a Happily Ever After. I'm even okay with a Not-too-Happy After, but all the loose ends are at least tied up. This book? It's ending was...happy? It was...satisfying? Not *all* loose ends were tied up, but they were enough? I think this is why I can't quite let go of the story: I still have questions. (I will say, however, that it isn't like another book I read not too long ago that ended in such a way that I threw it across the room.) And while I do have these questions, I can still walk away knowing Clarissa and her life will continue on in a scary, future world where people are still continuing to love and care about one another.
Solid 4.5 Stars
A Huge THANK YOU to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Clarissa is a writer and a woman scorned. Luckily, she is given the opportunity to leave her cheating husband and live in an artists' residence for cheap rent, great views of Paris, and nothing to do but work on her new endeavor: a book written in English & French simultaneously, as Clarissa herself thinks & speaks in both of these languages fluently and fluidly.
However, there seems to be an unspoken catch. Isn't there always a catch when something seems too good?
The world Clarissa lives in is set in a future, sadly, not too many years down the road from us. This world is without plants and bees. This world has massive heat waves where people must barricade themselves inside so as to not roast on the streets like pieces of meat. This world has artificial intelligence. This world is always watching - and they're watching Clarissa and her fellow artists quite closely. But Why?
"Flowers of Darkness" touches on so many events in our current lives and the lives we fear we may find ourselves in in the near future. I felt almost bombarded with issue after issue in our main character's life. And had this book been written by a less experienced author, it would have been too much. However, de Rosnay crafted her story in such a way that it wasn't overwhelming, but instead made you feel compassion and anger and fear and suspicious. It made you FEEL.
I love stories with a Happily Ever After. I'm even okay with a Not-too-Happy After, but all the loose ends are at least tied up. This book? It's ending was...happy? It was...satisfying? Not *all* loose ends were tied up, but they were enough? I think this is why I can't quite let go of the story: I still have questions. (I will say, however, that it isn't like another book I read not too long ago that ended in such a way that I threw it across the room.) And while I do have these questions, I can still walk away knowing Clarissa and her life will continue on in a scary, future world where people are still continuing to love and care about one another.
Solid 4.5 Stars
A Huge THANK YOU to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this book.
An author who goes by her pseudonym, Clarissa Katsef, has left her husband after a shocking discovery and taken up residence in a newly built, modern apartment building catering specifically to artists. At first, installed on the upper floor with a wonderful view of Paris, Clarissa thrills in her new freedom and independence. But as she slowly comes to terms with how every move of hers is being surveilled by the cameras installed throughout her apartment and how her health is being monitored through daily check-ins and vitamins/supplements administered by the apartment's artificial intelligence system, which she has dubbed Mrs. Dalloway (the residents are allowed to choose their own AI's names), Clarissa finds herself unable to write, unable to sleep, and unable to figure out whom to trust.
As the story develops through the first 70%, it reads almost like a thriller...a literary(ish) novel of suspense, if you will, but whatever. Despite these pulls from the plot about the nefarious nature of the apartment, I never felt fully invested in Flowers of Darkness or Clarissa, namely because I couldn't decide how she was written. And I was very aware the entire time that she was a written character. What de Rosnay falls into is a lot of telling and not enough showing, particularly when she wants to express how Clarissa has come to a decision. These are simply done and relayed to the reader as though it were an item to be ticked off a grocery list. Check. Decision made. Easy peasy.
But alternatively, de Rosnay writes rather beautifully when relating Clarissa's passion around what she writes about and her two subjects on whom she has focused in the past, [a:Virginia Woolf|6765|Virginia Woolf|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1419596619p2/6765.jpg] and [a:Romain Gary|32807|Romain Gary|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1565824824p2/32807.jpg]. In particular, when Clarissa is speaking about the way she relates the houses in which these writers lived and its inhabitants. That is what connected her to writing and inspired her to begin writing in the first place — drawing a connection between houses and the people who occupy them.
Also, Clarissa is a true bilingual — having been raised speaking both French and English. She is experimenting with writing her newest novel in both languages — switching between them as she needs to for the right phrasing and as the mood strikes her. She discovers over some length of the novel, the other inhabitants of the apartment complex are also true bilinguals.
So thinking all this was leading directly into how Clarissa's house theory — this very deep emotional resonance she recognizes in homes — and how the bilingual application of thought could apply to this ultra-modern, never-before-lived-in apartment that was constantly watching her and collecting information on her and her neighbors, I pushed through some of the blander sections. I also pushed past the name of the person who seemed to be heading up the C.A.S.A. residency, Dr. Dewinter.
Now, de Rosnay is very clear on Clarissa's pseudonym and on Clarissa's choice for her apartment's AI, so I never had to really deal with those being obvious. But the text does mention that Clarissa briefly considered naming the AI Mrs. Danvers, which is the name of the obsessive maid in [b:Rebecca|17899948|Rebecca|Daphne du Maurier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386605169l/17899948._SX50_.jpg|46663], but Clarissa deems that to be a less than favorable choice (obviously) and chooses Mrs. Dalloway instead. So why does de Rosnay choose to drop the name Dewinter so heavily with no other acknowledgement at how similar and almost identical that name is to the husband's name in [b:Rebecca|17899948|Rebecca|Daphne du Maurier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386605169l/17899948._SX50_.jpg|46663] — Max de Winter...de Winter? There was never a time when her name wasn't mentioned that I didn't roll my eyes — Dr. Dewinter.
However, once that 70% mark is passed...the novel takes a sharp turn into Absurdville. I have no idea how or why this novel ended the way it did, or included the reveals it did — but it felt so wholly like another book had been pasted to the end that I would've honestly questioned this if the character names hadn't been easy to spot and I had a print copy in hand rather than an electronic one. Not only that, but the build up that the first two-thirds gives amounts to almost nothing. I am so angry at and baffled by this book and its last act. I felt the only interesting and thoughtful parts were completely abandoned and left utterly unresolved.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book, nor the content of my review.
As the story develops through the first 70%, it reads almost like a thriller...a literary(ish) novel of suspense, if you will, but whatever. Despite these pulls from the plot about the nefarious nature of the apartment, I never felt fully invested in Flowers of Darkness or Clarissa, namely because I couldn't decide how she was written. And I was very aware the entire time that she was a written character. What de Rosnay falls into is a lot of telling and not enough showing, particularly when she wants to express how Clarissa has come to a decision. These are simply done and relayed to the reader as though it were an item to be ticked off a grocery list. Check. Decision made. Easy peasy.
But alternatively, de Rosnay writes rather beautifully when relating Clarissa's passion around what she writes about and her two subjects on whom she has focused in the past, [a:Virginia Woolf|6765|Virginia Woolf|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1419596619p2/6765.jpg] and [a:Romain Gary|32807|Romain Gary|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1565824824p2/32807.jpg]. In particular, when Clarissa is speaking about the way she relates the houses in which these writers lived and its inhabitants. That is what connected her to writing and inspired her to begin writing in the first place — drawing a connection between houses and the people who occupy them.
Also, Clarissa is a true bilingual — having been raised speaking both French and English. She is experimenting with writing her newest novel in both languages — switching between them as she needs to for the right phrasing and as the mood strikes her. She discovers over some length of the novel, the other inhabitants of the apartment complex are also true bilinguals.
So thinking all this was leading directly into how Clarissa's house theory — this very deep emotional resonance she recognizes in homes — and how the bilingual application of thought could apply to this ultra-modern, never-before-lived-in apartment that was constantly watching her and collecting information on her and her neighbors, I pushed through some of the blander sections. I also pushed past the name of the person who seemed to be heading up the C.A.S.A. residency, Dr. Dewinter.
Now, de Rosnay is very clear on Clarissa's pseudonym and on Clarissa's choice for her apartment's AI, so I never had to really deal with those being obvious. But the text does mention that Clarissa briefly considered naming the AI Mrs. Danvers, which is the name of the obsessive maid in [b:Rebecca|17899948|Rebecca|Daphne du Maurier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386605169l/17899948._SX50_.jpg|46663], but Clarissa deems that to be a less than favorable choice (obviously) and chooses Mrs. Dalloway instead. So why does de Rosnay choose to drop the name Dewinter so heavily with no other acknowledgement at how similar and almost identical that name is to the husband's name in [b:Rebecca|17899948|Rebecca|Daphne du Maurier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386605169l/17899948._SX50_.jpg|46663] — Max de Winter...de Winter? There was never a time when her name wasn't mentioned that I didn't roll my eyes — Dr. Dewinter.
However, once that 70% mark is passed...the novel takes a sharp turn into Absurdville. I have no idea how or why this novel ended the way it did, or included the reveals it did — but it felt so wholly like another book had been pasted to the end that I would've honestly questioned this if the character names hadn't been easy to spot and I had a print copy in hand rather than an electronic one. Not only that, but the build up that the first two-thirds gives amounts to almost nothing. I am so angry at and baffled by this book and its last act. I felt the only interesting and thoughtful parts were completely abandoned and left utterly unresolved.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book, nor the content of my review.
Recently, I have read several dystopian novels. I adapted to the genre and appreciate that writers wish to warn about future scenarios. Given the frightening succession of events in the United States—our democracy challenged, a pandemic, and extreme division—the value of these stories has been clarified for me.
The setting is Paris in the somewhat distant future. Climate change and terrorist attacks wreaked havoc in Paris. Scientists made gains in Artificial Intelligence (Ai), so the robots demonstrated the sensitivity to predict and describe their owner’s emotions, moods, and desires.The protagonist resisted these changes in favor of her own humanity.
The narrative moved quickly, so I was hooked early on in the book. I love to read about Paris which remains my favorite city.
I did not like the ending given the protagonist's desire to be strong and independent. The relationship between the protagonist and her granddaughter is wonderful. The latter is one plucky teen!
The setting is Paris in the somewhat distant future. Climate change and terrorist attacks wreaked havoc in Paris. Scientists made gains in Artificial Intelligence (Ai), so the robots demonstrated the sensitivity to predict and describe their owner’s emotions, moods, and desires.The protagonist resisted these changes in favor of her own humanity.
The narrative moved quickly, so I was hooked early on in the book. I love to read about Paris which remains my favorite city.
I did not like the ending given the protagonist's desire to be strong and independent. The relationship between the protagonist and her granddaughter is wonderful. The latter is one plucky teen!
I thought I would be put off by the futuristic/sci-fi aspect of this, but the prose was so beautiful it didn’t affect me at all. I simply adored every word of this book.