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leggierigia20's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
- Shortlisted for the Booker International 2024
“What if one half of a pair of twins no longer wants to live? What if the other can’t live without them?”
Told in brief, precise vignettes, the unnamed narrator recounts her relationship with her twin brother and how it shifted over time.
What if one half of a pair of twins no longer wants to live? What if the other can’t live without them? This quote is what lies at the heart of Jente Posthuma’s heartbreakingly simple What I’d Rather Not Think About. The narrator is a twin whose brother has recently taken his own life. She looks back on their childhood, and tells of their adult lives: how her brother tried to find happiness, but lost himself in various men and the Bhagwan movement, though never completely. This is the story of a depressive brother, and the twin sister he leaves behind in the wake of his suicide, from the perspective of this twin sister who loves and resents her twin, and above all, missed him terribly.
This is a deeply moving exploration of grief, wryly funny, and heartbreakingly sad. I read it all in a just a couple hours because I was just so engrossed in the way it accurately captured dark humour through its understated tone. It’s above every other average mourning novel in its utter rawness and authenticity. The strength here is in Posthuma’s minimalist prose— razor sharp and perfect in the most nonchalant ways, and it’s this prose that brings such a grim subject some light. It’s impossible to name everything that is beautiful about this novel.
It’s the simplicity of this that makes it so melancholic, and so immersive that I got fully lost and completely forgot I was reading it.
There are no easy answers, maybe no answers at all, to suicide. But the way Posthuma uses vignettes to capture pieces of the narrator’s memories of her brother are just that: not an answer but a mosaic of a recollection, piecing together the seemingly insignificant days we spend with our loved ones, until we realize that are all we have when they leave.
What if one half of a pair of twins no longer wants to live? What if the other can’t live without them? This quote is what lies at the heart of Jente Posthuma’s heartbreakingly simple What I’d Rather Not Think About. The narrator is a twin whose brother has recently taken his own life. She looks back on their childhood, and tells of their adult lives: how her brother tried to find happiness, but lost himself in various men and the Bhagwan movement, though never completely. This is the story of a depressive brother, and the twin sister he leaves behind in the wake of his suicide, from the perspective of this twin sister who loves and resents her twin, and above all, missed him terribly.
This is a deeply moving exploration of grief, wryly funny, and heartbreakingly sad. I read it all in a just a couple hours because I was just so engrossed in the way it accurately captured dark humour through its understated tone. It’s above every other average mourning novel in its utter rawness and authenticity. The strength here is in Posthuma’s minimalist prose— razor sharp and perfect in the most nonchalant ways, and it’s this prose that brings such a grim subject some light. It’s impossible to name everything that is beautiful about this novel.
It’s the simplicity of this that makes it so melancholic, and so immersive that I got fully lost and completely forgot I was reading it.
There are no easy answers, maybe no answers at all, to suicide. But the way Posthuma uses vignettes to capture pieces of the narrator’s memories of her brother are just that: not an answer but a mosaic of a recollection, piecing together the seemingly insignificant days we spend with our loved ones, until we realize that are all we have when they leave.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Mental illness
Depictions of suicidal ideation; main character struggles with depression and the plot is revolved around his suicide.lgiery's review
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
I wouldn't say that I enjoyed this book, but I did find it introspective and tremendously insightful. It's about memory, life, death, grief, and survival.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Abandonment
my_a's review
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Not what I was expecting- in form or focus. The vignette style was unique and I really enjoyed it, short and sharp, this kept my focus and gave the story a more fluid and emerging narrative.
I feel like the focus of the book is slightly mis-sold by the blurb and quotes etc. It's less about the sister coping post-loss, most of the book is about their lives growing up, then his final few months and only the final section of the book is the years after.
But still, I enjoyed it. The prose was direct but precise and layered in places. The final sentences got me.
I feel like the focus of the book is slightly mis-sold by the blurb and quotes etc. It's less about the sister coping post-loss, most of the book is about their lives growing up, then his final few months and only the final section of the book is the years after.
But still, I enjoyed it. The prose was direct but precise and layered in places. The final sentences got me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Death, Suicide attempt, Grief, and Suicide
Moderate: Sexual assault
read_with_bi's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Suicide
sinneblommen's review
emotional
reflective
sad
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
4.0
A novel about grief, loss, and love, told through a series of vignettes by a woman who has lost her twin brother to suicide. However, it is about more than his death, it is about how being a sibling (and especially a twin) affects your outlook on the world. How you spend a childhood with someone else, orbiting each other, pulling at each other, and growing around each other.
It reminded me of my own relationship with my brother, being so similar, yet so incredibly different. Although we never were as co-dependent as the main characters are in this, I really want to give him a hug.
It reminded me of my own relationship with my brother, being so similar, yet so incredibly different. Although we never were as co-dependent as the main characters are in this, I really want to give him a hug.
My brother had gone and with him, all of my past. I came from nothing and was going nowhere.
The writing is incredibly direct, honest, without frills, which works well with the vignette style of telling the story. You skip around a lot, but you always knows what’s going on. Plus it really showcases how grief changes over the course of the mourning process. You remember things, you lose touch with your feelings, you want to know everything, you hold on too tight, and eventually, you let things go.
Considering it is a book about suicide, there are definitely some dark moments, although none of them are graphic or obscene. There are vignettes about bullying, sexual assault, depression, loss of a sibling, and suicide.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Bullying, Mental illness, Sexual assault, and Suicide
ameliasbooks's review against another edition
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
As much as I was interested in the story and in the special connection of twins, even more with regard to be losing someone to death, I struggled to connect with this story, it always kept me somehow at a distance. I don't think the writing in vignettes was the reason for that, I've read other books in that style, which I loved.
Also coincidentally I had just read In Defence of the Act by Effie Black, before this book came in from the library and in comparison that book impressed me a lot more with its writing about suicide.
The characters are also not that well developed, they are lacking some depth.
And throwing in Mengele and the concentration camps for no obvious reasons, felt not only unnecessary to me, but made me feeling a bit uncomfortable.
Also coincidentally I had just read In Defence of the Act by Effie Black, before this book came in from the library and in comparison that book impressed me a lot more with its writing about suicide.
The characters are also not that well developed, they are lacking some depth.
And throwing in Mengele and the concentration camps for no obvious reasons, felt not only unnecessary to me, but made me feeling a bit uncomfortable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
serendipitysbooks's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Book number three from the International Booker longlist was a series of short non-chronological vignettes in which the unnamed narrator explored her relationship with her twin brother as well as her feelings of loss and of guilt following his suicide. Were there signs she missed? Could she have stopped him? How can she carry on without him? There were also tangents on the Twin Towers and Josef Mengele, plus a focus on sweaters which the narrator collects and sells. For me the vignette style and the lack of names meant I didn’t develop a connection with the characters, nor feel the empathy with them that I should have. Possibly the intent was to leave space for the reader to imagine themselves in similar situation to those explored, to make it general rather than specific. And of course it’s also the way a brain can work when processing grief, quickly shifting from one thing to another, unable to settle. The fact that this was my third book involving suicide in fairly quick succession may have affected my experience with it. Although I didn’t love it I did appreciate it for its unflinching depiction of depression, suicide and the way it impacts those left behind.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
readwithchar's review
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Grief, and Genocide
lady_bountiful's review
challenging
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief, Abandonment, Bullying, Death, Dysphoria, Suicide, Mental illness, and Toxic relationship
nini23's review against another edition
2.75
I don't think it's necessary to include the WTC Twin Towers or the Mengele experiments in the narrative. Let's do away with the 'suffering hierarchy.'
Translated from Dutch (original title Waar ik liever niet aan denk) by Sarah Timmer Harvey.
Translated from Dutch (original title Waar ik liever niet aan denk) by Sarah Timmer Harvey.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders and Bullying