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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
Fairly weird, convoluted, confusing and ultimately compelling.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I started reading this as upset of the Storygraph onboarding challenge under the "out of my comfort zone" prompt and it sure was. Also I need to double check content warnings before reading a book, as much as I like not knowing what I'm getting in to.
This book was hard to read and a bit of a slog to get through. I did actually even get the audiobook and listened to some of it that way which helped me get into it more as I could hear more of the cadence in the writing. The writing is a lot of long sentences or paragraphs that feel like they go on forever but it's all meant to really evoke the feelings and thoughts of the characters.
I will say I hate the lack of quotation marks and found it very difficult to pick up when dialogue started and ended and who was saying what at times.
However I also got to a point and went "oh no this book is gonna hit something emotional for me". Then a later point where I realised I should have checked the content warnings, because surprise incest. And then the last 2 pages had me sobbing.
I do recommend giving this a try but definitely check content warnings. It is weird, and slow.
This book was hard to read and a bit of a slog to get through. I did actually even get the audiobook and listened to some of it that way which helped me get into it more as I could hear more of the cadence in the writing. The writing is a lot of long sentences or paragraphs that feel like they go on forever but it's all meant to really evoke the feelings and thoughts of the characters.
I will say I hate the lack of quotation marks and found it very difficult to pick up when dialogue started and ended and who was saying what at times.
However I also got to a point and went "oh no this book is gonna hit something emotional for me". Then a later point where I realised I should have checked the content warnings, because surprise incest. And then the last 2 pages had me sobbing.
I do recommend giving this a try but definitely check content warnings. It is weird, and slow.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Incest, Mental illness, Suicide, Dementia, Death of parent
Moderate: Deadnaming, Grief, Abandonment, Alcohol
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Everything Under by Daisy Johnson
Remix of the classic Oedipal myth? I found it an alienating, abstruse and far too tiring to become absorbed in the story. Far to often I scratched my head wondering "Which character is this now? What timeline is this happening again?" only to sigh and keep going because the whole thing is too dreary and confusing to worry too much about it.
For mine, the mix of bleak social realism with neo-classical retelling of a Greek myth just didn't work. The shifting timeline, fragmented storyline and preposterous plotline was more tiresome than energizing. There is a cold and 'deliberate' artifice that never gave me a sense that the author has just relaxed into the story. What we're left with is a self-conscious and turgid mess.
⭐ 1/2
Remix of the classic Oedipal myth? I found it an alienating, abstruse and far too tiring to become absorbed in the story. Far to often I scratched my head wondering "Which character is this now? What timeline is this happening again?" only to sigh and keep going because the whole thing is too dreary and confusing to worry too much about it.
For mine, the mix of bleak social realism with neo-classical retelling of a Greek myth just didn't work. The shifting timeline, fragmented storyline and preposterous plotline was more tiresome than energizing. There is a cold and 'deliberate' artifice that never gave me a sense that the author has just relaxed into the story. What we're left with is a self-conscious and turgid mess.
⭐ 1/2
This is a very compelling novel. It has an ancient, spiraling shape, with chapters alternatively titled “The Cottage”, “The River” and “The Hunt”. It tells an old, archetypal story, but with great intimacy and immediacy.
The main narrator is Gretel, a woman who was raised on a boat with her strange, feral mother, Sarah. Gretel has been looking for her mother for decades, ever since she was abandoned as a teenager. The story fills in gradually, moving back and forth between Gretel’s childhood, her hunt for Sarah, and their current, careful interactions, as they live together in a cottage.
The second narrator is Marcus, linked mysteriously but inexorably to Gretel and her mother. As Gretel searches for her mother, she also tries to find Marcus. She locates his family, who have been mourning him and searching for him since he ran away – although they knew him as a girl, Margot. She finds the transsexual soothsayer, Fiona, and woos her until she tells the truth about what she saw in Margot’s future. And intermittently with the search for Marcus, we also hear Marcus’ story.
The scenes on the river, when Gretel is a child, are particularly haunting. Sarah, Gretel and Marcus have their own language, shared by no one else, strange and beautiful. And they have their own monster, the Borak, who terrorizes them from under the water’s surface. As frightening as the river can be, none of the three can escape it.
The main narrator is Gretel, a woman who was raised on a boat with her strange, feral mother, Sarah. Gretel has been looking for her mother for decades, ever since she was abandoned as a teenager. The story fills in gradually, moving back and forth between Gretel’s childhood, her hunt for Sarah, and their current, careful interactions, as they live together in a cottage.
The second narrator is Marcus, linked mysteriously but inexorably to Gretel and her mother. As Gretel searches for her mother, she also tries to find Marcus. She locates his family, who have been mourning him and searching for him since he ran away – although they knew him as a girl, Margot. She finds the transsexual soothsayer, Fiona, and woos her until she tells the truth about what she saw in Margot’s future. And intermittently with the search for Marcus, we also hear Marcus’ story.
The scenes on the river, when Gretel is a child, are particularly haunting. Sarah, Gretel and Marcus have their own language, shared by no one else, strange and beautiful. And they have their own monster, the Borak, who terrorizes them from under the water’s surface. As frightening as the river can be, none of the three can escape it.
A book group read. I think we all had mixed feelings about it, loving the nature writing (Reservoir 13 and Waterland were both mentioned for comparisons) but underwhelmed by the structure and confused or annoyed by some plot elements. One person commented that one way of making characters more interesting is to give them quirks -- most of the characters here are downright bonkers!
Once I remembered she'd started out with the Oedipus myth (it is not a straight retelling though), I figured out the relationships before the big reveal. It doesn't do to take this book too literally, it has strong mythological and supernatural elements ... nevertheless we all agreed it was highly implausible that someone with no education other than a single encyclopaedia would walk into a job as a lexicographer in Oxford, however interested in words she was, and keep it despite disappearing for weeks on end. It was a rather laboured device to emphasise Gretel's love of words. I found the present-day parts narrated by Gretel the weakest part of the book. Still, no denying she's an interesting writer!
Once I remembered she'd started out with the Oedipus myth (it is not a straight retelling though), I figured out the relationships before the big reveal. It doesn't do to take this book too literally, it has strong mythological and supernatural elements ... nevertheless we all agreed it was highly implausible that someone with no education other than a single encyclopaedia would walk into a job as a lexicographer in Oxford, however interested in words she was, and keep it despite disappearing for weeks on end. It was a rather laboured device to emphasise Gretel's love of words. I found the present-day parts narrated by Gretel the weakest part of the book. Still, no denying she's an interesting writer!
I found it very confusing and the sketchily written characters were difficult to muster sympathy for. In fact, I disliked most of them.
Daisy Johnson's "Everything Under," a retelling of Oedipus set in modern-day England, is by turns beautiful and deeply weird. The details unfold out of chronological order as the cast of characters escapes to (and from) the river. Much of the story is written in the second person. Some sections feature an invented language known only to a character named Gretel and her mother, who abandoned her when she was 16. I first heard about the novel when it was named to the Man Booker Prize longlist. It was an interesting read, but ultimately pretty difficult to get into.