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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
Meh, not for me. It's new Ali Smith - flowery, ornte, middlebrow stuff. I am at a loss to identify with the sense of place thing - having *lived* right on that stretch of the river she supposedly describes.
Dark, haunting and unsettling. I loved the change in narrative and how the different timelines merged together.
I enjoyed the language, the writing is at times lyrical and beautiful.
The book blurb sets you up for a far different story.
None of the characters were well formed or likable and as such, I didn't care for any of them. Many parts of the book were distributing and unsettling. The timeline shifts quickly and constantly. All of these things combined made the book mostly unlikeable.
The book blurb sets you up for a far different story.
None of the characters were well formed or likable and as such, I didn't care for any of them. Many parts of the book were distributing and unsettling. The timeline shifts quickly and constantly. All of these things combined made the book mostly unlikeable.
Beautiful, clever and disturbing! I love the way Daisy Johnson writes, so evocative and innovative. I really felt and understood the characters and her descriptions of place transports me right there, but I also found the sense of foreboding and confusion unsettling, I just wanted to figure it all out and work out the timelines and what happened to the characters - which is a sign of a good narrative I guess!
dark
mysterious
This is a re-telling of the Oedipus myth but gender-switched. It is written in an interesting way with 3 different timelines happening at once. Some reviewers said they found it difficult to follow, but actually it was quite easy, given that the chapter titles always followed which character/timeline was about to be written about. In this version the mother and father of Oedipus live on houseboats and it seems the mother is a character who finds it difficult to love, she abandons two children, one of which ends up being Oedipus. You don't need to be familiar with the myth, and I'm sure there was probably lots that I was missing, never having studied it, but it was an interesting book even so.
Greta, who writes dictionary entries for a living, searches for her mother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and recollects her childhood along the Isis river.
Dark, mysterious and twisting. Complex and flawed characters whose interconnecting lives are slowly revealed through the mysterious Bonak, the beast who lives on the river. Thoroughly enjoyed this book set largely near Oxfordshire and the Isis, and it is totally deserving of all the accolades it is receiving.
Very dark and unsettling!
(Also, an extremely beautiful book cover!)
(Also, an extremely beautiful book cover!)
I thought the book might be about those “places we are born”, and yet throughout I felt place was desperately lacking. I was unable to build any pictures in my head of anything - place or characters. Without which there’s hardly enough to sustain a story. And what was the story exactly? Drowned in contrived language. A secret language? Hardly. I think you need more than a couple of odd words to create a new language. I wish there wasn’t so much hype surrounding books nowadays. Once again I feel as if I’ve been bamboozled into buying this book. Lied to and conned.