adventurous challenging funny medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Started this book before l saw the movie and finished after. Rare time when both complimented each other. Very unique storytelling.
challenging funny tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
anouckm's profile picture

anouckm's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 37%

God I don’t care, the jokes… 
lighthearted slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

As with a lot of stories focusing on drugs and crime, It is such a struggle to find something captivating about both the Voice, as well as the unfolding story. Fundamentally, I just do not care, nor do I personally know about (so could liken or empathize) with characters who are on drugs—and on top of that, I wasn’t even alive during the 60s, so this glittering nostalgia nugget and its subsequent snuffing out as the time period progresses, just does nothing for me. It reminds me a lot of watching Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. This preoccupation with how a medium Was and what it means to the writer should be something easily accessed, but instead feels inane to me, simply because none of it makes any sense and there’s no context, nor does the authors of this kind of content ever try to provide anything. The weird sub-genre of post 60s era of love, to me, requires an in-road I just do not have.

Beyond this, though, while it does feel a lot more accessible than I expected my first Pynchon to be, I had high expectations insofar as the intelligence and post modern elements it might have. I didn’t find the elements presents, again, very engaging, either. Much like Savage Detectives, I’m a little baffled as to how lauded this is. The characters don’t feel, or speak, or really negotiate the world naturally. Maybe it’s supposed to be comedic, and was also lost on me, as most comedic elements are. 

But, overall, I suspect it’s just a lack of good onboarding. People complain about this in cyberpunk, which for me has been the smoothest sub genre compatibility in all of lit, for me. This is, I guess, the opposite of that. I think I get what it’s doing, I just didn’t care about it, though I did struggle through to finish it. Even with the, again, hyper sexualization akin to Savage Detectives, that felt like nothing more than window dressing playing for a completely different brain/person than me. 

very confusing book, but i like mystery/crime stuff, so that kept me kind of interested. i don’t know if pynchon writes so confusingly that it’s impossible to keep track of all the names and places and events or that he just writes in a way that kind of bores me and makes me not read everything thoroughly. anyway, i couldn’t really tell you what happened in every chapter and what exactly was going on in this case and who all the characters were, but it was okay enough i guess? obviously better than bleeding edge, because i didn’t drop out of the course while reading this book!
adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I don't know exactly what it's about,but it surely is a great read.
funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No