Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - Lolita

It's quite disturbing reading something this beautifully written about something so truly disgusting, disturbing and abusive.

Over the years I've heard that this is a love story. It is not (!). This is a story about repeatedly abuse. It tells the story of a young girl who has her childhood brutally taken away from her by a middle aged man, told from his perspective.

HH is not a reliabl narrator, and we can't trust him to tell us the truth. He tries to hide Dolly's fear from us,and he doesn't even use her real name. He calls her Lolita.

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doxcy's review against another edition

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challenging funny tense 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

3.75

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m4rtt4's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

no book has ever made me want to throw up this much

BUT

I can't say that the book was bad. The writing was repulsive yet undeniably compelling, it made me want to bleach my eyes AND hopelessly keep reading as if I could save the little girl by turning pages. I wanted to know, I needed to know — yet still, I now wish I knew nothing at all.

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_jasper_394's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-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? Yes

2.0

I think if you are going to read this book you must be aware that there are certain things described so lyrically so you start picturing the scene then you remember the narrator is speaking about a child and a pang of disgust hits you and you want to violently hit your head against a wall. But if you're okay with that then it's a pretty easy book to get into classics if that's what you're looking for (which is why I read it). Overall, I personally didn't like it but I think that's more of a me issue as I didn't do enough research into its contents before reading.

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lguzzie's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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? Yes

3.75

“I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither - I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.”

An amalgam of the utterly depraved and the poetically beautiful. Nabakov's prose is nothing short of stunning, sometimes distracting the reader from the disgusting content and even moving them to briefly sympathize with HH. I will say, the French was very annoying, Nabakov acknowledges this, but I am not smart enough to understand the purpose aside from showing HH is an obnoxious intellectual. I get it.

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ishelenthal's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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blues241's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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