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takeoutbox's review against another edition
3.0
*3.5 stars*
"Beauty Plus Pity" is quiet in tone but deep in emotion. There's no formulated plot to this story, just snippets of the events Malcolm goes through as people come in and out of his life. The story is divided into two parts: beauty and pity. Personally, I found the first part to be more "pitiful," where all corners of Malcolm's life come crashing down on him (his dad has died, fiancee has left him, meets the half-sister he's never known about). In the second part of the book, it appears he seems to have found beauty in certain things (even though some aspects continued being crappy).
My only problem with the book is the ending. It's quite hard to describe it without spoiling it, but I felt like the ending is forced upon the story just to add a shock value (which it did). Perhaps if I dig a little deeper, I might find something more meaningful, but for now, it has left me thinking "so what?"
"Beauty Plus Pity" is quiet in tone but deep in emotion. There's no formulated plot to this story, just snippets of the events Malcolm goes through as people come in and out of his life. The story is divided into two parts: beauty and pity. Personally, I found the first part to be more "pitiful," where all corners of Malcolm's life come crashing down on him (his dad has died, fiancee has left him, meets the half-sister he's never known about). In the second part of the book, it appears he seems to have found beauty in certain things (even though some aspects continued being crappy).
My only problem with the book is the ending. It's quite hard to describe it without spoiling it, but I felt like the ending is forced upon the story just to add a shock value (which it did). Perhaps if I dig a little deeper, I might find something more meaningful, but for now, it has left me thinking "so what?"
scrutiny's review against another edition
2.0
I so desperately wanted to enjoy this book when I first picked it up, but unfortunately it never really got to the point where I settled into really enjoying it. This book feels like one of those cases where the vague blurb holds more potential than the actual book itself. It had some redeeming points though - for example, it was really nice to read about a masculine, normal Chinese male character as protagonist. It is also nice that Malcolm was discovering more about his relationships with the women in his life. I guess I just didn't feel like the character went through much of a change at all, and reading the book felt a bit monotone. The ending is really choppy; it skips back and forth between times and characters near the very end, right after the major incident happens to the half-sister Hadley. It just got confusing, and it seemed to drag out the ending unnecessarily after that. There are a heck of a lot of curveballs in the plot that spring out of no-where and are so uncannily connected or so out there that it only comes across as contrived, such as the character of Seamus who is a con man who messes up two people's marriages; Malcolm himself and his agent Vanessa. It just seems too contrived to be possible. The sudden death of Hadley in a freak accident and Malcolm's unknown son Felix, both suddenly revealed near the end, are what tipped me over to the point of barely liking the book. My rating does speak for itself... it was okay, and nothing more (sadly).
chantale's review against another edition
3.0
Malcolm's character is developed in detail. I wish Hadley could have been more fleshed out, however I think it was representative of the fact that Malcolm as the narrator does not understand his sister. Malcolm's approach to his early relationships, and his honesty with himself about his ulterior motives in them can be quite humourous. The ending was a bit shocking.
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