Reviews

I’m gonna disappoint several friends with this one, but this thing admittedly underwhelmed me.

Part One: I really enjoyed this beginning part. Heavy 5-star potential, and the schizophrenic narration enhanced the experience. Some things were a little hard to follow, but it came back around on itself in ways I thought was cool. Chapter 2, I should note was very good, but unfortunately also where the book peaked.

Part Two: The first few chapters are good, similar to Part One, but overall, the plot gets really convoluted and unclear and the schizophrenic narration gets even more schizophrenic and makes that convoluted shit feel even more confusing. This was only 100 pages of the book, but I was hate reading it by the end of Part Two because everything was just *TOO* unclear.

Part Three: Brought things mostly back together. Mostly. Some sections of this are comparable to Part One, but there was a lot of bloat in things happening that just did not matter - maybe thematically, but not in any way that I grasped on this first read (like seriously, why tf do I care about these damn women betting away everything they own - including the clothes on their backs - to Ines? Like...why was this 100 pages of the book? I can see the board game itself being symbolism, but it wasn't enough to drag me away from boredom). Also, there were actually a couple chapters here that cleared up most of my problems with Part Two, but that doesn’t retroactively change the fact that I hated most of Part Two while I was reading it, unfortunately.

In regards to the gross/disturbing stuff: SEVERELY overhyped, guys. I was led to believe I’d be gagging and wanting to vomit at various sections of this…the beginning of Chapter 8 was about as bad as it got, all the other gross stuff didn’t get any real reactions from me at all, major or no - they just weren’t that graphic. I was expecting a hell of a lot worse than anything that ever happens here (besides the beginning of Chapter 8, that shit WAS weird, but not vomiting levels of weird).

There was plenty of cool stuff here, and lots of potential, but beyond Part One, it just didn’t do a whole lot for me. And the end was just so underwhelming and disappointing compared (again) to what I had been led to expect. Also some cool symbolism (alongside a cool 2-3 pages of really anxious reading), but not much more to note on that front.

So, sure, maybe my expectations led me to be disappointed, but I blame that on the people nagging me (lmao, sorry) to read this every day for a couple months. It’s not even that I had high expectations either per se, it was that my expectations were focused in all the wrong places because of where the hype was at, so what I got ended up being, strangely, a very different experience, and that colored the experience a bit more than maybe I wish it did.

I’d still say it’s worth most people reading as long as they’re in the mood for something very unique, with a narration style unlike any other (and I guess as long as they have a strong stomach, cuz maybe others are more sensitive to the gross shit than I ended up being lmao).

It was mostly enjoyable, and definitely required a bit of brainpower, unlike most of my typical reads, so that was fun I guess, but I was left wanting so much more, while also wishing the book were 75-100 pages shorter.