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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
I am honestly not sure what I just read, but it was magical and weird and silly and serious.
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
I need to find the magic and the realism in magic realism. It was a tough read!
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The writing was really convoluted and I struggled to find any meaning or connection with it.
1 star. Couldn’t bear to finish, even worse than Fray (the book club people will understand). Bad writing, bad editing, bad everything. Obviously don’t recommend.
For about half the novel, I kept asking myself why I was reading it - the characters and plot were mildly interesting, the writing was smooth and frictionless, but nothing compelled me to keep going. I'm glad I did though - eventually I began to feel some forward momentum towards a climax of sorts, and the characters began to feel like old friends. Oyeyemi's novels generally haven't suited my reading tastes, but I'm going to try some again - maybe this novel has broadened my taste a bit.
I love this sentence - such a great observation on family communication, especially these days!
I love this sentence - such a great observation on family communication, especially these days!
She's been the parental authority in his life for decades, and he's learned that contradicting her sets up the first link in a chain of counter-contradictions that drags you to the underworld.
3.8 Stars
" Time would tell itself to you, bringing with it a whole host of physical memoranda, the flaring and dwindling of this orb and that. Time would crowd in close that you didn’t feel it passing."
There are some books that leave you with answers, some books that leave you with questions, and some books that leave you a little confused. Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi is one of those books that leave you with all three, yet still satisfied by the story all the same.
This book is a wild train ride with no real sense of space, time, or destination. For most of the book I felt disoriented, unsure where I was and where I was going, but yet I felt enthralled by the mystery and more importantly I kept turning the page.
The story begins with us boarding a former tea smuggling train called the Lucky day with couple Otto and Xavier who are going on their non-honeymoon honeymoon, the trip was a gift from Xavier’s wealthy aunt. As they board the train with their mongoose, Arpad Montague they have no idea where they’re going and they hope to get a glimpse of the mysterious train owner Ava Kapoor, who lives on the train. The train itself is bizarre with a bunch of different compartments and themed rooms that the couple set out to discover.
Unknown to them they set out on a journey they could have never imagined. And we soon learn that there are forces that have brought them to be on this particular train at this particular time, and as the story unfolds there are tons of coincidences and backstories that come into play.
I didn’t expect to like this story, at 30 pages in I almost gave up on it because I just didn’t understand what was happening and the ridiculousness of the characters and their weird backstories. I couldn’t quite grasp it, then I did something I rarely do, I just kept reading and dropped my expectations and just enjoyed the story.
There’s a lovely part of the story where Oyeyemi talks about the types of observers at marionette shows and that part truly stuck with me. She says that some people will simply watch the show and enjoy it while others will watch the details such as the strings and be distracted from the story. When I became the first type of observer that’s when the story truly came to life for me.
What I loved most about this book were the writing and the storytelling. Oyeyemi’s writing is lush, provocative, and beautiful, as she tells the story in a way that it feels as though you’re at a party with an old friend as he tells you all about his unbelievable life. I do wish I could have got to know the characters a little more, I feel as though there was a disconnection because I didn’t really know their goals as characters.
This journey was definitely one worth taking. See Full review at thisblackgirlreads.ca
Thanks to Penguin Random House Canada for providing me a copy for my honest review.
" Time would tell itself to you, bringing with it a whole host of physical memoranda, the flaring and dwindling of this orb and that. Time would crowd in close that you didn’t feel it passing."
There are some books that leave you with answers, some books that leave you with questions, and some books that leave you a little confused. Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi is one of those books that leave you with all three, yet still satisfied by the story all the same.
This book is a wild train ride with no real sense of space, time, or destination. For most of the book I felt disoriented, unsure where I was and where I was going, but yet I felt enthralled by the mystery and more importantly I kept turning the page.
The story begins with us boarding a former tea smuggling train called the Lucky day with couple Otto and Xavier who are going on their non-honeymoon honeymoon, the trip was a gift from Xavier’s wealthy aunt. As they board the train with their mongoose, Arpad Montague they have no idea where they’re going and they hope to get a glimpse of the mysterious train owner Ava Kapoor, who lives on the train. The train itself is bizarre with a bunch of different compartments and themed rooms that the couple set out to discover.
Unknown to them they set out on a journey they could have never imagined. And we soon learn that there are forces that have brought them to be on this particular train at this particular time, and as the story unfolds there are tons of coincidences and backstories that come into play.
I didn’t expect to like this story, at 30 pages in I almost gave up on it because I just didn’t understand what was happening and the ridiculousness of the characters and their weird backstories. I couldn’t quite grasp it, then I did something I rarely do, I just kept reading and dropped my expectations and just enjoyed the story.
There’s a lovely part of the story where Oyeyemi talks about the types of observers at marionette shows and that part truly stuck with me. She says that some people will simply watch the show and enjoy it while others will watch the details such as the strings and be distracted from the story. When I became the first type of observer that’s when the story truly came to life for me.
What I loved most about this book were the writing and the storytelling. Oyeyemi’s writing is lush, provocative, and beautiful, as she tells the story in a way that it feels as though you’re at a party with an old friend as he tells you all about his unbelievable life. I do wish I could have got to know the characters a little more, I feel as though there was a disconnection because I didn’t really know their goals as characters.
This journey was definitely one worth taking. See Full review at thisblackgirlreads.ca
Thanks to Penguin Random House Canada for providing me a copy for my honest review.
I USE STORYGRAPH LIKE A READING JOURNAL SO THIS REVIEW MAY HAVE SPOILERS OR BE VERY UNPOLISHED. Read at your own risk ✨
It’s like Alice in Wonderland, but on a train
Gay Alice in wonderland, it’s like Frederick backman’s writing, hopeful, but zingier, weirder. It’s kind of my writing goals in terms of having a weird concept, but a style that makes the reader take it seriously like having a hypnotist on a haunted train sounds very madcap, but she writes it very literary.
I felt like the ending was unsatisfying though. I usually do like books that have an ambiguous ending that leave you with a sense of clarity about what the characters will do after this scene. But I feel like this one was too unclear. I feel like we understand what the characters do after fully but we don’t understand what actually happened, which is frustrating and makes the whole mystery aspect of the book where I felt like we were being fed clues in order to be able to figure it out feel pointless/a waste of time/even mean or insulting to give us so many clues and make us feel like this is something we can solve and then having it be unclear in the end. Like if you wanted to do that, that’s fine but then don’t give us all these files to read as though we can piece it together ourselves? I feel like the reader's expectations that were fed to us where that we were being given a mystery when in the end everything is just a metaphor?? Idk.
I think if I could decide how I felt about this book, I may have given it a different rating. I felt consistently like I was just about to hear the "big reveal", but it just never came. Maybe I'm not smart enough to get what this book was trying to tell me.
So weird. Took me a bit to get into it, but stays true to Oyeyemi’s style. Her books always feel like riding into the uncanny valley for me. Just real enough to be unsettling.