Reviews with content warning for Incest - Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights

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Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

4 reviews

applesaucecreachur's review

adventurous reflective medium-paced

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

2.5

Was this book good? Not really, no. Did I enjoy it? What the heck, yes.
This was my formal introduction to Salman Rushdie and his distinctive writing style. I found it both refreshing and aggravating. As a lover of generous space between periods, I appreciated how a single one of Rushdie's sentences could go on for paragraphs. This ambitious bending of rules was less endearing when it became rambling sheets of purple prose told from vacillating perspectives. These perspectives belonged to flat characters who made for decent but tooth-grittingly unlikeable plot devices. Impressively, the female characters took this a step further by serving as over-sexualized witnesses to the chaotic clash between the jinni and human worlds. Particularly the three female love interests, Dunia

/the Lightning Princess/Aasmaan Peri/Skyfairy

, Ella Manezes, and Alexandra Bliss Fariña/The Lady Philosopher (when a title unnecessarily includes the holder's gender, you can bet it was given by a man), were all significantly younger than their male lovers. And what's more, their author chose to highlight this. The male characters were flat, but the female characters were flatter... while still managing to have curves, of course.
Oh but characters and self-importance aside, Rushdie has a beautiful lilt to his prose and some of his philosophical musings landed with me (bits about time, about loving, about the nature of being human and of being, the like). I hope whoever finds this copy in a Little Free Library will both critique and enjoy their time in its pages.

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jarnbooks's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I started out really enjoying this book. It was really slow and took its time introducing characters. But that’s the entire book. It’s really slow. It’s not until ~70% through the book when the plot actually happens. There’s hints of it earlier but those are around a paragraph and then never mentioned again. And even the supposed climax of the book was disappointing. It seemed like the author forgot that the book needed a story and haphazardly put one together right before the deadline.

Some characters are great but some characters make the book drag on forever. The main antagonist is confusing and it’s hard to keep track of the djinn characters. Their names are interchangeable to me and I wish the book did a better job at establishing them.

I really enjoyed the first half, despite nothing happening plot wise. But I can only read about the characters daily lives for so long. It was a weird read and I don’t think I’ll be reading it again. It only has 2 stars because I really enjoyed that first half.

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an_mao's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.5

It's a great book and it is a challenging book to read (for me). However, I love how detail the author is in describing each of the character, despite the fact that, I did pondered whether it was necessary to be that detailed in which it turned out to be de rigueur.

Lovely - Billie Eilish, Khalid
Telepatia x Streets - Kali Uchis & Doja Cat

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cyan_altaria's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

While I did enjoy the book, it's not the greatest, and I don't think I'll ever re-read it. There is a fair bit of lore-dumping, and while I found the lore interesting enough to keep reading, I'm not surprised if it bored other people. I also liked the complex, atmosphere sentences, but they can be a bit hard to read. Most of the book is very slow, and then the last fourth just comes out of nowhere. I would have liked if

there was more build up to each of the dark jinni's deaths. They felt glossed over because they all happened so quickly and without much detail.

The two philosopher's seem to disappear from the book without much warring, which is kind of jarring.

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