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A review by 7xiij
The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.25
the story was not good enough to make it worth spending the book with the absolutely insufferable, self-righteous, obsessively woke (please note that i am not just using the word "woke" as an insult, the main character herself unironically uses it both to describe herself and at one point, in an argument with her best friend over whether BF's fiance is in fact woke enough) and incredibly whiny narrator.
there is nothing "darkly comic" about this book; the main character is devoid of humor, miserable and immiserating, devoted to complaining and nitpicking. there is also no real horror in the story, mainly due to the MC's indifference to what is horrific in it. despite her growing awareness that she is being drawn into something very disturbing at The Centre, she spends far more mental energy subjecting everyone and everything around her to "critical theory", policing her friends for wrongspeak and wrongthink, searching for microaggressions, and rambling about feminism than she does trying to figure out what's happening at The Centre.
this makes the entire book read like a personal essay by a leftist college student with a loose, disjointed and ultimately unfinished story poorly threaded through it-- which is not justified by the revelation that the whole book is a transcript of a recording of the narrator's story.
i avoid people like this in real life and have no wish to populate my reading time with them either. thank God that this was a library book and also mercifully short at under 300 pages. honestly so excited to put this one in the book drop 😒
there is nothing "darkly comic" about this book; the main character is devoid of humor, miserable and immiserating, devoted to complaining and nitpicking. there is also no real horror in the story, mainly due to the MC's indifference to what is horrific in it. despite her growing awareness that she is being drawn into something very disturbing at The Centre, she spends far more mental energy subjecting everyone and everything around her to "critical theory", policing her friends for wrongspeak and wrongthink, searching for microaggressions, and rambling about feminism than she does trying to figure out what's happening at The Centre.
this makes the entire book read like a personal essay by a leftist college student with a loose, disjointed and ultimately unfinished story poorly threaded through it-- which is not justified by the revelation that the whole book is a transcript of a recording of the narrator's story.
i avoid people like this in real life and have no wish to populate my reading time with them either. thank God that this was a library book and also mercifully short at under 300 pages. honestly so excited to put this one in the book drop 😒