narzibenoucdel 's review for:

Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin

2.75

emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

---

I couldn't connect to this story or view it as anything more than immature, pretentious, and exhausting interpersonal/lesbian melodrama. I think the book captured the early college years and its pretension and know-everything-about-life attitude accurately through a post-modern lens. I think the prose was strong, but I couldn't understand who the characters were or why they talked so much yet said nothing meaningful at all, or why every single one of them was trapped in terrible circular emotional circumstances with people who suck. The book depicts the messy and intertwined particular hopelessness of collegiate young adulthood under the thumb of prescriptions of capitalism, heteronormativity, misogyny, and overwhelming first gay love in tandem well in its own way, but it was not to my taste at all. I became tired with the poor communication and diatribes about love and the novel overall failed to evoke more in me than the desire to be done with it.