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A review by james1star
The Discomfort of Evening by Lucas Rijneveld
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.25
I hated this book so much and honesty wouldn’t recommend it at all. I wish I’d had DNFd it earlier but wanted to finish as it was read as part of my Bookish World Cup (videos on my YouTube channel if interested).
Plot: not much to say here, it’s a character driven novel where little really happens. We’re following ten-year-old Jas via first person as she lives on a dairy farm in rural Netherlands with her family. Coming up to Christmas, Jas is worried her rabbit will be killed so wishes God take another… her oldest brother for example. This does occur after he drowns and what ensues is an exploration of grief on the family and her interactions with her younger sister Hanna and older brother Obbe.
Rijneveld does do a decent job at showing how grief takes over the lives of Jas’s parents with the mum becoming reserved, stops eating and increasingly suicidal. The dad turns very cold with both neglecting their remaining children to fend for themselves. This dark portrayal and decent into mental deterioration is very apparent and depicted relatively well. The writing is decent enough as well but as the book develops any positives became far outweighed by the negatives.
My main issue with this book is there’s just far too much grossness involved which become boring over time and just horrible to read. Rehashing depictions of bodily functions and products (snot, faeces, urine, bile, vomit, etc) are not only disgusting but I don’t understand why there’s so much of it. Reading about animal abuse and death are things I hate at the best of time but when there’s no justice served… nope!! I despise this so much, it’s a thing that attaches to me strongly and I can’t shift the feeling of disgust and anger. What’s worse is there are no consequences for these actions and it’s a terrible portrayal of such situations. A lot of the book also doesn’t make entire sense to me, specifically the interactions between Obbe and his sisters. He is a repulsive character in my opinion and the way he thinks and acts are really unfathomable that adds to my dislike of the book. In a similar vein, all the siblings don’t act in a way appropriate, it’s like Rijneveld put in all these horrific things over and over to impact the reader… but it just disgusts me. The family are part of a community with the children going to school so they’re not totally isolated which makes their actions more questionable. There’s a lot of hypocrisy prevalent as well, a note I picked up on was the anger the family feels to those culling the cows later in the book where they’re literally dairy farmers who abuse, exploit and eventually murders cows in the process… didn’t sit right with me there.
I might have more to say but don’t care to waste any more time on this book that I hated so yh. Read it if you want but I wouldn’t. Any messages and what Rijneveld wanted to achieve, for me they failed and I will not be reading their new book.
Plot: not much to say here, it’s a character driven novel where little really happens. We’re following ten-year-old Jas via first person as she lives on a dairy farm in rural Netherlands with her family. Coming up to Christmas, Jas is worried her rabbit will be killed so wishes God take another… her oldest brother for example. This does occur after he drowns and what ensues is an exploration of grief on the family and her interactions with her younger sister Hanna and older brother Obbe.
Rijneveld does do a decent job at showing how grief takes over the lives of Jas’s parents with the mum becoming reserved, stops eating and increasingly suicidal. The dad turns very cold with both neglecting their remaining children to fend for themselves. This dark portrayal and decent into mental deterioration is very apparent and depicted relatively well. The writing is decent enough as well but as the book develops any positives became far outweighed by the negatives.
My main issue with this book is there’s just far too much grossness involved which become boring over time and just horrible to read. Rehashing depictions of bodily functions and products (snot, faeces, urine, bile, vomit, etc) are not only disgusting but I don’t understand why there’s so much of it. Reading about animal abuse and death are things I hate at the best of time but when there’s no justice served… nope!! I despise this so much, it’s a thing that attaches to me strongly and I can’t shift the feeling of disgust and anger. What’s worse is there are no consequences for these actions and it’s a terrible portrayal of such situations. A lot of the book also doesn’t make entire sense to me, specifically the interactions between Obbe and his sisters. He is a repulsive character in my opinion and the way he thinks and acts are really unfathomable that adds to my dislike of the book. In a similar vein, all the siblings don’t act in a way appropriate, it’s like Rijneveld put in all these horrific things over and over to impact the reader… but it just disgusts me. The family are part of a community with the children going to school so they’re not totally isolated which makes their actions more questionable. There’s a lot of hypocrisy prevalent as well, a note I picked up on was the anger the family feels to those culling the cows later in the book where they’re literally dairy farmers who abuse, exploit and eventually murders cows in the process… didn’t sit right with me there.
I might have more to say but don’t care to waste any more time on this book that I hated so yh. Read it if you want but I wouldn’t. Any messages and what Rijneveld wanted to achieve, for me they failed and I will not be reading their new book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Incest, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Excrement, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Child death, Eating disorder, Gore, Mental illness, Vomit, Antisemitism, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail