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afateunwritten 's review for:
The World Cannot Give
by Tara Isabella Burton
Thank you to Simon and Schuster for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review!❤️
Laura Stearns wants nothing more than to experience a “shipwreck of the soul”, just like the protagonist of her favorite book. Unfortunately, this shipwreck extends beyond her character. The World Cannot Give is a mess. It has the makings of a riveting dark academia novel, but is bogged down by the very pretentiousness it seeks to subvert. It is three different novels trying to mesh into one. It is so ideologically confusing and unstable that its empty protagonist appears robust in comparison. But what truly doomed this book is the poor editing. I honestly cannot believe I received a corrected ARC. Not only is the plot all over the place, but it is riddled with grammatical errors and inconsistencies. I can see a plethora of ideas—the romanticization of the past heralded as “tradition” by religious extremists, a Nate Jacobs-esque examination of how repressed sexuality can catalyze as violence, the way men view women as objects of desire rather than human beings. But the story failed to successfully intertwine these ideas. I felt like I was reading about the same, flat characters being plugged into random scenarios. By the time I reached the third act, I knew I would be disappointed. The writing had completely fallen apart, the themes were jumbled in a last-ditch attempt to be coherent, and reading the end was one of the most dissatisfying reading experiences I’ve ever had.
In short—it did not give. It only took. Took valuable time I could have spent reading something better.
Laura Stearns wants nothing more than to experience a “shipwreck of the soul”, just like the protagonist of her favorite book. Unfortunately, this shipwreck extends beyond her character. The World Cannot Give is a mess. It has the makings of a riveting dark academia novel, but is bogged down by the very pretentiousness it seeks to subvert. It is three different novels trying to mesh into one. It is so ideologically confusing and unstable that its empty protagonist appears robust in comparison. But what truly doomed this book is the poor editing. I honestly cannot believe I received a corrected ARC. Not only is the plot all over the place, but it is riddled with grammatical errors and inconsistencies. I can see a plethora of ideas—the romanticization of the past heralded as “tradition” by religious extremists, a Nate Jacobs-esque examination of how repressed sexuality can catalyze as violence, the way men view women as objects of desire rather than human beings. But the story failed to successfully intertwine these ideas. I felt like I was reading about the same, flat characters being plugged into random scenarios. By the time I reached the third act, I knew I would be disappointed. The writing had completely fallen apart, the themes were jumbled in a last-ditch attempt to be coherent, and reading the end was one of the most dissatisfying reading experiences I’ve ever had.
In short—it did not give. It only took. Took valuable time I could have spent reading something better.