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A review by pastelwriter
The President and the Frog by Caro De Robertis
emotional
inspiring
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
There are books in this world that speak to you in such a visceral way that it becomes near impossible to articulate their significance. Still, I must try.
The President and the Frog is not for everyone. Although it overwhelmingly has positive reviews, I would not lightly recommend this book. It was not written in such a way to be loved by all. I loved it because, from the first page, I knew Caro de Robertis was going to tell me a story that would ring true for me.
The simplest way to explain my immediate love for this novel is that I love the way that De Robertis crafts sentences. At the sentence structure level, De Robertis writes sentences that feed my brain. Sentences that make my brain go, yes yes yes more please! This is in many ways something that comes to me from being a Spanish speaker. Many writers who write in Spanish write meandering sentences that may seem like they’re running off to nowhere, but these very deviations are what build the cadence of the story. The story would not feel right if the authors were, instead, to get right to the point every single time. It’s a writing style that some authors from the Romanticism era capture (which is why they are in the small handful of classics I love). All this to say, the writing style of this novel suits me perfectly.
Beyond the writing from a craft perspective, I’m always surprised and slightly torn open (in the best way) by stories that force me to confront the fact that I used to suffer from depression. I’m someone who has been more accepting of my anxiety and been prone to downplay my depression. This is mostly because depression is not an ongoing battle for me. It was in my life because of the circumstances I was in. Many quotes in this book verbalize how I felt at the time and what I longed for.
“He’d finally lost his grip on reality. Well, good, all the better, and about time too, fuck reality, he thought, I don’t want to hold it anymore my fingers hurt too much for that.”
“What superhuman mental strength does it require to lift your thoughts to the right frequency for survival, how to find that strength, where to source it, what’s the way? […] Sometimes he longed only for the stupor of forgetting, a falling as if into sleep, only into a state more numb than sleep, more permanent […] Every time temptation slunk toward him, he found himself rattled by and yet.”
Quotes like this spoke to that time in my life perfectly. I struggle to find the words for that time of my life, and I cry in joy and pain when I encounter a book, an author, that has found the words. It feels like a labor of love. They did not do it thinking of me specifically, but I feel the love of being known. The love of recognition. It is an experience I’m always grateful for. It is a gift that I could never express properly the thanks I feel. Beyond a simple, thank you thank you thank you.
Outside of this, I think the last parting thought I can give for why I loved this was that it perfectly encapsulated the complicated creature that is living in our world. The fear for the state of our planet, its health and the health of the people and animals on it, and simultaneously the hope for survival. Both a sense of hopelessness yet refusal to give up. This refusal born from the little things that make this world worth saving. But most of all, the love we should all feel for the earth and how it nurtures and sustains us.
There’s not much else I can say. As I told my friend when I tried talking about this book, I loved it because it is. I loved it because it exists.
The President and the Frog is not for everyone. Although it overwhelmingly has positive reviews, I would not lightly recommend this book. It was not written in such a way to be loved by all. I loved it because, from the first page, I knew Caro de Robertis was going to tell me a story that would ring true for me.
The simplest way to explain my immediate love for this novel is that I love the way that De Robertis crafts sentences. At the sentence structure level, De Robertis writes sentences that feed my brain. Sentences that make my brain go, yes yes yes more please! This is in many ways something that comes to me from being a Spanish speaker. Many writers who write in Spanish write meandering sentences that may seem like they’re running off to nowhere, but these very deviations are what build the cadence of the story. The story would not feel right if the authors were, instead, to get right to the point every single time. It’s a writing style that some authors from the Romanticism era capture (which is why they are in the small handful of classics I love). All this to say, the writing style of this novel suits me perfectly.
Beyond the writing from a craft perspective, I’m always surprised and slightly torn open (in the best way) by stories that force me to confront the fact that I used to suffer from depression. I’m someone who has been more accepting of my anxiety and been prone to downplay my depression. This is mostly because depression is not an ongoing battle for me. It was in my life because of the circumstances I was in. Many quotes in this book verbalize how I felt at the time and what I longed for.
“He’d finally lost his grip on reality. Well, good, all the better, and about time too, fuck reality, he thought, I don’t want to hold it anymore my fingers hurt too much for that.”
“What superhuman mental strength does it require to lift your thoughts to the right frequency for survival, how to find that strength, where to source it, what’s the way? […] Sometimes he longed only for the stupor of forgetting, a falling as if into sleep, only into a state more numb than sleep, more permanent […] Every time temptation slunk toward him, he found himself rattled by and yet.”
Quotes like this spoke to that time in my life perfectly. I struggle to find the words for that time of my life, and I cry in joy and pain when I encounter a book, an author, that has found the words. It feels like a labor of love. They did not do it thinking of me specifically, but I feel the love of being known. The love of recognition. It is an experience I’m always grateful for. It is a gift that I could never express properly the thanks I feel. Beyond a simple, thank you thank you thank you.
Outside of this, I think the last parting thought I can give for why I loved this was that it perfectly encapsulated the complicated creature that is living in our world. The fear for the state of our planet, its health and the health of the people and animals on it, and simultaneously the hope for survival. Both a sense of hopelessness yet refusal to give up. This refusal born from the little things that make this world worth saving. But most of all, the love we should all feel for the earth and how it nurtures and sustains us.
There’s not much else I can say. As I told my friend when I tried talking about this book, I loved it because it is. I loved it because it exists.