A review by baybod
Estrella distante by Roberto Bolaño

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I’m not going to lie, I didn’t really like this book when I first started reading it. It’s very dense and makes a ridiculous, almost distracting, amount of literary allusions. However, it really picked up towards the second half. I also really appreciated the foreboding feeling the author creates, both in the first chapter and in Wieder’s party. I also really enjoyed the games Bolaño plays with his epigraph—an invented or falsely attributed Faulkner quote—and the corresponding title. Finally, the effort on Bolaño’s part to emphasize the unreliability of his narrator added to the story. The ending felt satisfying even though it didn’t really reveal as much as I had expected. This was a pretty good read.