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A review by carkxy
Fishbowl by Bradley Somer
4.0
'fishbowl' was a fun book and i enjoyed parts of it. our story begins with a goldfish named ian falling down from the 27th storey balcony of an apartment; unlike many books, the fall only occurs at the end of the novel whereas the rest of the book acts as an insight into the perspectives of a handful of characters about half an hour before ian's descent.
as the reader, we are guided through the emotions, secrets and lives of the apartment's residents: a pregnant woman who finds herself entering labour while her midwife and husband just so happened to be away, a lonely superintendent who nobody takes notice of and works to forget his sorrows, a boy who believes that he can travel through time, a construction worker who has a deeply buried secret, an agoraphobic who hasn't left her room in years and a man who finds himself in a struggle between his mistress and girlfriend. the characters are brilliantly shaped and explode of animation, each of their stories embody a certain theme in life such as death, loss, hope, bravery, passion and love. you will find that over the course of the book, the stories would eventually find themselves intertwined with one another.
short-chapter lovers just like myself will rest easy for this one as each chapter only takes up about 2-5 pages. however, as mentioned in the paragraph above, as the stories are intertwined and are told in different perspectives every chapter, the story may often feel choppy or even repetitive to some extent. i didn't mind it too much, i even thought it rather clever of the author to do so but there were a few points in time where the countless layers overlapping over one another would stir up some confusion lol. like do i really need to go through the same scene 2-3 times from different perspectives??? no, i don't think so??? it wasn't exactly bad but it was definitely unnecessary for the most part. i loved most of the stories except for herman's story because that felt like one gigantic trainwreck, the time travel stuff was frustrating to read through, i had neither heads nor tails of where the story went. not to mention, his storyline was poorly wrapped up as compared to the other residents' so that was quite a missed opportunity there.
'fishbowl' will leave you with a jumble of emotions at the end but overall, it left me with a warm and optimistic feeling so that was nice!
as the reader, we are guided through the emotions, secrets and lives of the apartment's residents: a pregnant woman who finds herself entering labour while her midwife and husband just so happened to be away, a lonely superintendent who nobody takes notice of and works to forget his sorrows, a boy who believes that he can travel through time, a construction worker who has a deeply buried secret, an agoraphobic who hasn't left her room in years and a man who finds himself in a struggle between his mistress and girlfriend. the characters are brilliantly shaped and explode of animation, each of their stories embody a certain theme in life such as death, loss, hope, bravery, passion and love. you will find that over the course of the book, the stories would eventually find themselves intertwined with one another.
short-chapter lovers just like myself will rest easy for this one as each chapter only takes up about 2-5 pages. however, as mentioned in the paragraph above, as the stories are intertwined and are told in different perspectives every chapter, the story may often feel choppy or even repetitive to some extent. i didn't mind it too much, i even thought it rather clever of the author to do so but there were a few points in time where the countless layers overlapping over one another would stir up some confusion lol. like do i really need to go through the same scene 2-3 times from different perspectives??? no, i don't think so??? it wasn't exactly bad but it was definitely unnecessary for the most part. i loved most of the stories except for herman's story because that felt like one gigantic trainwreck, the time travel stuff was frustrating to read through, i had neither heads nor tails of where the story went. not to mention, his storyline was poorly wrapped up as compared to the other residents' so that was quite a missed opportunity there.
'fishbowl' will leave you with a jumble of emotions at the end but overall, it left me with a warm and optimistic feeling so that was nice!