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A review by pogseu
Jonathan Unleashed by Meg Rosoff
1.0
It was a very quick read. I had just finished an excellent if somewhat puzzling book, Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, and didn’t know what to read next. Jonathan Unleashed was mentioned in a newsletter from Penguin, and I thought the blurb looked quite attractive. But what a disappointment! The characters were so bland, one-dimensional, and boring! Jonathan is young and fresh out of uni. Because he is a lucky person, he finds a somewhat suspicious apartment that probably belongs to criminals, in Manhattan no less. Hahaha. Is that meant to be funny? Were the descriptions of Jonathan worrying about mob people attacking him meant to be laugh-out-loud funny? Because if so, it failed completely with me. I was just.. bored.
So he finds a flat, no problem. But he also finds a job within days of moving to the city. In advertising, no less. His job description is often associated with suicide jokes, meaning that anyone writing ads for stationery must want to kill themselves or will surely die of boredom.
And let’s not even get into his relationship with his girlfriend from college. I kept being told how much they did not belong together, from the narrator and from some of the other characters, but there was no real description of, nor actual reasons given as to, why they were supposedly so wrong for each other — the characters are simply too underdeveloped for me to reach that conclusion, and it’s not because lots of characters point it out that I’m convinced in the least. Again, I was utterly bored.
And then there are Jonathan’s daydreams, him imagining crazy things happening when someone talks about something, anything, completely at random. His mind is meant to be quick and imaginative, I’m sure it was also meant to be funny, but again, I was skeptical and, again, bored out of my wits.
I didn’t mention the dogs. But really, what’s the point? Yay, Jonathan thinks the dogs plot behind his back, read his mail before eating it, rummage through his papers and snigger when he can’t see them. And yet, other reviewers say the dogs were great and made the book. I’m sorry to say I did not get any of that. Again, it was just another boring aspect for me.
Finally, spoiler spoiler, he gets the girl in the end. Even though it makes no sense whatsoever — Dr Vet as he calls her, is English and nice, and he dreams of her for weeks before revealing his feelings. He just finished uni. He just moved to NYC. He just started his first job. And seriously? A vet (and an expat at that) is supposedly about his age and interested in this immature young man who draws the babies he imagines he’ll have with a French baker/waitress he sees every morning on his way to work??! His whole life takes place in his head (and the way it was done and written about was not realistic at all, in my opinion), he is even offensive at times and his stupidity made me want to slap him—I don’t even know why I bothered reading the whole thing. It was pointless and far from satisfying. What a waste of time!
So he finds a flat, no problem. But he also finds a job within days of moving to the city. In advertising, no less. His job description is often associated with suicide jokes, meaning that anyone writing ads for stationery must want to kill themselves or will surely die of boredom.
And let’s not even get into his relationship with his girlfriend from college. I kept being told how much they did not belong together, from the narrator and from some of the other characters, but there was no real description of, nor actual reasons given as to, why they were supposedly so wrong for each other — the characters are simply too underdeveloped for me to reach that conclusion, and it’s not because lots of characters point it out that I’m convinced in the least. Again, I was utterly bored.
And then there are Jonathan’s daydreams, him imagining crazy things happening when someone talks about something, anything, completely at random. His mind is meant to be quick and imaginative, I’m sure it was also meant to be funny, but again, I was skeptical and, again, bored out of my wits.
I didn’t mention the dogs. But really, what’s the point? Yay, Jonathan thinks the dogs plot behind his back, read his mail before eating it, rummage through his papers and snigger when he can’t see them. And yet, other reviewers say the dogs were great and made the book. I’m sorry to say I did not get any of that. Again, it was just another boring aspect for me.
Finally, spoiler spoiler, he gets the girl in the end. Even though it makes no sense whatsoever — Dr Vet as he calls her, is English and nice, and he dreams of her for weeks before revealing his feelings. He just finished uni. He just moved to NYC. He just started his first job. And seriously? A vet (and an expat at that) is supposedly about his age and interested in this immature young man who draws the babies he imagines he’ll have with a French baker/waitress he sees every morning on his way to work??! His whole life takes place in his head (and the way it was done and written about was not realistic at all, in my opinion), he is even offensive at times and his stupidity made me want to slap him—I don’t even know why I bothered reading the whole thing. It was pointless and far from satisfying. What a waste of time!