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mauramulvi 's review for:
Netherland
by Joseph O'Neill
this book was absolutely awful. if someone asked me to summarize the plot I honestly couldn't tell you. I definitely would not recommend.
I'm just going to give a few reasons why I disliked this book.
1) the writing was terrible and border lining purple prose. his sentences sometimes stretched full paragraphs containing 10 or more commas. I genuinely could not understand what he was talking about most of the time.
2) the timeline was messy and made no sense. the writer jumped around time as if it worked however he pleased, starting at one event, going backwards to 2 completely unrelated points in time, going forwards into the future to add insight, before finally returning to the original event. by the time he had finished skimming through time I had completely lost his point and forgotten what the original event was. by the end of this story I felt as if Hans hadn't really changed and not a lot of time had passed at all, let alone years.
3) a very boring main character. Hans came off as sort of an asshole the whole novel, placing himself above others most of the story. the author tried to make me feel bad for him after Rachel had left him, but I truly did not. he made a point oftentimes of how much money he had, and how he didn't have to work for what he wanted. that was the problem with Hans. it seems like he never tried to get something he wanted. After Rachel left him, he made little to no effort to keep their marriage together, but got angry when Rachel started seeing someone else. All around he was a predictable, boring character.
4) the story had no point. I'm not exactly sure what this book was supposed to be about. in the beginning of the story, I had predicted that this was supposed to be about Chuck and his effect on Hans, but after only hearing about Chuck about 1/4 of the time I read this book, I was left wondering why else the book could be about. Hans marriage with Rachel? no, as their marriage basically didn't change significantly from the start. Basically this book had no significant plot.
I didn't exactly expect to enjoy this but I am upset with how much I absolutely loathed every second of reading it.
I'm just going to give a few reasons why I disliked this book.
1) the writing was terrible and border lining purple prose. his sentences sometimes stretched full paragraphs containing 10 or more commas. I genuinely could not understand what he was talking about most of the time.
2) the timeline was messy and made no sense. the writer jumped around time as if it worked however he pleased, starting at one event, going backwards to 2 completely unrelated points in time, going forwards into the future to add insight, before finally returning to the original event. by the time he had finished skimming through time I had completely lost his point and forgotten what the original event was. by the end of this story I felt as if Hans hadn't really changed and not a lot of time had passed at all, let alone years.
3) a very boring main character. Hans came off as sort of an asshole the whole novel, placing himself above others most of the story. the author tried to make me feel bad for him after Rachel had left him, but I truly did not. he made a point oftentimes of how much money he had, and how he didn't have to work for what he wanted. that was the problem with Hans. it seems like he never tried to get something he wanted. After Rachel left him, he made little to no effort to keep their marriage together, but got angry when Rachel started seeing someone else. All around he was a predictable, boring character.
4) the story had no point. I'm not exactly sure what this book was supposed to be about. in the beginning of the story, I had predicted that this was supposed to be about Chuck and his effect on Hans, but after only hearing about Chuck about 1/4 of the time I read this book, I was left wondering why else the book could be about. Hans marriage with Rachel? no, as their marriage basically didn't change significantly from the start. Basically this book had no significant plot.
I didn't exactly expect to enjoy this but I am upset with how much I absolutely loathed every second of reading it.