Take a photo of a barcode or cover
becky_py 's review for:
Seven Empty Houses
by Samanta Schweblin
CAWPILE summary:
Characters - 7, wasn’t a fan of some of the characters
Atmosphere - 9, quite beautiful honestly
Writing - 8, quite pretty and descriptive, but not breathtaking
Plot - 7, short stories are just hard to write plot-wise, plus for a majority of the stories I couldn’t really get the underlying message. Once I came to the conclusion that these are stories about ppl in the same way that we might tell stories abt the events of our lives, I came to appreciate the stories a lot more.
Intrigue - 9, very interesting plot lines, like the ingenuity and uniqueness, very good at building tension and suspense
Logic - n/a
Enjoyment - 7, pretty enjoyable, good for short bursts of reading
47/6 = 7.8
The main review:
For the first half of my reading, I couldn't really get the underlying message of the individual stories. They had intriguing plots but I couldn’t figure out what the author was trying to say. Once I came to the conclusion that these are stories about ppl in the same way that we might tell stories abt the events of our lives, without there necessarily being a big ‘moral of the story’, I came to appreciate the stories a lot more. There is something beautiful about the semi-surrealist events that can happen without warning in the mundane lives of everyday people being set out all in one book. Homes, both the physical buildings and the people that make up these homes, are meant to be places of safety and here Samatha Schweblin completely subverts it. Maybe that’s why so much of the book was vaguely unsettling. And maybe this is why I couldn’t find the theme in the individual stories - the theme is found when all of these stories are looked at as a whole. As for why this book is 3 stars - I guess it just didn’t quite reach the expectations I had for it. And also, there were a few characters who I just didn’t like, and some of the endings just didn’t make much sense to me, even given my renewed way of looking at these stories.
Characters - 7, wasn’t a fan of some of the characters
Atmosphere - 9, quite beautiful honestly
Writing - 8, quite pretty and descriptive, but not breathtaking
Plot - 7, short stories are just hard to write plot-wise, plus for a majority of the stories I couldn’t really get the underlying message. Once I came to the conclusion that these are stories about ppl in the same way that we might tell stories abt the events of our lives, I came to appreciate the stories a lot more.
Intrigue - 9, very interesting plot lines, like the ingenuity and uniqueness, very good at building tension and suspense
Logic - n/a
Enjoyment - 7, pretty enjoyable, good for short bursts of reading
47/6 = 7.8
The main review:
For the first half of my reading, I couldn't really get the underlying message of the individual stories. They had intriguing plots but I couldn’t figure out what the author was trying to say. Once I came to the conclusion that these are stories about ppl in the same way that we might tell stories abt the events of our lives, without there necessarily being a big ‘moral of the story’, I came to appreciate the stories a lot more. There is something beautiful about the semi-surrealist events that can happen without warning in the mundane lives of everyday people being set out all in one book. Homes, both the physical buildings and the people that make up these homes, are meant to be places of safety and here Samatha Schweblin completely subverts it. Maybe that’s why so much of the book was vaguely unsettling. And maybe this is why I couldn’t find the theme in the individual stories - the theme is found when all of these stories are looked at as a whole. As for why this book is 3 stars - I guess it just didn’t quite reach the expectations I had for it. And also, there were a few characters who I just didn’t like, and some of the endings just didn’t make much sense to me, even given my renewed way of looking at these stories.