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A review by phuongreading
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
1.0
This joyless, lifeless, and absolutely POINTLESS novel reignites my hatred for literature produced by cis white men. The story, highlighting a tragical dispute of who-deserves-what of the hyperinflated piece of the American real estate pie, is so SO SOOOOOOOOOOO boring. The story unfolds through parallel perspectives (a device that I personally love), attempting to have readers empathize with Kathy and Behrani, but oh my god the way I DO NOT CAREEEE because the novel was littered with mundane, plot-filling descriptions of actions that ADD NOTHING to the characters. Another Goodreads user put it excellently:
"Around noon, I picked up my mail at the post office, then went to a shopping center sandwich shop to sift through it all while I ate. It was only ten days' worth but it took up all of my table, and I put it in two piles, one for the trash can on the way out, one to keep. The trash pile was mostly junk mail, the other was bills: car insurance, gas, my final phone, electric. The electric bill was the most recent and I opened it and read the cutoff date for the last billin"
The characters become caricatures of themselves as you spend 75% of the novel fighting for your life screaming for any plot progression. Kathy, a victim of her circumstances, becomes a whiny, entitled trainwreck whose solution to her problem was ruining not one, but TWO families. Massoud, a respectable family man, becomes greedy, arrogant, insecure ASSHOLE.
I CANT EVEN talk about how much I hate Lester. The third perspective detailing his backstory and his justification for not leaving his wife earlier makes me want to jump out of a window.
I have a signed copy from Andre Dubus III himself so if anyone is interested I would gladly give this to you for free!
"Around noon, I picked up my mail at the post office, then went to a shopping center sandwich shop to sift through it all while I ate. It was only ten days' worth but it took up all of my table, and I put it in two piles, one for the trash can on the way out, one to keep. The trash pile was mostly junk mail, the other was bills: car insurance, gas, my final phone, electric. The electric bill was the most recent and I opened it and read the cutoff date for the last billin"
The characters become caricatures of themselves as you spend 75% of the novel fighting for your life screaming for any plot progression. Kathy, a victim of her circumstances, becomes a whiny, entitled trainwreck whose solution to her problem was ruining not one, but TWO families. Massoud, a respectable family man, becomes greedy, arrogant, insecure ASSHOLE.
I CANT EVEN talk about how much I hate Lester. The third perspective detailing his backstory and his justification for not leaving his wife earlier makes me want to jump out of a window.
I have a signed copy from Andre Dubus III himself so if anyone is interested I would gladly give this to you for free!