A review by esskaysquared
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch

challenging medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? No

0.0

I really did not like this book at all. The writing was very good, but I found the story confusing and hard to follow. I listened to the audiobook, and I couldn't tell if there were multiple narrators or what. I know that one reason I was so confused was that the book was just gross. I wasn't expecting body horror, but I can handle that. This was, of nothing else, more body horror than I could stand. Someone else said that the book was too vulgar and I thought, "I love swear words." It wasn't just swear words though (although there were a lot of swear words). The ideas were vulgar.

I also found the storytelling convoluted and confusing. There were definitely times when I was literally not able to follow the story because I was too distracted by some gross details about worms and stuff, but I also couldn't follow how this apocalyptic distopia came about in only twenty or so years. It was all very "somehow Palpatine survived" to me.

My sibling also tried to read this book around the same time I did, and they liked one of her earlier books. They couldn't make it even halfway through and said "it feels very MFA." I would agree with that.

Not only would I not recommend this book to people, I even told a friend not to read it.
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