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A review by bookish_ann
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.5
DNF at 200 tedious pages. Read reviews that confirmed my suspicions, then read spoilers. And now I’m actively pissed off.
Theme-spoiler, this is a book about a bunch of old pervs that are literally haunted by the Very Bad Thing they did decades ago. But somehow, they are the heroes we should be rooting for, and the Big Evil is the woman.
Part of me wants to do the full read so I can pick apart exactly WTF is up with the casually misogynistic nonsense of the first 1/3rd of the book (which apparently gets less causal, ugh), but life is too short and I don’t want to be pissed off AND bored.
Why is this a classic? Because it was written by a man, in homage to the old-times greats of the genre as well as its then-contemporaries. The ideas are big and literary, and it has the pompous air of “if you don’t like it, you just don’t get it”. Oh, I get it, I’m just not fooled by it.
Should have left this on the TBR forever.
Theme-spoiler, this is a book about a bunch of old pervs that are literally haunted by the Very Bad Thing they did decades ago. But somehow, they are the heroes we should be rooting for, and the Big Evil is the woman.
Part of me wants to do the full read so I can pick apart exactly WTF is up with the casually misogynistic nonsense of the first 1/3rd of the book (which apparently gets less causal, ugh), but life is too short and I don’t want to be pissed off AND bored.
Why is this a classic? Because it was written by a man, in homage to the old-times greats of the genre as well as its then-contemporaries. The ideas are big and literary, and it has the pompous air of “if you don’t like it, you just don’t get it”. Oh, I get it, I’m just not fooled by it.
Should have left this on the TBR forever.