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A review by marcys_books9
Because They Wanted To by Mary Gaitskill
DNF at 25%
I picked this book because the synopsis sounded great. An exploration of human relationships and complex tales really grabbed my interest, so I really wanted to love this, but this was not up my alley.
Gaitskill is definitely a great writer. She writes sentences that pack a punch and are beautiful, so she is definitely skill in that. Some of her narrative is wonderful, how she can write complex people and create interesting insights. However...
There’s something hollow about it. For some reason it kind of reminded me about my feelings of Normal People, where all the characters have dark pasts to make them look cool, and ‘in’, but it feels like a cheap trick to make them look deep. Because They Wanted To felt the same, but this was saved by Gaitskill’s superior writing talents.
It just wasn’t for me. I felt more bored, because apparently writing unlikeable people is ‘literary’ and indicative of ‘great writing’, and I am tired of this. Just because it doesn’t work for me, it doesn’t mean it won’t work for others, because I can see the merit in this.
I picked this book because the synopsis sounded great. An exploration of human relationships and complex tales really grabbed my interest, so I really wanted to love this, but this was not up my alley.
Gaitskill is definitely a great writer. She writes sentences that pack a punch and are beautiful, so she is definitely skill in that. Some of her narrative is wonderful, how she can write complex people and create interesting insights. However...
There’s something hollow about it. For some reason it kind of reminded me about my feelings of Normal People, where all the characters have dark pasts to make them look cool, and ‘in’, but it feels like a cheap trick to make them look deep. Because They Wanted To felt the same, but this was saved by Gaitskill’s superior writing talents.
It just wasn’t for me. I felt more bored, because apparently writing unlikeable people is ‘literary’ and indicative of ‘great writing’, and I am tired of this. Just because it doesn’t work for me, it doesn’t mean it won’t work for others, because I can see the merit in this.