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felonyxko 's review for:
Briefly, A Delicious Life
by Nell Stevens
I thought this was well-written, and an original idea, but I just found there was too much going on (and yet nothing really happening), too many different threads for me to get invested in a single one - except the 'I Remember' chapters, where so little was explored that I found it frustrating in the end; I wanted to know more about Blanca's story before and after death. At times it seemed like the idea to make a clever piece of writing overshadowed the need for a consistently engaging narrative. The writing itself was good, but overall I thought the execution didn't live up to the premise, and that it didn't need the original premise at all, despite how it's supposed to be resolved/tied together at the end.
At times it also seemed that having this ghost character who can get into people's heads and know what they're thinking, what they remember, and even look into their futures, was a way of getting around deciding between first/third person, and limited/omniscient, or a way to try and be clever about doing it all. I found it sort of jarring, it called attention to itself. I've seen one review here saying this novel would be an amazing piece of work for creative writing at university, but gets in the way of itself as a published book, and I think that is a very apt description.
The actual physical setting is done beautifully, the way music and the setting interact with/reflect each other especially, but the characters felt so modern a lot of the time and I kept forgetting, despite Chopin's name appearing again and again (I wasn't familiar with Sand before reading this) that the 'present day' chapters were supposed to be happening in 1838/1839. George Sand was actually a contemporary of Victor Hugo and yet here seemed so far in the future from his time and the people and events he wrote about. I think another conflict here is Blanca's voice, which also feels too contemporary but which, if it did sound 'older', might make the novel/narrator less accessible.
As an aside, I don't know if the intention here was to make George seem a likeable/loveable person but I found I did not like her at all, for various reasons that I won't actually go into, because this didn't actually affect how I rated the book at all. (I read plenty of books about characters I don't like and still like the books themselves very much, but as Blanca was out here head over heels in love with George I spent the entire time like ?????)
I did like the way music was explored through language (even though it was just one more of those aspects that seemed shoehorned in at times), and I went ahead and looked up each pieces that appeared as I was reading just out of curiosity. And again, the description of the physical setting was really beautifully done. I think if this entire novel had been about Blanca's story through the years and only touched upon George Sand/Chopin towards the end, I, personally, would have found it more engaging, and likely would have finished it a lot sooner.
At times it also seemed that having this ghost character who can get into people's heads and know what they're thinking, what they remember, and even look into their futures, was a way of getting around deciding between first/third person, and limited/omniscient, or a way to try and be clever about doing it all. I found it sort of jarring, it called attention to itself. I've seen one review here saying this novel would be an amazing piece of work for creative writing at university, but gets in the way of itself as a published book, and I think that is a very apt description.
The actual physical setting is done beautifully, the way music and the setting interact with/reflect each other especially, but the characters felt so modern a lot of the time and I kept forgetting, despite Chopin's name appearing again and again (I wasn't familiar with Sand before reading this) that the 'present day' chapters were supposed to be happening in 1838/1839. George Sand was actually a contemporary of Victor Hugo and yet here seemed so far in the future from his time and the people and events he wrote about. I think another conflict here is Blanca's voice, which also feels too contemporary but which, if it did sound 'older', might make the novel/narrator less accessible.
As an aside, I don't know if the intention here was to make George seem a likeable/loveable person but I found I did not like her at all, for various reasons that I won't actually go into, because this didn't actually affect how I rated the book at all. (I read plenty of books about characters I don't like and still like the books themselves very much, but as Blanca was out here head over heels in love with George I spent the entire time like ?????)
I did like the way music was explored through language (even though it was just one more of those aspects that seemed shoehorned in at times), and I went ahead and looked up each pieces that appeared as I was reading just out of curiosity. And again, the description of the physical setting was really beautifully done. I think if this entire novel had been about Blanca's story through the years and only touched upon George Sand/Chopin towards the end, I, personally, would have found it more engaging, and likely would have finished it a lot sooner.