Review by laurenisallbooked - The Pisces

laurenisallbooked 's review for:

The Pisces by Melissa Broder

3.75

challenging dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Melissa Broder explores the shadow self better, the unnerving psyche, the subconscious better than any author I've read. Her books are dark, weird, challenging, and stir up a variety of uncomfortable feelings that we'd all rather ignore. Lucy is a difficult main character because she's acting entirely from the darkest corners of desire, with no regard for the consequences. She is painfully reminding me of every time I made the same bad decisions.

This book very much feels like a first novel: the metaphors are heavy handed (

the dog dies! the dog is her care for herself, her will to live, her connection to others! the dog does worse as she abandons all that!

), the narrative felt drawn out at the end, the character growth happens quite slowly and then all at once. But I also liked it, and I really liked it for being unique and divisive and as provocative as a merman who represents all the bad parts of men and relationships and abandoning yourself.

Yes, it certainly seemed like the human instinct to get high on someone else, an external entity who could make your life more exciting and relieve you of your own self, your own life, even for just a moment. Maybe once that person became too real, too familiar, they could no longer get you high -- no longer be a drug -- and that was why you grew tired of them. ... It was so much easier for someone to be the drug before or after the relationship. When they were absent, they were exciting. When they were right there, it was a different story.

Content Warnings