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lindsayb09 's review for:
We Contain Multitudes
by Sarah Henstra
This book was far heavier than I was anticipating. Be warned, there is a lot of drama and some pretty heavy themes. I don't typically gravitate towards those types of romances, but for the most part I thought it was well handled.
I guess I have 2 issues that keep it from being an absolute favorite: first, the format. While I loooooove an epistolary romance, I thought it would have benefited from moderation. Like interweaving the letters with straight narration, or even journal entries or something. Because of the format we end up with characters narrating scenes that already happened, retelling them to the other person who was there. They attempt to justify it multiple times by saying they want to remember it or reflect on it, but it's the specificity and detail of those scenes that makes it feel inauthentic to me. It also made me feel somewhat detached from the story, to hear all the events secondhand, edited and cleaned up and poeticized after the fact. It started to feel like a gimmick that the author couldn't give up even when it would have benefited the story.
Which bring me to my second issue: the book veers wildly between hyper-idealization and depressing realism, and the balance it strikes is an awkward one. Like the letters themselves and the language they use, it doesn't feel realistic, it feels like some fantasy of teenagers who write like grad students. But then there are these dark issues and it tries not to gloss over them in a dismissive way, but confronts all the hurt. That balance of poetry and fairy tale love with abuse and PTSD and family trauma is a strange mix that feels unbalanced and too old and world weary for a high school love story.
Overall I liked the characters (though a few I wanted to slap in the face or worse). It ends on a "happy for now" sort of note, which wasn't totally satisfying. I'm left with a lot of conflicting feelings, but I don't feel like I wasted my time.
I guess I have 2 issues that keep it from being an absolute favorite: first, the format. While I loooooove an epistolary romance, I thought it would have benefited from moderation. Like interweaving the letters with straight narration, or even journal entries or something. Because of the format we end up with characters narrating scenes that already happened, retelling them to the other person who was there. They attempt to justify it multiple times by saying they want to remember it or reflect on it, but it's the specificity and detail of those scenes that makes it feel inauthentic to me. It also made me feel somewhat detached from the story, to hear all the events secondhand, edited and cleaned up and poeticized after the fact. It started to feel like a gimmick that the author couldn't give up even when it would have benefited the story.
Which bring me to my second issue: the book veers wildly between hyper-idealization and depressing realism, and the balance it strikes is an awkward one. Like the letters themselves and the language they use, it doesn't feel realistic, it feels like some fantasy of teenagers who write like grad students. But then there are these dark issues and it tries not to gloss over them in a dismissive way, but confronts all the hurt. That balance of poetry and fairy tale love with abuse and PTSD and family trauma is a strange mix that feels unbalanced and too old and world weary for a high school love story.
Overall I liked the characters (though a few I wanted to slap in the face or worse). It ends on a "happy for now" sort of note, which wasn't totally satisfying. I'm left with a lot of conflicting feelings, but I don't feel like I wasted my time.