A review by schausjk
Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

This book took a really long time to actually grab me. While I did ultimately enjoy parts of it, it's not something I ever would have picked up on my own, and one of the main characters (Dean) annoyed me so deeply I would've just stopped reading at so many points in the book if I had any choice. In addition to his general attitude and treatment of women, the way Mitchell insisted on writing all Dean's "you"s as "yer" was just infuriating. Elf had promise but felt too two dimensional and wasn't given enough narrative time in the last half of the book, Jasper's story was interesting until it got too pseudo-scientific about what was going on, and we got almost nothing of Griff to the point where I clearly felt the author just wasn't interested in him. Even Levon, who has so much potential for an interesting character, was barely touched on except "is gay, will be mentioned once that he's Jewish, and is generally A Good Person". As it was, I felt the book spent too much time name-dropping artists from the 1960s that I absolutely do not care about and the book itself really dragged on. It genuinely felt like outside of Jasper, there wasn't really a plot.

From what I've read about the book itself, it's probably more satisfying for folks who've read previous David Mitchell books and can enjoy the ways it intersects with those previous books, but for a first-time reader like me, it was just tolerable

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