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A review by marenjk
The Great Night by Chris Adrian
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
DNF
He's undoubtedly very intelligent but this feels like a book that began as a short-form story and was stretched and padded into something completely unbearable.
The fairies were fascinating, but the human encounters with them were all more or less interchangable. Three people having the same reactions to the same things. I found the narrative voice was strongest and most poignant with Titania's passages, but full disclosure I didn't finish the book.
I dropped it about the halfway point. I was disheartened by how transgender people had featured and been represented in the story until then, and noted a general absence of people of color until someone's coming-into-their-sexual-identity backstory. This involves, to my understanding, falsely accusing their foster brother of sexual assault. Lots of layers there. Not many redeemable ones given the context of what I'd read to that point.
It's going on my shortlist for books that try stepping-to Shakespeare and fall ultimately short.
He's undoubtedly very intelligent but this feels like a book that began as a short-form story and was stretched and padded into something completely unbearable.
The fairies were fascinating, but the human encounters with them were all more or less interchangable. Three people having the same reactions to the same things. I found the narrative voice was strongest and most poignant with Titania's passages, but full disclosure I didn't finish the book.
I dropped it about the halfway point. I was disheartened by how transgender people had featured and been represented in the story until then, and noted a general absence of people of color until someone's coming-into-their-sexual-identity backstory.
It's going on my shortlist for books that try stepping-to Shakespeare and fall ultimately short.