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A review by whoischels
Writers & Lovers by Lily King
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
This was probably not a great introduction book to get to know this author. I am ticked off by writers writing books about writers writing books. It seems somewhat egotistical and ignorant of the world. Every writer who writes one of these books thinks that their book is special because it’s rising above all the other versions of this story.
That said, King creates a very believable character, who’s peculiar mixture of self-knowledge and lack of self-awareness is endearing. All of the characters are constructed to be endearing. Which is one of the themes: feeling like shit when there’s quite a few kind friends by your side and learning to see their kindness. The book straddles the space between making you read between the lines for the themes and wearing the themes on a name tag. For this reason, it’s an easy read. Great for the airplane, etc. You don’t have to think too hard about what the author is trying to say about life, but you still feel like you’ve read literature at the end of it.
Anyhow, it was a breeze to read and enjoyable in the moment, with good dialogue and likeable, realistic characters, each of whom gets their human moments. It was just accidentally pretentious (made worse by the fact that it is trying so hard not to be) and sort of hobbled by its lack of scope. The author seemed to try addressing the awkwardness of most literary types having a financial safety net when her main character didn’t. This was meant to be a main tension in the book, but the authors treatment of this kind of highly educated poverty really fell flat to me compared to her treatment of secondary themes, like deciding how you want to love people. A lot of time is as devoted to talking about the feelings resulting from being in a bad financial situation and while the mechanics of that plot point were realistic, it didnt seem to be felt as hard as the rest of the book. Perhaps that was a point the author wanted to make, but if so, didn’t work for me.
Another gripe I have is the side characters were gay men or implied POC who were literally just there to have conversations that further the main characters development, and have no development of their own, or what felt like forced development. I’m not sure what the purpose of this halfway show of diversity was in this book. Why would you write a bunch of half formed characters with stated problems unique to their race or sexuality as an aside and then never mention these problems again? It was like they were furniture and it felt weird in a story about a white woman choosing between two white men.
That said, King creates a very believable character, who’s peculiar mixture of self-knowledge and lack of self-awareness is endearing. All of the characters are constructed to be endearing. Which is one of the themes: feeling like shit when there’s quite a few kind friends by your side and learning to see their kindness. The book straddles the space between making you read between the lines for the themes and wearing the themes on a name tag. For this reason, it’s an easy read. Great for the airplane, etc. You don’t have to think too hard about what the author is trying to say about life, but you still feel like you’ve read literature at the end of it.
Anyhow, it was a breeze to read and enjoyable in the moment, with good dialogue and likeable, realistic characters, each of whom gets their human moments. It was just accidentally pretentious (made worse by the fact that it is trying so hard not to be) and sort of hobbled by its lack of scope. The author seemed to try addressing the awkwardness of most literary types having a financial safety net when her main character didn’t. This was meant to be a main tension in the book, but the authors treatment of this kind of highly educated poverty really fell flat to me compared to her treatment of secondary themes, like deciding how you want to love people. A lot of time is as devoted to talking about the feelings resulting from being in a bad financial situation and while the mechanics of that plot point were realistic, it didnt seem to be felt as hard as the rest of the book. Perhaps that was a point the author wanted to make, but if so, didn’t work for me.
Another gripe I have is the side characters were gay men or implied POC who were literally just there to have conversations that further the main characters development, and have no development of their own, or what felt like forced development. I’m not sure what the purpose of this halfway show of diversity was in this book. Why would you write a bunch of half formed characters with stated problems unique to their race or sexuality as an aside and then never mention these problems again? It was like they were furniture and it felt weird in a story about a white woman choosing between two white men.