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A review by yousrabushehri
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
1.0
This is the longest I’ve stayed with a book that’s under 300 pages. And that’s not a good sign.
I honestly had such high hopes for this book. The synopsis sounded interesting, I’d read a lot of good reviews saying that this book is funny, wonderful, a masterpiece. And I didn’t see evidence of any. I’d read that this book tackles ideas on ageism, sex, gender, religion, and culture. Yes, there was an old guy in the book (Ezra Blazer), but he wasn’t exactly a likable character. To me, he was kind of a weirdo with a huge ego. As for ageism and gender, Ezra (a dude in his late 70’s) dates a young woman in her 20’s, Alice. So Alice is the “female” in this story and to me she was the most annoying character. What sane 20-something year old woman gets into a sexual relationship with 70 year old? She seemed lost, naive, stupid, and off her kilter. Their relationship boarded on neglectful and it just seemed like he was her sugar daddy. It was weird. As for culture and religion, the second half of the novel centered around Amar, an Iraqi-American PhD student stuck at Heathrow airport trying to get back to Iraq to see his family and brother. Now this is a section that I felt a little bit better about, and solely because i could relate to some of things Amar was talking about. But aside from that, it was all just jumbled. But a step up from the whole Alice and Ezra saga of what-the-hell’s. The third and last part of the novel is an interview with Ezra, and in Ezra’s true weird nature, he ended the book with asking out his interviewer who is a married woman with 2 kids.
I’ve never been happier to finish a novel in my life. I want to put this behind me and move on. I ended up downloading the audiobook because I just couldn’t get passed page 80 and I really wanted to see if this book somehow got better.
Honestly, I’m not saying this book is a bad book, but I feel this book is just modern art. It’s created for a certain type of audience and not everyone gets it (me included). I just ended up squinting at it and tried to make sense out of it, but all I could see were random shapes and random colours. This is definitely a book I can see myself writing papers on and analyzing critically, but it’s just not the type of book I imagine anyone would read while on vacation or after a long day.
I honestly had such high hopes for this book. The synopsis sounded interesting, I’d read a lot of good reviews saying that this book is funny, wonderful, a masterpiece. And I didn’t see evidence of any. I’d read that this book tackles ideas on ageism, sex, gender, religion, and culture. Yes, there was an old guy in the book (Ezra Blazer), but he wasn’t exactly a likable character. To me, he was kind of a weirdo with a huge ego. As for ageism and gender, Ezra (a dude in his late 70’s) dates a young woman in her 20’s, Alice. So Alice is the “female” in this story and to me she was the most annoying character. What sane 20-something year old woman gets into a sexual relationship with 70 year old? She seemed lost, naive, stupid, and off her kilter. Their relationship boarded on neglectful and it just seemed like he was her sugar daddy. It was weird. As for culture and religion, the second half of the novel centered around Amar, an Iraqi-American PhD student stuck at Heathrow airport trying to get back to Iraq to see his family and brother. Now this is a section that I felt a little bit better about, and solely because i could relate to some of things Amar was talking about. But aside from that, it was all just jumbled. But a step up from the whole Alice and Ezra saga of what-the-hell’s. The third and last part of the novel is an interview with Ezra, and in Ezra’s true weird nature, he ended the book with asking out his interviewer who is a married woman with 2 kids.
I’ve never been happier to finish a novel in my life. I want to put this behind me and move on. I ended up downloading the audiobook because I just couldn’t get passed page 80 and I really wanted to see if this book somehow got better.
Honestly, I’m not saying this book is a bad book, but I feel this book is just modern art. It’s created for a certain type of audience and not everyone gets it (me included). I just ended up squinting at it and tried to make sense out of it, but all I could see were random shapes and random colours. This is definitely a book I can see myself writing papers on and analyzing critically, but it’s just not the type of book I imagine anyone would read while on vacation or after a long day.