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A review by gingerliss
The Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan
2.0
I almost gave this book one star. It was one big disappointment, I have to say, after reading A Visit from the Goon Squad I had very high expectations. But this book did a lot of things wrong for me. The first half of the book was so bloody depressing. Don't get me wrong I can read depressing books, Oliver Twist is one of my favourites and that certainly doesn't make me feel all jolly on the inside. Basically a(n American) girl goes on a trip through Europe, in the 70's, following the footsteps of her older sister who committed suicide while there in Italy. She's all alone and not happy at all, that's the first half of the book. I think a big problem for me was that this girl was so unhappy and unfulfilled that I just started really disliking her. But maybe that's me, I've been through a lot of shit, but I always try to look at the positive side of life, this girl was just the most negative person ever!
The second half of the book she coincidentally meets her (dead) sisters ex boyfriend and apart from this next bit being VERY predictable, it was also just very weird! Obviously she falls in love with this guy and the next big bulk of the book (at least it felt like a big bulk) describes them spending days and days having sex in a room they've hired. Their addiction to each other. The description of this seems to go on for ever and it's terribly boring! Thankfully Egan doesn't go into the details, so it doesn't all of a sudden become some terrible porn story, but this sentence made me laugh out loud: "In the shower they gently soaped each others bodies, but despite their halfhearted efforts to resist, were soon hunched against the tiles, hot water beating against them. Wolf looked paler than Phoebe had ever seen him. She wondered if loosing too much semen could be physically dangerous, but decided it was not the time to ask."
Hilarious! I know it's the seventies but come on!
Anyway the end was also predictable, the girl (I can't even remember her name, that's how interesting she was) becomes less depressed and goes back home, makes remands with her brother (who she wasn't getting along with before her trip) and starts living her life, oh and she and Wolf decided it would be best to not see each other any more (*I didn't see that one coming*)...
I gave it two stars because I'm sure there was something good in there that managed to keep me reading. There were elements of the story I liked, like how she went into detail about the red army and that kind of stuff, that was pretty interesting... I got the feeling the author had actually been to the countries she described as well.
But over all, I really had to fight my way through this book.
The second half of the book she coincidentally meets her (dead) sisters ex boyfriend and apart from this next bit being VERY predictable, it was also just very weird! Obviously she falls in love with this guy and the next big bulk of the book (at least it felt like a big bulk) describes them spending days and days having sex in a room they've hired. Their addiction to each other. The description of this seems to go on for ever and it's terribly boring! Thankfully Egan doesn't go into the details, so it doesn't all of a sudden become some terrible porn story, but this sentence made me laugh out loud: "In the shower they gently soaped each others bodies, but despite their halfhearted efforts to resist, were soon hunched against the tiles, hot water beating against them. Wolf looked paler than Phoebe had ever seen him. She wondered if loosing too much semen could be physically dangerous, but decided it was not the time to ask."
Hilarious! I know it's the seventies but come on!
Anyway the end was also predictable, the girl (I can't even remember her name, that's how interesting she was) becomes less depressed and goes back home, makes remands with her brother (who she wasn't getting along with before her trip) and starts living her life, oh and she and Wolf decided it would be best to not see each other any more (*I didn't see that one coming*)...
I gave it two stars because I'm sure there was something good in there that managed to keep me reading. There were elements of the story I liked, like how she went into detail about the red army and that kind of stuff, that was pretty interesting... I got the feeling the author had actually been to the countries she described as well.
But over all, I really had to fight my way through this book.