sydni_z 's review for:

The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton

DID NOT FINISH

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DNF 14/02/23. I wanted to like this book! I wanted to like this book so much that I made my parents ship it to me after I left it in canada last spring! I cannot stress enough that, as a chorister who constructed her entire personality around francis abernathy at the age of 16, I figured I was precisely the target demographic. so much about it appealed to me, from the insular boarding school setting to the queerness to the waugh-esque tartt-esque novel(ist) at the centre of it all, not to mention the glowing review from melissa febos on the back; but I just...didn't like it. it felt like a hollower secret history, like we were all meant to understand the comparisons, so all the (intentionally or not) similar elements - including setting, plot, tight-knit clique of main characters with esoteric hobby - were sketched out instead of fully inhabited. the prose didn't grab me, the story didn't keep me hooked, the characters' voices didn’t ring true. alas.