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seebeeoss's reviews
102 reviews
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
1.0
Gave up after the second chapter. Such lazy, meandering prose, with relentless dumps of exposition one after the other that somehow go into too much detail and not enough at the same time. The events in the first two chapters progress way too quickly and we are never given time to let anything breathe and get a chance to immerse you.
The writing is so bad and amateurish. I’m genuinely struggling to understand why the author has been so successful, because if this is the bar I think I might get into writing. In the first chapter, we’re dealing with a character who has been exiled from his wealthy family. Exciting! I wonder why? Well, because, and this is a direct quote from the novel, he “he holds secretly radical views which emerged unexpectedly”! And the author just leaves it there! I mean, come on, this is a novel, not a plot summary. I’m here to be immersed and to be fascinated by these characters. I’ve got time!
Here’s another painfully bad excerpt from the end of the second chapter. You can practically feel the authors smugness:
“You reap,” Edwin says to himself, on his third glass. “That’s the word for it. You dig up the fields, you sow things in the fields, then you reap.”
He sips his drink. “You reap what?” Reginald has a pleasant way about him when he’s drunk, as if nothing could possibly offend him. He’s been leaning back in his chair, smiling into the empty air.
“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it,” Edwin says, and pours himself another glass.
The writing is so bad and amateurish. I’m genuinely struggling to understand why the author has been so successful, because if this is the bar I think I might get into writing. In the first chapter, we’re dealing with a character who has been exiled from his wealthy family. Exciting! I wonder why? Well, because, and this is a direct quote from the novel, he “he holds secretly radical views which emerged unexpectedly”! And the author just leaves it there! I mean, come on, this is a novel, not a plot summary. I’m here to be immersed and to be fascinated by these characters. I’ve got time!
Here’s another painfully bad excerpt from the end of the second chapter. You can practically feel the authors smugness:
“You reap,” Edwin says to himself, on his third glass. “That’s the word for it. You dig up the fields, you sow things in the fields, then you reap.”
He sips his drink. “You reap what?” Reginald has a pleasant way about him when he’s drunk, as if nothing could possibly offend him. He’s been leaning back in his chair, smiling into the empty air.
“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it,” Edwin says, and pours himself another glass.