Bad to the point of parody. What if you were a GOVERNESS with an obvious SECRET and a PSYCHOPATHIC thirst for REVENGE and DEAD BABIES and your soul isBad to the point of parody. What if you were a GOVERNESS with an obvious SECRET and a PSYCHOPATHIC thirst for REVENGE and DEAD BABIES and your soul is definitely EVIL but also it was CHRISTMAS. If everything is gross and violent, maggot-filled and murdered dead, then none of these things really are; if you can't care a lick about a single character there are no stakes. Dumb, boring and, frankly, embarrassing how hard this tries to be Nasty and Violent by throwing dozens of sodden corpses at the wall.
Two random specific points of contention: the first, and biggest, is that this is obviously supposed to be in conversation with Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho but it seems to have misunderstood and mismanaged every single thing about that story, most especially the satirical commentary on the era it's depicting via the main character. The second is that the main character is routinely described, and insulted by others, as fat, so it should be of no surprise Margaret Qualley will be playing her in the announced film adaptation. ...more
Look, this one might be on me鈥撯€揳nd The Atlantic, which described this book as "a Palestinian-American Sex and the City." Entering with those expectatiLook, this one might be on me鈥撯€揳nd The Atlantic, which described this book as "a Palestinian-American Sex and the City." Entering with those expectations, disappointment was really the only possible outcome because this book is very much not that. Half of it's historical fiction, spinning the roulette wheel of all the usual midcentury tropes, and then some, all written in socially enlightened present-day speak (the funniest example might be the gay black man teaching the main character's grandmother English in 1960s Detroit, saying to her: "I'm gay and in an open relationship." ok! sure!) and way too many expository historical info-dumps that absolutely wrecked the pacing (the stuff with Yoav's mother was especially oddly placed and paced), but what really took me out of the novel was that all-too-common historical fiction trope of alternating chapters between the past and the present and having present events uncannily parallel whatever the character's mother or grandmother experienced.
I think I'm going to give Isabella Hamad's Enter Ghost a read next鈥撯€搘hich is, also!, about staging a performance of Hamlet in the West Bank....more
Too hagiographic to be as interesting as I wanted it to be (and, frankly, too much tin-eared dialogue that was inconsistently stylized: unmarked, someToo hagiographic to be as interesting as I wanted it to be (and, frankly, too much tin-eared dialogue that was inconsistently stylized: unmarked, sometimes italicized, sometimes given punctuation marks) and the pacing either breezed through moments I wanted to linger in or stalled where I didn't, but I ultimately felt a real fondness for this by the time I was done鈥撯€搕hough I think I have a hard time separating that fondness for the novel from . ...more
The hardest thing about being a beautiful thin white woman at the top of your field is that sometimes there are four of you and all of you are sistersThe hardest thing about being a beautiful thin white woman at the top of your field is that sometimes there are four of you and all of you are sisters and all of you have a special Addiction that makes you act out afterschool specials all the time (or just Box Really Good and live as a boxer monk who has never heard of fentanyl but it鈥檚 okay boxer monk is addicted instead to Punches and her Russian coach who talks like a Bond villain) while reminding yourself and each other of the biological supremacy of Sisterhood (Coco says, only sisters who shared the same womb are real sisters!) and also your eroticized white thinness and how badly everyone wants to fuck you even though you鈥檙e so sad and so special and such a beautiful disaster :(
Or, Solipsism: The Novel. Coco Mellors is a grown woman yet she writes about adulthood the same way young girls play with Barbies: it鈥檚 such a surface-level, juvenile, daydream-y idea of what a glamorous interesting life should or can be. Which can be fine, even fun!, to read, but this is a silly novel not only far too in love with itself (and with some really fucked politics鈥攖he way anyone who isn鈥檛 white is used as an accessory to the girls here is鈥︹€�..something, and I鈥檓 not even going to touch what the narrative does with the Lesbian Sister), but so self-serious and with such delusions of being literary fiction, I have to laugh....more
Manny had brought the newspapers as a joke, and his son hadn鈥檛 gotten it.
A really wonderful novel I really enjoyed making my way through. There's a wManny had brought the newspapers as a joke, and his son hadn鈥檛 gotten it.
A really wonderful novel I really enjoyed making my way through. There's a whole revolving door of characters here that Bordas leaps in and out of rapidly but always at ease, and I felt I came to know each of them individually and she was always able to establish them as actual people. There's an authenticity to the story told here; too often any novel that invokes a lot of pop culture feels dated even as it's picked up hot off the press, but maybe it's the timelessness of the references here, or maybe it's simply that Bordas knows her stuff, but all of it worked for me. I found myself oddly moved at various points, and I know the term "cinematic" has become a pejorative, but I could see that cold day in Chicago clearly and all these people making their way through it, and idk! I love comedy! And so does Bordas! ...more
I find it fascinating how often novels are compared to Sally Rooney鈥檚 work, accidentally revealing just how good Rooney is at what she does. This was I find it fascinating how often novels are compared to Sally Rooney鈥檚 work, accidentally revealing just how good Rooney is at what she does. This was tremendously tedious, exhaustive verisimilitude mistaken for depth or character. I truly hated how much of this hinged on miscommunication and withholding information from each other as a catalyst for Drama. None of these characters, or their relationships, captivated me, each spin on the POV roulette wheel essentially reading the same. It's also criminal to present me with a beached whale in the Thames, a marine biologist who goes viral because she looks just like Princess Diana AND is having an affair with a celebrity chef and then just.......use all of That as a sprig of parsley on your overcooked meal. I want that novel, please. ...more
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