i think i read this book at the wrong time.

for now i found the writing didn’t work for me, it was so choppy and reminded me of a elementary school kid trying to write their first essay (which yes thank you i am aware is a mean comparison but it’s the best i can do!) it’s very “she drank a cup of coffee. a car drive by. it honked.” kind of writing which is not at all my favorite style to read and even though it should influence my like it dislike if a book so much - does influence me hugely towards rating a book lower.

i also had a hard time really connecting with anything because every chapter follows a different person.
and sure that did give the book a unique tone and a huge amount of different voices. but not every character felt actually unique to me and even just shortly after finishing it i am already unsure which character was which.

i did love the realistic show of diversity!
i loved the direct pointing out if racism especially in the entertainment industry and how they slotted specific skin types into specific stereotypical roles that are incredibly hard to break away from.

but overall for me this book wasn’t that fantastic.
it could have been with writing that i enjoy more and more fleshed out characters (that could also be a directly linked problem with the writing and my disconnect to that, maybe the characters are actually well done but i just have trouble seeing it because of the writing style i just do not get a long wo the!)

but for me it was okay.
but as i said maybe i just wasn’t in the right headspace for it.
i wanted a literary fiction but a novel. and this is literary fiction but not really novelist writing - at least to me.
so maybe i will come back to this in the future knowing the issues i had with it and wanting to try it again since clearly it’s a well loved and raved about book.


all in all?

clearly this book so many people absolutely adore it so who am i to tell you to not also read it?
the only think i would say is that it’s okay to not completely love it because it’s not necessarily a book for every reader!