bennysbooks's Reviews (668)

Found the introduction so funny! Then lost interest very quickly. 

This was a bit of an uneven read for me. Some moments gleamed and brought me to tears, especially the grief of Kavita and Osita. I really appreciated how every single character, regardless of their actions, was given some moment of grace, or tenderness, by Emezi. Other moments and characters fell flat. Mostly it read as a pretty conventional contemporary. Which isn't inherently a bad thing, but if you loved Freshwater and were hoping for something similar from Emezi, it might not be quite what you were hoping for.

I'm going to miss Selin. At times I totally identified with her, at times I was completely baffled by her, but at every turn I loved that little weirdo.

Nothing happens in this book. Probably avoid if you need plot. If you're interested in 400+ pages of the meandering introspection of a 19 year old in the 90's, and a large cast of side characters saying strange or pretentious things, you'll likely enjoy this. 

The fact that this book is a translation of a translation likely works against it, although I don't think that is its only problem. There were moments that drew me in, but mostly I was just bored (and that despite how grotesque and dramatic and bloody it is). I've read that Kadare uses his books to talk about life in Albania under communism, but buried in the text to avoid censorship. I could sense that here, but ultimately that meant the plot, characters, etc. were secondary to whatever else Kadare was attempting to say. Ultimately, the biggest downfall was that I couldn't become invested because the characters were completely flat, and character development is important to me as a reader. I'd still like to give Kadare another try. I read a few reviews stating that though the reviewer loves Kadare they didn't think this was his best, which gave me hope. 

This was my second attempt in this series (previously read Dani Brown, and I didn't technically DNF but I mostly skimmed the end), and while I can totally understand why people love Hibbert, this series just isn't for me. Hibbert's books are cute and sweet and comforting without shying away from real world stuff. I wish I connected with them more!

The artwork was stunning. I pored over the visuals, but the story felt both scattered and gratuitously dark. I couldn't put the story threads together in a satisfying way, and the violence/suffering didn't lead to anything that felt purposeful. I don't do well with suffering for the sake of suffering. Based on the art this would have been 5 stars, but as a text it really didn't work for me. I did enjoy Karen though, and will be thinking about her for a while. 

The topic is something I'm very interested in, but the book itself wasn't successful in maintaining my interest because the delivery felt clunky. The information was presented in dense and chaotic bursts, which made it difficult to follow if you aren't already well-versed in Jewish history during Roman occupation. Yet somehow I get the feeling that if you were already knowledgeable about this topic, the book wouldn't necessarily give you anything new to think about. So I'm not sure who this is for. Perhaps that changes in later chapters, and if I weren't already exhausted taking care of a teething baby I would have pushed through, but I think I would rather just find other books discussing similar topics.