booksny's Reviews (332)

A lovely feel-good read

This book is full of interesting stories and thought exercises - I enjoyed learning about those. Unfortunately, I was very irritated by its writing style - a story would often be followed by four or five rhetorical questions, an observation that 'this does not answer the full question we are asking in this chapter', then go into a different story, with more rhetorical questions, and the same observation, over and over again. This was all meant to tie together by the end of each chapter, but the linkages sometimes felt spurious and the arguments too speculative; there was sometimes a lot of citations but definitely other bits could have benefited from more data evidencing. 

Also, I felt like the book had a strange take on winner and losers in  personal relationships. When it talked about Pablo Picasso's son, the focus was on how the son didn't achieve much in life for various reasons, but somehow didn't really link it up to how Pablo Picasso's emotionally abusive behavior could have played a part, even though the abuse was described. Same thing occurred when it described how a woman was verbally abusing her spouse - there was focus on how the couple showed different personalities after they found other partners, but the "winner's" problematic behavior felt like it was taken for granted because the "loser" couldn't/wouldn't push back.

A lovely read - lots of intricate and fascinating political worldbuilding 

Wasn't a fan of the characters, but thought the details were very creative

Had some good advice written in decently clear language 

I didn't align with a lot of the views in this book, as there were dated biases around sexual orientation, and a lot of the generalizations weren't backed up by evidencing, but found the writing to be occasionally insightful and thought-provoking. 

I remember tearing up when I first read the book and watched the play half a decade ago - I really enjoyed the complicated dynamics between the highly flawed yet loving/kind characters throughout the story. There's less of an emotional impact upon this re-read - I found it a tad trickier to keep my attention on Christopher's stream-of-consciousness POV - but reckon it's still a worthy experience 

A sweet read - I remember really enjoying this when younger, and still found it quite magical when I read it again now

A sweet, gentle little read