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chantaal's Reviews (2.32k)
I love when I'm finally in the mood for a bonkers thriller and I get one that hits the spot.
The book title obviously means that you should take everything being told in this with a grain of salt, and it worked for me. Keeping the book title in mind made everything feel off kilter as Josie tells her story, and then you start to wonder exactly what the <i>truth</i> is. How much of it is the truth? Are we questioning if all of it is a lie? None of it is true, yes, but what if <i>some</i> of it is? Which parts?
It was a great rollercoaster to go on, and in the last third I was just there for the ride.
The mix of traditional narrative and the podcast/Netflix show sections really worked for me.
The book title obviously means that you should take everything being told in this with a grain of salt, and it worked for me. Keeping the book title in mind made everything feel off kilter as Josie tells her story, and then you start to wonder exactly what the <i>truth</i> is. How much of it is the truth? Are we questioning if all of it is a lie? None of it is true, yes, but what if <i>some</i> of it is? Which parts?
It was a great rollercoaster to go on, and in the last third I was just there for the ride.
The mix of traditional narrative and the podcast/Netflix show sections really worked for me.
Octavia Butler's short essay is presented here in a book that's more akin to coffee table art, than a way to present her old words for a new generation.
When I first tried reading Parable of the Sower last year, I had to put it down and ultimately DNF it. The violence and apathy and overall world Butler imagined in that book felt much too close to reality and ultimately I couldn't handle it. After reading this short essay, it's easy to understand how she wrote such a creepily prescient work in the 90s - essentially, she studied history to be able to extrapolate where our future could go, and guess what? She wasn't too far off base. Scarily so.
The artwork in this short book is beautiful, but it feels like it dilutes the message of the essay. The way the paragraphs are broken up by pages of art feels like it takes away from the overall message because it keeps breaking it up and not in a way that feels organic.
Ultimately, this IS a good essay, and I'm glad that there will be a new volume like this to bring it back into light for new readers to discover. It'll certainly make for a beautiful display book for Butler fans.
Thanks to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for the opportunity to read and review this. The book will be available April 16, 2024.
When I first tried reading Parable of the Sower last year, I had to put it down and ultimately DNF it. The violence and apathy and overall world Butler imagined in that book felt much too close to reality and ultimately I couldn't handle it. After reading this short essay, it's easy to understand how she wrote such a creepily prescient work in the 90s - essentially, she studied history to be able to extrapolate where our future could go, and guess what? She wasn't too far off base. Scarily so.
The artwork in this short book is beautiful, but it feels like it dilutes the message of the essay. The way the paragraphs are broken up by pages of art feels like it takes away from the overall message because it keeps breaking it up and not in a way that feels organic.
Ultimately, this IS a good essay, and I'm glad that there will be a new volume like this to bring it back into light for new readers to discover. It'll certainly make for a beautiful display book for Butler fans.
Thanks to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for the opportunity to read and review this. The book will be available April 16, 2024.
This is silly and based on a ridiculous miscommunication premise and yet entertaining af.
This won the International Booker Prize, so many, many, MANY people have expressed their thoughts on this book much more eloquently than I could hope to. But I do have <i>thoughts</i> and it's so hard to put them all together in a way that makes sense. Maybe this will just be a rambling entry for me to look back on in a year or two when I think about re-reading this.
First, I'm going to say veganism here because that's essentially what Yeong-hye switches to, not just vegetarianism.
On the surface this feels like an obvious metaphor: Yeong-hye uses the switch to veganism to take back some control over her life and her own body. The oppressive weight of the controlling men in her life is skillfully shown by the decision to make the first section's narrative from the POV of her husband. He sucks. He's a massive dick. His thoughts about Yeong-hye are so baldly indicative of what patriarchy looks like in a way that is incredibly obvious and easy to understand.
But then part two happens, and holy shit things take off. The synopsis didn't really prepare me for how off the rails this was going to go, and I think a LOT of people miss the point when they come out of this thinking it's <i>only</i> an indictment of patriarchy and reactions to someone switching to veganism. Part two from the perspective of the brother-in-law and his own obsession with Yeong-hye is just fucking wild - but also kind of brilliant? I didn't really take much from this part at first beyond thinking here is another man taking advantage of her, but as we learn more about Yeong-hye's mental illness in part three, part two takes on so much more significance. The brother-in-law's obsession leading to painting her in flowers leading to her believing that the only way she can escape this life and the violence of it is to become a plant...OMFG. The sexual imagery fever dream in his POV was almost too much, and especially so when looking back. There's the first layer of things where its obvious Yeong-hye is not be mentally well enough to consent to sex and we're reading rape on page, but then adding the layer of just how this rape is fueling her mental illness...I feel so gross. It's brilliant and I hate it for that.
Part three kind of loses steam, I'd agree, but I think it also does a LOT to inform the first two parts and show how the oppressive upbringing In-hye and Yeong-hye went through have affected them both in different ways. The somewhat open ending left me with a sense of loss, with the thought that these sisters' lives didn't have to end up like this. They could have been okay (maybe?) had the abuse from their father not been compounded by the absolute shit men they married and stayed married to because that's what they were expected to do. Where Yeong-hye is mentally and physically in part three is an obvious manifestation of what the constant pressure of their lives has done to them, but In-hye's narrative, memories, mental state are all indicative of the silent violence that is done to women living in heavily patriarchal systems. In-hye has only survived her entire life, never lived, and that hit me just as hard as Yeong-hye's obvious visual breakdown.
This book was a lot. Content warnings should be heeded carefully if you need them. But it gave me so much to think about.
There's a very interesting interview with the author that is a great read and helped me clarify a lot of my feelings about the book after reading it. https://lithub.com/han-kang-on-violence-beauty-and-the-impossibility-of-innocence/
On the surface this feels like an obvious metaphor: Yeong-hye uses the switch to veganism to take back some control over her life and her own body. The oppressive weight of the controlling men in her life is skillfully shown by the decision to make the first section's narrative from the POV of her husband. He sucks. He's a massive dick. His thoughts about Yeong-hye are so baldly indicative of what patriarchy looks like in a way that is incredibly obvious and easy to understand.
But then part two happens, and holy shit things take off. The synopsis didn't really prepare me for how off the rails this was going to go, and I think a LOT of people miss the point when they come out of this thinking it's <i>only</i> an indictment of patriarchy and reactions to someone switching to veganism. Part two from the perspective of the brother-in-law and his own obsession with Yeong-hye is just fucking wild - but also kind of brilliant? I didn't really take much from this part at first beyond thinking here is another man taking advantage of her, but as we learn more about Yeong-hye's mental illness in part three, part two takes on so much more significance. The brother-in-law's obsession leading to painting her in flowers leading to her believing that the only way she can escape this life and the violence of it is to become a plant...OMFG. The sexual imagery fever dream in his POV was almost too much, and especially so when looking back. There's the first layer of things where its obvious Yeong-hye is not be mentally well enough to consent to sex and we're reading rape on page, but then adding the layer of just how this rape is fueling her mental illness...I feel so gross. It's brilliant and I hate it for that.
Part three kind of loses steam, I'd agree, but I think it also does a LOT to inform the first two parts and show how the oppressive upbringing In-hye and Yeong-hye went through have affected them both in different ways. The somewhat open ending left me with a sense of loss, with the thought that these sisters' lives didn't have to end up like this. They could have been okay (maybe?) had the abuse from their father not been compounded by the absolute shit men they married and stayed married to because that's what they were expected to do. Where Yeong-hye is mentally and physically in part three is an obvious manifestation of what the constant pressure of their lives has done to them, but In-hye's narrative, memories, mental state are all indicative of the silent violence that is done to women living in heavily patriarchal systems. In-hye has only survived her entire life, never lived, and that hit me just as hard as Yeong-hye's obvious visual breakdown.
This book was a lot. Content warnings should be heeded carefully if you need them. But it gave me so much to think about.
There's a very interesting interview with the author that is a great read and helped me clarify a lot of my feelings about the book after reading it. https://lithub.com/han-kang-on-violence-beauty-and-the-impossibility-of-innocence/
If you want a stupidly cute romance with light angst, cute art, decent character arcs and tropes used well, then If You'll Have Me is fantastic.
I was honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed this. Momo and PG are college students who meet up and become friends, eventually falling for each other. But, they each have their own baggage to deal with that interferes with their perceptions of themselves and each other. Their friend dates are cute, their first kiss is cute, the resolution after the third act angsty separation is cute. And though this does utilize the third act sort of breakup trope, it was done in a way that made sense for what we've learned about Momo and PG, and it wasn't overdramatic.
The art is SO cute. The simplicity and bright color work might be a turn off for some, but I really loved it. The lightness of it felt perfect for the story being told.
Highly recommend this if you want a sweet romance read!
I was honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed this. Momo and PG are college students who meet up and become friends, eventually falling for each other. But, they each have their own baggage to deal with that interferes with their perceptions of themselves and each other. Their friend dates are cute, their first kiss is cute, the resolution after the third act angsty separation is cute. And though this does utilize the third act sort of breakup trope, it was done in a way that made sense for what we've learned about Momo and PG, and it wasn't overdramatic.
The art is SO cute. The simplicity and bright color work might be a turn off for some, but I really loved it. The lightness of it felt perfect for the story being told.
Highly recommend this if you want a sweet romance read!
