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kyatic's Reviews (974)
I so wanted to love this, but I just didn't. The narrator is deeply unlikeable, which is fine; most of my favourite books have unlikeable narrators, and I think they're usually more interesting that way. However, she also commits the cardinal sin of being deeply, deeply boring. Most of her internal monologue is just 'everyone around me seeks validation from others, and that's bad and shallow. I, on the other hand, like crystals and astrology, and I also live alone in a mansion and don't have to work, meaning I have ample time to just meditate and think about the interconnectedness of All Things, so clearly I am the only one who understands the universe,' and that's fine, but not when the book is 300 pages and there very literally is no plot.
This novel is presented as an illuminating window into neurodivergence, and there are moments where it works and where I felt Perceived in ways that made me really want to love this book, but the vast majority of it is literally just a super privileged white girl talking about, like, people's energy, and how shallow everyone is all around her because they only care about what others think of them, even though the book opens with her talking about the fact that she's wearing a kimono to a party because she wants people to see her wearing a kimono. This is a novel devoid of any self-reflection or self-awareness, and I think that's its ultimate failure. We never learn anything real about the main character because she's only capable of thinking about herself on a surface level, which just doesn't work when the entire novel is character-driven and takes place inside the narrator's head. Neurodivergent people aren't inherently incapable of those things, and it chafes that the protagonist being autistic might be presented as the reason for its absence.
I know that the narrator of a book is not its author, but this book really felt like the author believed she had a lot to say and decided to use the protagonist as a vehicle for her various musings on topics such as toxic relationships, the lack of indigenous rights in Australia, and the prevalence of rape culture, and it doesn't really work as a novel for me. 20 pages of your protagonist's thoughts about why people read books they're told to read, rather than books they might actually want to read, does not a compelling narrative make.
On a separate note, the phrase 'I read once / someone once told me', followed by some random fact which the narrator then links to something she's thinking, is repeated, I kid thee not, over 40 times in this book. I have no clue if it's a deliberate repetition or just a writer's tic which should have been edited out. Either way, it grated.
This novel is presented as an illuminating window into neurodivergence, and there are moments where it works and where I felt Perceived in ways that made me really want to love this book, but the vast majority of it is literally just a super privileged white girl talking about, like, people's energy, and how shallow everyone is all around her because they only care about what others think of them, even though the book opens with her talking about the fact that she's wearing a kimono to a party because she wants people to see her wearing a kimono. This is a novel devoid of any self-reflection or self-awareness, and I think that's its ultimate failure. We never learn anything real about the main character because she's only capable of thinking about herself on a surface level, which just doesn't work when the entire novel is character-driven and takes place inside the narrator's head. Neurodivergent people aren't inherently incapable of those things, and it chafes that the protagonist being autistic might be presented as the reason for its absence.
I know that the narrator of a book is not its author, but this book really felt like the author believed she had a lot to say and decided to use the protagonist as a vehicle for her various musings on topics such as toxic relationships, the lack of indigenous rights in Australia, and the prevalence of rape culture, and it doesn't really work as a novel for me. 20 pages of your protagonist's thoughts about why people read books they're told to read, rather than books they might actually want to read, does not a compelling narrative make.
On a separate note, the phrase 'I read once / someone once told me', followed by some random fact which the narrator then links to something she's thinking, is repeated, I kid thee not, over 40 times in this book. I have no clue if it's a deliberate repetition or just a writer's tic which should have been edited out. Either way, it grated.
ARC received in exchange for a review.
An interesting book which packs a lot of ideas into its short page count. I'm not sure I can agree with where Halter ultimately lands in his attempt to answer the question posed in the title; it seems to rely a little too heavily on the general public understanding more about Judaism and Jewishness than I think the majority of us actually do (Halter places a lot of emphasis on the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments) but I think it's a question which is really ultimately unanswerable anyway, so the fact that I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion isn't altogether surprising; I'm not sure there's any conclusion any of us can realistically agree on entirely.
Although I expected a more direct attempt to engage with the question of the book's title, a good third of the book turned out to be a historicising of the writing of the Ten Commandments rather than grappling with the question at hand. Halter clearly has an impressive breadth of ideas and influences, evidenced by the numerous philosophers and theorists he quotes from (Durkheim works particularly well here with his theory of scapegoating) and I feel like perhaps this book would have worked better if Halter had the space to go off on the tangents he evidently enjoys, and which are often ideologically fruitful. In a short work like this, it sometimes felt more as though the tangents evaded the central thesis.
As I say, it was an interesting book, but not necessarily one I feel gave me as much insight as I expected.
An interesting book which packs a lot of ideas into its short page count. I'm not sure I can agree with where Halter ultimately lands in his attempt to answer the question posed in the title; it seems to rely a little too heavily on the general public understanding more about Judaism and Jewishness than I think the majority of us actually do (Halter places a lot of emphasis on the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments) but I think it's a question which is really ultimately unanswerable anyway, so the fact that I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion isn't altogether surprising; I'm not sure there's any conclusion any of us can realistically agree on entirely.
Although I expected a more direct attempt to engage with the question of the book's title, a good third of the book turned out to be a historicising of the writing of the Ten Commandments rather than grappling with the question at hand. Halter clearly has an impressive breadth of ideas and influences, evidenced by the numerous philosophers and theorists he quotes from (Durkheim works particularly well here with his theory of scapegoating) and I feel like perhaps this book would have worked better if Halter had the space to go off on the tangents he evidently enjoys, and which are often ideologically fruitful. In a short work like this, it sometimes felt more as though the tangents evaded the central thesis.
As I say, it was an interesting book, but not necessarily one I feel gave me as much insight as I expected.
