peeled_grape's reviews
146 reviews

I loved how meta this was. There are moments, especially in the beginning, that feel like a wink to us, and I got the feeling Lispector was having fun with this. There are parts where Lispector also seems to be talking to us directly, especially when she's talking about writing. (Which, if you are a writer, this is especially funny, mostly because Rodrigo, the narrator, is terrified of writing, and at one point takes a nap in the middle of the novel because he doesn't want to write.) This is extremely quotable, too: "Am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?" is one of my favorites. I was reminded so much of Lydia Davis' "My Happy Life." There's a lot here, and a lot I have to think about.

This was lovely. Plot-wise, so much happened in this book that by the time I finished it, and reconsidered the beginning, it felt like (a significant amount of) time had passed. It's a book with weight. I know Carpentier was the one to come up with the term "magical/marvelous real," but what Marquez is doing here is what I think of when I think of magical realism. This was easy to read, but also feels super thick in places. Find someone to talk about this with. It gets richer the more you dig into it.

Very smart writing, but not particularly compelling.

I started to tune out when it got to the incest parts. Incest is boring.

It's hard to come up with any thoughts on this at all because of how indifferent I am to it. There was some great individual paragraphs, but overall, it didn't really capture my attention.

It's one of those books that works better in theory than in practice. It starts off excellent, and then, in its demonstration of showing the narrator's distance from all the important events, spends a lot of time dwelling on stuff that really isn't important. The first half is much more interesting than the second. It was still good, and impressive, but it just doesn't work out as well when you're several pages into details the narrator is obsessed with that don't end up mattering in the long run.

This book just really wasn't working for me. The sentences are like ten miles long, and even when used to achieve a breathless, paranoid effect, the language isn't clever enough to pull it off (possibly an effect of it being a translation?). It feels like it's cheating in that sense. I'm bored of novels who rely on violence (and, more specifically, sexual violence toward women) to work. It's not "artistic" anymore. Pick something else. Do something original. God, it's boring.

There were very few things in this book I liked. It wasn't horrible, really, but I thought it was pretty unremarkable.

I liked this. It's easy and pleasant to read. Some of the plot felt a little too good to be true, a little bit too convenient and working too much in favor of the narrator. It was almost like she could control other people's actions in that way. That didn't quite work for me. But: It was good. I feel like that is maybe the extent of my feelings toward this. It's good. It's pleasant. It all works.

A book about absence and presence, the yes and no of potential. I was particularly taken by the exhibit and its "subtitles" at the end. It's a perfectly pleasant book to read -- although nothing exciting happens, it doesn't drag, and I finished it more quickly than I thought I would.

I wonder why this leans so heavily into stereotype. There are old librarians who all wear bifocals, who shush children constantly, who go drinking when they're sad and it rains when they're sad and all books are replaced by computers because young people never have interest in physical books anymore -- libraries are there for teenagers to have sex in -- and "Strange word, 'library.' What does it mean?" (Which: Isn't there something to be said about the accessibility of ebooks, especially coming from a book that is, to some extent, about that?) This was so present it almost seems exaggerated for a purpose, but I couldn't figure out what that purpose was. It feels boomer-y, in this way, and resistant to change.

I love the form of this -- the World Cup section was especially compelling to me. I'm also a fan of second person, and this is a great example of that going well. This was recommended to me, so I didn't realize it was poetry before I picked it up. There's nothing wrong with that, I'm just not as great at reading poetry, and I know less how to pick out what's working with it. With that said, there's still several sections in here that you should take your time with. It's worth sitting with, picking apart.

This was fantastic. It surprised me -- this is a higher quality of writing than I expect from most YA books, and frankly, most adult books too. I know this ended up on a bunch of banned book lists, but ironically, I still think it was too nice to police. I get why. And maybe part of this comes from the fact I am reading this six-ish years after its publication and read it literally as the president encouraged white supremacists to storm the Capitol, but I would recommend it to the Haileys of the world who need to be pushed out of their current state of thinking. But this is fantastic, and necessary, and raises a lot of important questions, especially for people who have never needed or wanted to consider them.

I often feel like a writer has to earn their content to write about it meaningfully, and I don’t think much of this was quite earned, so it was a little disappointing and surface-level. It’s a little hard to tell with YA, but also there’s better commentary of believing women and violence toward women that feels more round, so I know this story is capable of that.

There are also times when I thought it was trying too hard to be dark and edgy. There is more violence and gore than is necessary or effective, and it honestly just gets kind of boring. There are a lot of holes and inconsistencies—places where lines or scenes happen for flashiness over depth or reason. There’s a ton of boring info in the beginning, and at the end, a lot of half-logic that spontaneously allows Alex to do random stuff.

I had high hopes because I loved “Six of Crows,” but this was just meh. The one great thing this did for me, having spent a lot of time reading short story collections, was remind me how much I love novels, and how fantastic something with length is.