peeled_grape's reviews
158 reviews

Not bad -- I just didn't love it. It reminds me of Stephen Florida in all its awkward shamelessness. There's some things that don't go explored that I think should have been, like Joyce's experiences with her dad. We don't get too deep into any particular character's experience. I think there was too much time spent stagnant and it didn't really go anywhere. Again, not bad, but it wasn't really moving.

I read "Mouthful of Birds" first, and was told that "Fever Dream" wasn't as good, but wow. The horror work that Schweblin does here is incredible. It's not overwhelming, but there is something dark always there, so I can't quite describe it as subtle, though it does feel like it's not the focus. It's these individual details that are juuust dark enough to be creepy: not being able to fall asleep because the room is too big, the echo of a child's voice being deeper than the original, talking in the plural as a joke which is then repeated to the point of eeriness. I am still not entirely sure what happened, especially with the ending. I feel like I need to read it again for that. The urgency in this is amazing, and part of why I liked this so much. I'm still not sure the purpose of David's voice, not entirely, but it was his presence that was part of that rushed feeling. I got 40 pages in, and after that, could not put it down. I will note that part of the weakness of the story was that it was in dialogue form. It's not that it was a bad idea, but it was lazy in parts. Overall, it was a super fast, super compelling read.

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.