raesengele's Reviews (320)

Ugh this was GOOD!

I was truthfully expecting this to be more camp than noir which didn't help how I walked away from this book. There's a chance if I had come into it with different expectations I would have enjoyed it more. 

Though, truthfully, there were issues outside of that. The side characters were all pretty flat with traumas taking the place of actual personalities. Holiday never really figured anything out and the reveal was delivered through a villain monologue that didn't seem to fit with how the character had been portrayed up until that point. You know how in some mysteries it's hard to guess who it could be because everyone has a motive? It's the opposite in this book. No one really had a motive, or they were an obvious red herring.

There's also a plotline with the arson investigator that felt like it came out of nowhere. I skimmed back through the book to find one throw away line that hinted to what was to come, but that I promptly forgot, because it was one throw away line.

I really didn't like the biphobia that was littered throughout the narrative. The same issues between Holiday and her ex could have worked exactly the same without feeding into toxic stereotypes that have been used against bisexuals for ages. Since it's first person, I kept waiting for it to be revealed that it was somehow Holiday misinterpreting things or just being toxic, but alas her biphobia was proven right and the ex is just an awful person. 

ALL THAT SAID, I did really enjoy Douaihy's writing style. Even when the stream of consciousness got a little confusing, the writing was still lyrical and almost poetic at times. There were also obvious setups for a sequel and I am curious enough to give her a second chance. Maybe I just really REALLY want to read about a punk rock lesbian nun even if it isn't the campy fun that I want.

This book requires patience, but so did the Goldfinch (and I'm guessing by the length, but I haven't read it yet, A Little Friend), but much like the Goldfinch if you like languishing about while messed up rich kids ruin their lives, I'd absolutely recommend it. I can see why this has become THE Dark Academia book. It's beautifully written with a cynical wit and makes you (me, I mean me) want a do-over at college in a tiny New England town (though, let's be honest, I would never be accepted into this group, or even really want to be, if I'm being honest). There are a few moments of long exposition that I wish had been split up somehow, but I can understand plot wise why it wasn't.

I will say, the audiobook by HarperAudio, just like The Bell Jar, is recorded in the weirdest way I've ever experienced. They took out all the chapter headings making it one excruciatingly long recording. There are parts, but the parts aren't chapters and will end right in the middle of conversations or scenes that were clearly not supposed to be split up. If you don't have a weird glitch about stopping in the middle of chapters, you should be fine, but if, like myself, doing this short circuits your brain, just be prepared.

I have very mixed feelings about On the Road.

On the one hand, it was written in the 50s and you can tell. It is rampant with sexism and out of date derogatory language. Mexicans are either exoticized or outright fetishized. The noble savage is a constant theme. Dean's paedophilia that is never exactly enacted on but also not at all subtle is for some reason just continously glossed over by Sal. Though that might be because he has zero issues with sleeping with teenagers. On top of all that, Sal is so painfully, clearly in love with Dean, but in the way of someone who's so deeply closeted that even while he's insisting he's a heterosexual man who can't possibly be any kind of gay, he's also writing about the women he claims to love in the most passive, surface level way while writing about Dean and his other bros with so much detail that it borders on worship about how great and attractive and well endowed he is and I'm just sitting here going, "uh huh. Tell me again about how straight you think you are."

AT THE SAME TIME, I understand why this became a classic, especially with white men bored with their mundane lives. Kerouac does have a knack for description and he writes in the way of that charismatic guy at the party telling you about all his adventures and it makes you want to go on one yourself. It's also very much a love letter to the beatnik era and a reflection of wild, reckless youth ending in the quiet settling down that most people fall into. The way Sal and Dean part for the last time is a great depiction of the people who just fall in line with that settling and the people who are eaten up by it. Sal will clearly be ok as a settled 30-something, Dean will forever feel restrained by it.

I'm glad I read On the Road even with all its flaws. I won't say it's my favorite by any means, but I won't fault the people who do because in a way I get it.

Honestly, better than I was expecting

Greek retellings just are not for me. Until these authors start actually dissecting the stories or telling them as the horror stories that they are for women instead of just straight up retelling the story with nothing new to say, they feel like a waste of time to me. This would have been so much better as a pure psychological horror. I mean Cassandra is a woman who was assaulted by a god and, for rejecting him, was cursed to have the gift of visions but no one to believe her. That's horrific and Saint did barely anything with it. The entire story of these two families stuck in a battle of bloody vengeance is horrific, the family members dead and lost to this belief that it's what the gods want is horrific, but that barely felt touched on. I never fully understood why Elektra chose her father who murdered her own sister then disappeared to go fight a war over her mother who was there the whole time. Like, I understand why intellectually, but I don't understand WHY emotionally. Saint just tells us the story of these three women beat by beat, but never digs deep into the WHY of any of it. Why is Cassandra even included in this story? Because she's supposed there, but she's not allowed to actually DO anything. Everything just IS because that's how the Greeks said it was. But what's the point? Why are we here? Why are we retelling this story? Why are we giving voices to these women if we're not allowing them to even say anything?

Ugh this book is so gooooooooood 🖤🖤🖤