kirstenellang's review against another edition
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley, Clare Pollard and Penguin for this advanced read - big old kiss to you all <333
This book felt like a unique take on the covid-19 pandemic ! That is a good thing and being on netGalley I have actually somehow managed to read quite a few books about the pandemic surprisingly. So before the bookshops start getting overloaded by them I would like to shout this one out as special!
The narrator is a classics professor who is obsessed with prophecy and telling the future, and when everyone else is going through phases of Bridgerton, sour dough and banana bread she is obsessed with different ways of reading the future/ the current whether its Twitter, Nostradamus, tarot or a whole host of other predictors. I really liked how Delphi captured the mundanity of every day life especially in the weird between lockdown spaces.
It is a very middle class perspective on the pandemic which, depending on your experience during the lockdowns can be a bit off putting (as someone who worked retail and cried over anti maskers the week or two before Christmas and genuinely saw some of the worst bits of the public's reaction I got pretty pissed off at certain bits where the narrator was complaining about queuing lol) I definitely would check in with yourself before hand that you are ready to read a book about the lockdowns. Its quite triggering at times and deals with a lot of the mental health issues that people suffered from.
My favourite things were the little classics lessons I got along the way - very entertaining and a good way to cut up the book !
3.5 Stars but rounding up to 4 because I am nice like that <3
This book felt like a unique take on the covid-19 pandemic ! That is a good thing and being on netGalley I have actually somehow managed to read quite a few books about the pandemic surprisingly. So before the bookshops start getting overloaded by them I would like to shout this one out as special!
The narrator is a classics professor who is obsessed with prophecy and telling the future, and when everyone else is going through phases of Bridgerton, sour dough and banana bread she is obsessed with different ways of reading the future/ the current whether its Twitter, Nostradamus, tarot or a whole host of other predictors. I really liked how Delphi captured the mundanity of every day life especially in the weird between lockdown spaces.
It is a very middle class perspective on the pandemic which, depending on your experience during the lockdowns can be a bit off putting (as someone who worked retail and cried over anti maskers the week or two before Christmas and genuinely saw some of the worst bits of the public's reaction I got pretty pissed off at certain bits where the narrator was complaining about queuing lol) I definitely would check in with yourself before hand that you are ready to read a book about the lockdowns. Its quite triggering at times and deals with a lot of the mental health issues that people suffered from.
My favourite things were the little classics lessons I got along the way - very entertaining and a good way to cut up the book !
3.5 Stars but rounding up to 4 because I am nice like that <3
ilseoo's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
laviskrg's review against another edition
2.0
MediocreLibroModernoMancy - the prophecy based on reading too many mediocre books and the urge to go back to the hundreds waiting in my shelf, published before such cancers as woke, nonbinary, TrumpDerrangementSyndrome, they/them, leftarded pro-mask, pro-vax, anti-human mentality.
This must be one the most bizarre emotions I have ever experienced while reading a book. On the one hand, I absolutely adored the way in which it was structured, the elements from Greek Mythology and philosophy.
On the other hand, it is the most accurate depiction of the type of human / family I despise most in this day and age: the family aspiring to be woke, the family making it a staple of their existence to hate Trump and Johnson, the family obsessed with the common cold, shots and masks but actually the family that has long ceased to love each other because actually they are a bunch of pathetic loser cowards composed of:
- a boring wife who ends up cheating with whatever that was
- an alcoholic loser of a man who gets fatter, drunker, more annoying and more useless in the house with every passing day
- a very realistic kid who is the true victim of all of this, a child who is witness to the psychological abuse happening between his parents and the grotesque enslaving of the entire human population by governments who decided to play a game around a bullshit virus
Look in the eyes of kids who wasted 2 years of their lives in zoom meetings and you will see the depth of madness unless, of course, you are of the opinion that it was THE RIGHT THING TO DO and you are of the ilk who look at your kids and see them as sources of disease and risk factors.
I loved how irrelevant it was when the narrator got the coof. Her useless husband gave zero shits, she suffered on the couch alone. It sounded like wonderful vengeance after having had nothing but shameless quips of "why are those people approaching me?" Those who live alone shall suffer and die alone.
No, it is not normal to assume or even say, let alone publish that those who voted for Trump are all racists. In my opinion, it should be illegal to name people racists, fascists or nazis, words that have literally lost all meaning, despite having precise definitions, despite being defined by history itself. It should be slander and legally reprehensible and used only as a result of specific actions and manifestations (like I don't know, killing a minority because they are a minority), not cos you don't like the political choice of 50% of a huge nation.
No, it is not normal to not visit your family and loved ones. Loneliness and lockdowns killed more than covid. Oh, but that study just came out a few weeks ago, got it.
Overall this book really has very little to offer. Had it just been the lockdown experience of a typical family during covid bla bla, it would have been ok. A book is allowed to depict things differently than my own personal beliefs. But when you fill it to the brink with Trump, Johnson, hate for normalcy, fearmongering, politicking, they/them used grammatically incorrectly, BLM for some reason and oh, how could I forget, the obsession with climate change, it literally smells of ticking all of the woke boxes which are murdering all forms of media. Hollywood is reaping its consequences and so is Disney and hundreds of corporations, but sure, publishers, go ahead and fill the libraries with political propaganda, I am sure it will never backfire.
This must be one the most bizarre emotions I have ever experienced while reading a book. On the one hand, I absolutely adored the way in which it was structured, the elements from Greek Mythology and philosophy.
On the other hand, it is the most accurate depiction of the type of human / family I despise most in this day and age: the family aspiring to be woke, the family making it a staple of their existence to hate Trump and Johnson, the family obsessed with the common cold, shots and masks but actually the family that has long ceased to love each other because actually they are a bunch of pathetic loser cowards composed of:
- a boring wife who ends up cheating with whatever that was
- an alcoholic loser of a man who gets fatter, drunker, more annoying and more useless in the house with every passing day
- a very realistic kid who is the true victim of all of this, a child who is witness to the psychological abuse happening between his parents and the grotesque enslaving of the entire human population by governments who decided to play a game around a bullshit virus
Look in the eyes of kids who wasted 2 years of their lives in zoom meetings and you will see the depth of madness unless, of course, you are of the opinion that it was THE RIGHT THING TO DO and you are of the ilk who look at your kids and see them as sources of disease and risk factors.
I loved how irrelevant it was when the narrator got the coof. Her useless husband gave zero shits, she suffered on the couch alone. It sounded like wonderful vengeance after having had nothing but shameless quips of "why are those people approaching me?" Those who live alone shall suffer and die alone.
No, it is not normal to assume or even say, let alone publish that those who voted for Trump are all racists. In my opinion, it should be illegal to name people racists, fascists or nazis, words that have literally lost all meaning, despite having precise definitions, despite being defined by history itself. It should be slander and legally reprehensible and used only as a result of specific actions and manifestations (like I don't know, killing a minority because they are a minority), not cos you don't like the political choice of 50% of a huge nation.
No, it is not normal to not visit your family and loved ones. Loneliness and lockdowns killed more than covid. Oh, but that study just came out a few weeks ago, got it.
Overall this book really has very little to offer. Had it just been the lockdown experience of a typical family during covid bla bla, it would have been ok. A book is allowed to depict things differently than my own personal beliefs. But when you fill it to the brink with Trump, Johnson, hate for normalcy, fearmongering, politicking, they/them used grammatically incorrectly, BLM for some reason and oh, how could I forget, the obsession with climate change, it literally smells of ticking all of the woke boxes which are murdering all forms of media. Hollywood is reaping its consequences and so is Disney and hundreds of corporations, but sure, publishers, go ahead and fill the libraries with political propaganda, I am sure it will never backfire.
book_worm23's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
gloomyboygirl's review against another edition
DNF @ 30%
The first 20 pages were AMAZING but then I started to read the cynical recounting of lockdown as told by any cis white woman with a subscription to The New Yorker. Yeah yeah you're not allowed to think about the privileged man yeah yeah your coworker is nonbinary and that's craaaazy. I imagine (hope) that it's meant to be a critique of the way privileged America reacted to COVID era and the associated social movements through the lens of guilt and curiosity but I don't actually know for certain that's the intent. And the unique way of retelling through her research and recounting of forms of divination dropped off REAL quick.
The first 20 pages were AMAZING but then I started to read the cynical recounting of lockdown as told by any cis white woman with a subscription to The New Yorker. Yeah yeah you're not allowed to think about the privileged man yeah yeah your coworker is nonbinary and that's craaaazy. I imagine (hope) that it's meant to be a critique of the way privileged America reacted to COVID era and the associated social movements through the lens of guilt and curiosity but I don't actually know for certain that's the intent. And the unique way of retelling through her research and recounting of forms of divination dropped off REAL quick.
laila_oula's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
em8297's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
sophiepooper's review against another edition
dark
informative
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt