motleybooksandtea's review
challenging
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Grief, Body shaming, Cancer, Drug abuse, Medical content, Addiction, and Mental illness
Moderate: Chronic illness, Pregnancy, Infidelity, and Abortion
Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death
renreads2much's review
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
julipetric's review
dark
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
bookteastic's review against another edition
1.0
Probably wasn't for me, because I didn't get the point of it.
300 pages about a rich girl "sleeping" for a whole year because she is sad while being the worst person ever. Okay, you might think, nice begining, seems interesting, what's next?
Nothing. NOTHING. THAT'S IT. THAT'S THE WHOLE BOOK. THERE IS NO DEVELOPMENT BEYOND THESE FACTS.
I understand that it's supposed to embody a deep meaning about trauma, depression, family issues, wanting to disappear because you feel bad in your own skin blablabla, but come on, you can tell me it was well done. Look at me in the eyes and tell me this book was good. Because I won't believe you. It was repetitive, boring, and incredibly problematic because??? girl??? I'm sorry but no. And don't come at me like "you don't get it, it's the point of the book, she's a bad person, she's supposed to be like that because-" no, shut up, I don't want to hear it and I don't care.
I'm rarely that bitter in a review but istg this kind of books makes me want to slap someone in the face, but for legal reasons, I can't, so deal with this instead
300 pages about a rich girl "sleeping" for a whole year because she is sad while being the worst person ever. Okay, you might think, nice begining, seems interesting, what's next?
Nothing. NOTHING. THAT'S IT. THAT'S THE WHOLE BOOK. THERE IS NO DEVELOPMENT BEYOND THESE FACTS.
I understand that it's supposed to embody a deep meaning about trauma, depression, family issues, wanting to disappear because you feel bad in your own skin blablabla, but come on, you can tell me it was well done. Look at me in the eyes and tell me this book was good. Because I won't believe you. It was repetitive, boring, and incredibly problematic because??? girl??? I'm sorry but no. And don't come at me like "you don't get it, it's the point of the book, she's a bad person, she's supposed to be like that because-" no, shut up, I don't want to hear it and I don't care.
I'm rarely that bitter in a review but istg this kind of books makes me want to slap someone in the face, but for legal reasons, I can't, so deal with this instead
madisonkaserer's review
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
potatq's review
4.0
Rating it 3 stars instead of 2 because of Reva and agreeing to an extent on how depression was depicted.
Edit after a few months: I often find myself thinking about this book. I didn’t particularly like it and I remember hating the main character with a burning passion, but the concept of it is still so intriguing to me because that was exactly the point. The character is supposed to be unlikeable. She was written that way to depict how depression is not how people romanticize it to be. You can become a horrible person and project your self-hatred to people who care the most about you. The lethargy, the exhaustion, the emptiness. It’s all so accurately woven into the story.
Depression is not crying your eyes out 24/7. It’s being so empty inside that you literally cannot give a fuck about anything anymore and sure, that can translate into you being a shitty person. Of course it’s not an excuse to treat people horribly, but sometimes that internal hatred mixed with insecurities is expressed externally; those closest to you are often the ones to receive the hits. It doesn’t make you any less shit of a person though - which our MC definitely is. But it’s also true that depression heavily affects our ability to form relationships with other people.
Whenever I am in depressive episodes, I think back to this book and how accurately it portrayed just wanting to sleep through life - not caring about anything anymore - so I’ll give credit to the book for that.
Having more time to reflect on this, I really appreciated how unique the perspective is. It’s rare to see a main character completely succumb to nihilism. This still remains a 3 stars for me, maybe a 3.5 at most, since I definitely do feel that the author had so much more to explore with such a unique concept. I wish she had dug deeper and provided us with a more satisfactory conclusion.
That being said, I would still recommend this. It definitely takes a bit of time to appreciate it since at initial finishing of the book, I hated it. But this book is the kind that stays for a while for you to think back on, to reflect further - at least for me.
Edit again before 2022 ends: This book has stuck with me. I keep thinking about this book without meaning to. It’s so rare for me to think so much of a book that isn’t a 5 star read to this degree. Maybe life has just got me down in the dumps, but the main plot in this book sure seems like a genius idea to me right now. I think it says a lot about a book to be able to have this much impact that it keeps creeping up its way in my thoughts . So for that, I change my rating to 4 stars.
Edit after a few months: I often find myself thinking about this book. I didn’t particularly like it and I remember hating the main character with a burning passion, but the concept of it is still so intriguing to me because that was exactly the point. The character is supposed to be unlikeable. She was written that way to depict how depression is not how people romanticize it to be. You can become a horrible person and project your self-hatred to people who care the most about you. The lethargy, the exhaustion, the emptiness. It’s all so accurately woven into the story.
Depression is not crying your eyes out 24/7. It’s being so empty inside that you literally cannot give a fuck about anything anymore and sure, that can translate into you being a shitty person. Of course it’s not an excuse to treat people horribly, but sometimes that internal hatred mixed with insecurities is expressed externally; those closest to you are often the ones to receive the hits. It doesn’t make you any less shit of a person though - which our MC definitely is. But it’s also true that depression heavily affects our ability to form relationships with other people.
Whenever I am in depressive episodes, I think back to this book and how accurately it portrayed just wanting to sleep through life - not caring about anything anymore - so I’ll give credit to the book for that.
Having more time to reflect on this, I really appreciated how unique the perspective is. It’s rare to see a main character completely succumb to nihilism. This still remains a 3 stars for me, maybe a 3.5 at most, since I definitely do feel that the author had so much more to explore with such a unique concept. I wish she had dug deeper and provided us with a more satisfactory conclusion.
That being said, I would still recommend this. It definitely takes a bit of time to appreciate it since at initial finishing of the book, I hated it. But this book is the kind that stays for a while for you to think back on, to reflect further - at least for me.
Edit again before 2022 ends: This book has stuck with me. I keep thinking about this book without meaning to. It’s so rare for me to think so much of a book that isn’t a 5 star read to this degree. Maybe life has just got me down in the dumps, but the main plot in this book sure seems like a genius idea to me right now. I think it says a lot about a book to be able to have this much impact that it keeps creeping up its way in my thoughts . So for that, I change my rating to 4 stars.
cnxnoname's review
2.0
Oh yes, another novel about the peace of mind that only privileged white women can buy. Like can you imagine being able to disconnect and sleep for a year and not fall into homelessness and poverty? The fuck!?
Okay on a different, more real, tip... this novel was a unique look into how the privileged get to deal with grief, developing expensive or free (if you have a well-connected doctor) drug habits and just lying-your-way/falling into a pattern of unhealthy coping mechanisms.
The underlying story of growing up in a world where you are not enveloped into a warm, loving family and yet feeling some pretty complex emotions as that family dies off, is the real story that bubbles up our compassion towards the main character. The depression and grief in this story from that perspective is an understandable and undeniable focal point.
The juxtapositions of beauty, thinness and blondeness and being able to do whatever you want in society - even the privilege of demanding privacy while you go through these intense addictions - was just an over-the-top addition to the story that diminished its ability to drift into the profound realms this story could have existed in. Yes, it's all fiction and yes it can be a little or a lot absurd and it was, but the focus on vanity in the wake of grief made the story myopic and childish. I could see the author trying to believe she's being artistic, using the inclusion of vanity as a device to speak about "keeping up appearances" or people or friends only being concerned with the "outside" and how you look (to them) and not with how you feel on the inside and having the artist character (Ping Xi) in the novel capture that with his big head series could mean that.. the main character views his work as underwhelming - but the way the entire aspect of vanity is dealt with is the same. It loses the point in the context of how the book unravels.
Sidebar: I have a love/hate relationship with being "woke", the thing about being "woke" and being "awaken" in the world is that once you're up you can't pretend anymore, you cannot go back to sleep and the thing about reading is that the more I read, the more I cannot for the life of me separate the way we process stories, the stories that get published and get attention and recognition in relation to life. Now, maybe I need to chill out. I can't, but maybe I do. Whatever. However, in the midst of an opioid crisis and an opioid epidemic, prescription pill abuse being looked at in this way of oh, work - what work? maybe I can just sleep for a year... my parents are dead and now I have money and I don't have to worry about housing etc, etc. Like this book, out right now, in these times where none of the above is true in reality for most people, is just fucking stupid. It was a pointless read.
The thing that saves this book is that it takes place prior to 2001, prior to the great housing crisis in the US, during the ramping and amping up of this opioid epidemic. That was a great fact to add, a great element of writing on behalf of the author, even though it's a little cheap. It's something to distract from the vapid nature of the entire first like 85% of this book. From the main character's perspective it's like omg this huge thing happened in my city, the city of New York, where all these people died so now I'm not so alone in my grief and when I need to feel better, I can just watch this tragedy and relate. Like, okay girl, get the fuck out of here. That's the cheapest ending and take away, ever.
I was referred to this book by Canadaland, episode 226 in which host Jesse Brown, referred to this book as being somewhat "philosophical" - I didn't see it. I won't be taking book recommendations from Canadaland anymore, even if I love their podcast.
Okay on a different, more real, tip... this novel was a unique look into how the privileged get to deal with grief, developing expensive or free (if you have a well-connected doctor) drug habits and just lying-your-way/falling into a pattern of unhealthy coping mechanisms.
The underlying story of growing up in a world where you are not enveloped into a warm, loving family and yet feeling some pretty complex emotions as that family dies off, is the real story that bubbles up our compassion towards the main character. The depression and grief in this story from that perspective is an understandable and undeniable focal point.
The juxtapositions of beauty, thinness and blondeness and being able to do whatever you want in society - even the privilege of demanding privacy while you go through these intense addictions - was just an over-the-top addition to the story that diminished its ability to drift into the profound realms this story could have existed in. Yes, it's all fiction and yes it can be a little or a lot absurd and it was, but the focus on vanity in the wake of grief made the story myopic and childish. I could see the author trying to believe she's being artistic, using the inclusion of vanity as a device to speak about "keeping up appearances" or people or friends only being concerned with the "outside" and how you look (to them) and not with how you feel on the inside and having the artist character (Ping Xi) in the novel capture that with his big head series could mean that.. the main character views his work as underwhelming - but the way the entire aspect of vanity is dealt with is the same. It loses the point in the context of how the book unravels.
Sidebar: I have a love/hate relationship with being "woke", the thing about being "woke" and being "awaken" in the world is that once you're up you can't pretend anymore, you cannot go back to sleep and the thing about reading is that the more I read, the more I cannot for the life of me separate the way we process stories, the stories that get published and get attention and recognition in relation to life. Now, maybe I need to chill out. I can't, but maybe I do. Whatever. However, in the midst of an opioid crisis and an opioid epidemic, prescription pill abuse being looked at in this way of oh, work - what work? maybe I can just sleep for a year... my parents are dead and now I have money and I don't have to worry about housing etc, etc. Like this book, out right now, in these times where none of the above is true in reality for most people, is just fucking stupid. It was a pointless read.
The thing that saves this book is that it takes place prior to 2001, prior to the great housing crisis in the US, during the ramping and amping up of this opioid epidemic. That was a great fact to add, a great element of writing on behalf of the author, even though it's a little cheap. It's something to distract from the vapid nature of the entire first like 85% of this book. From the main character's perspective it's like omg this huge thing happened in my city, the city of New York, where all these people died so now I'm not so alone in my grief and when I need to feel better, I can just watch this tragedy and relate. Like, okay girl, get the fuck out of here. That's the cheapest ending and take away, ever.
I was referred to this book by Canadaland, episode 226 in which host Jesse Brown, referred to this book as being somewhat "philosophical" - I didn't see it. I won't be taking book recommendations from Canadaland anymore, even if I love their podcast.
sophieghenke's review
3.0
I read this book insanely fast because I loved how the author depicted things, but the ending was so abrupt I didn’t love it. Pretty repetitive but overall interesting to read- woman spends an entire year sleeping through life by taking sleeping drugs.
About depression, drug abuse, being a bad friend, etc.
About depression, drug abuse, being a bad friend, etc.
hachi_808's review against another edition
dark
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
betweenbookends's review against another edition
4.25
So bitingly caustic, darkly humourous, bleak, outlandish and completely original.