dixit's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
karitu3's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
dessa's review against another edition
4.0
Really fucking weird and pretty fucking good. Poetic and mythic, layered narratives like a palimpsest, an unreliable and perhaps deeply unlikeable narrator who nevertheless traverses her grief in an undeniably understandable way, except for the completely impenetrable secret or question that this grief carries: why, after the death of her beloved cousin, do people begin approaching Lucy and confessing their deepest secrets? This book reads like the love child of Mona Awad and Jeff Vandermeer and the entire poetry section of a university library.
smallwifery's review against another edition
3.0
much like Bunny, this was a very good book but not a book for me
meghan375's review against another edition
4.0
this was so weird but intriguing and the prose was amazing. it’s not dark academia but if you like that i feel like you would like this.
4.5 stars
4.5 stars
acidick's review against another edition
books for white women with phd’s in 14th century literature and a penchant for birkenstocks
stefan_'s review
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
sawyerbell's review against another edition
5.0
4.5 stars
"To beguile: To distract the attention of; divert; To amuse or charm; delight or fascinate."
Zsuzsi Gartner's novel is full of beguilement: distracting and amusing, fascinating and delightful. Reading it felt like looking through a kaleidoscope at the surreal world of Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" while riding a tilt-a-whirl. Quite often, I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but I knew I was enjoying the ride.
The story (as I understood it): Lucy, our protagonist, is overwhelmed with grief over the strange and untimely death of her beloved cousin. Abandoning husband and newborn, she moves to Vancouver and, while patching together a new life and trying to make sense of her past, begins to notice that strangers are compelled to confess their deepest, inky-black secrets to her. She becomes a sort of sin-eater, addicted to numbing her grief and shame through listening to others' tales of past misdeeds. One tale leads to the next, taking the reader on a sometimes dizzying quantum journey through space and time.
This skeletal summary sounds rather gloomy yet Gartner's novel pulses with life and laugh-out-loud humour. Her prose has a snap-crackle-pop to it that's all too rare, and her characters--especially Lucy--brim with life.
"To beguile: To distract the attention of; divert; To amuse or charm; delight or fascinate."
Zsuzsi Gartner's novel is full of beguilement: distracting and amusing, fascinating and delightful. Reading it felt like looking through a kaleidoscope at the surreal world of Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" while riding a tilt-a-whirl. Quite often, I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but I knew I was enjoying the ride.
The story (as I understood it): Lucy, our protagonist, is overwhelmed with grief over the strange and untimely death of her beloved cousin. Abandoning husband and newborn, she moves to Vancouver and, while patching together a new life and trying to make sense of her past, begins to notice that strangers are compelled to confess their deepest, inky-black secrets to her. She becomes a sort of sin-eater, addicted to numbing her grief and shame through listening to others' tales of past misdeeds. One tale leads to the next, taking the reader on a sometimes dizzying quantum journey through space and time.
This skeletal summary sounds rather gloomy yet Gartner's novel pulses with life and laugh-out-loud humour. Her prose has a snap-crackle-pop to it that's all too rare, and her characters--especially Lucy--brim with life.
elkcariboubiologist's review
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I used to know how to tell a story straight.
This was a statement made toward the end of the book by the narrator but I am pretty sure this is the sentiment of the author as well (knowingly or not).
In the reviews, there is a lot of 'I don't know what I just read...'. I'll add my name to that list. I picked this up because it was listed as a horror-comedy on a Reading Challenge I was doing. I don't know what this was, but it wasn't horror.
I think this is a book where you need to be in the right mood...a mood that lets you just go along for the ride with no expectations. And honestly I was in that mood for the first half of the book - the writing really is phenomenal and so it pulled me in. There is a beginning and an ending (which frankly, I do not think I understand) with a middle that is just a bunch of confessions that are basically like short stories -- that have no connection really to the narrator or to the 'plot' (I use that word loosely here). About the 50% mark, I wasn't in the mood for this book any more. I kept waiting for something to tie back to the event at the beginning of the book and chapter after chapter, it didn't happen. I admit to skimming a bit just to be done with the book toward the end.
I gave it 3 stars because the first half of the book had a definite pull and because of the writing.
Sadness is like pudding or a worn-down couch, soft and yielding and ultimately enervating. But anger: there is something magnificently liberating and alive about anger. It crackles and bends in the light. It provides a startling clarity of vision. Anger has its own terms and brooks no inattention. Distilled to its purest form it’s not unlike premium vodka, clean, clear, a shot right to the head.
Newborns would sever the umbilical cord themselves with their teeth if they had any and flee as fast as their rubbery little limbs would allow before letting themselves fall prey to the Stockholm syndrome that is childhood.
But these days the erasure of history, once the province of despots, is easily available to anyone with a Twitter account and a sense of outrage. The past is fair game all over the political spectrum, history in flux, as mutable as the future. The past a choose-your-own-adventure story.
This was a statement made toward the end of the book by the narrator but I am pretty sure this is the sentiment of the author as well (knowingly or not).
In the reviews, there is a lot of 'I don't know what I just read...'. I'll add my name to that list. I picked this up because it was listed as a horror-comedy on a Reading Challenge I was doing. I don't know what this was, but it wasn't horror.
I think this is a book where you need to be in the right mood...a mood that lets you just go along for the ride with no expectations. And honestly I was in that mood for the first half of the book - the writing really is phenomenal and so it pulled me in. There is a beginning and an ending (which frankly, I do not think I understand) with a middle that is just a bunch of confessions that are basically like short stories -- that have no connection really to the narrator or to the 'plot' (I use that word loosely here). About the 50% mark, I wasn't in the mood for this book any more. I kept waiting for something to tie back to the event at the beginning of the book and chapter after chapter, it didn't happen. I admit to skimming a bit just to be done with the book toward the end.
I gave it 3 stars because the first half of the book had a definite pull and because of the writing.
Sadness is like pudding or a worn-down couch, soft and yielding and ultimately enervating. But anger: there is something magnificently liberating and alive about anger. It crackles and bends in the light. It provides a startling clarity of vision. Anger has its own terms and brooks no inattention. Distilled to its purest form it’s not unlike premium vodka, clean, clear, a shot right to the head.
Newborns would sever the umbilical cord themselves with their teeth if they had any and flee as fast as their rubbery little limbs would allow before letting themselves fall prey to the Stockholm syndrome that is childhood.
But these days the erasure of history, once the province of despots, is easily available to anyone with a Twitter account and a sense of outrage. The past is fair game all over the political spectrum, history in flux, as mutable as the future. The past a choose-your-own-adventure story.