Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The Burnout by Sophie Kinsella

2 reviews

rebecca321's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted relaxing slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Not the best, not the worst, but ultimately not for me.

Note: vague spoilers ahead.

I'm gonna be very honest. There aren't many things I enjoyed about this book. At first I thought that I might grow to enjoy it, or at least be fine with playing the audiobook in the background while doing laundry. In the end I was counting the minutes until it was over. Let me explain.

The humour was not for me. Like, not at all. There’s slap-stick comedy, fart jokes, and a lot of stuff at other people’s expense that I just couldn’t laugh at. I think I laughed one time and I don’t even remember at what.

The language in general kept pulling me out. The protagonist is supposedly 33 but the entire time I felt like this was my 50-something year old mum talking at me, using words that I’ve only ever heard 50+ people use. Which isn’t great when the narrator keeps rambling about genitals.

The guy is fine. He’s okay. He’s a guy.

The other characters, however, were so, so much worse. I’ve never seen such annoying people. Boundaries don’t exist. Random strangers are divulging their lacklustre sex life. The staff at the hotel is so pushy about the main couple’s potential romance it feels like they’re breaking a law. But nothing shocked be like the protagonist’s utter entitlement when it came to personal information about the love interest. He kept private information about himself private and she goes ahead and pries it out of his coworker and stalks some random person online to get more info. There’s a lot of stalking in general. The guy wasn’t even angry when he found out the protagonist had gone behind his back to dig into his past and unearth hurtful events, which she ended the relationship over without telling him. The protagonist never faced any consequences for the truly wild shit she pulls on so many of the other people. Instead, she gets rewarded and praised every step she takes. I don’t know why she ended up being literally applauded on so many stages that she had no business being on. Her ex-boss hunts her down because her feedback on the company was so wonderful that he needs to rehire her, and promote her, and take her unbelievably inappropriate advice about firing his own brother. She keeps lying to the entire hotel staff about her diet, causing enormous stress and effort for them, and they never find out. Other people’s distress is generally played for laughs, or to “inspire” the protagonist to “seize the moment” and “live her life”. This was pure insanity. The guy deserved so much better. I hope he realises that in therapy. I’m honestly still shocked. What the hell.

The breakup was painful. It wasn’t even a misunderstanding, it was pure stupidity, and when the couple reconciles and the guy finds out the reason for his six months or agony (the time between her ending things and her changing her mind), he’s like “okay cool”. I would have screamed had I not been dead inside at that point.

I appreciate the mention of burnout and therapy, which turned out to be handled moderately well. That’s honestly the entire two stars for me. 

What I didn’t appreciate was the relentless insistence that PEOPLE NEED TO HAVE SEX. The allonormativity was seriously painful at times, including gems like “finally, I’m normal again” when the protagonist regains her libido after years of stress. And I get it, she was probably used to having a libido??? I guess??? But honestly, there are other ways to phrase this stuff. The best part of this is that, when the couple finally ends up having sex, after a lot of unnecessary stalling, we see none of it. Nothing. We do, however, have multiple strangers witnessing the morning-after situation, just so the protagonist could show off that she’s finally one of the normal people again. Having sex. So happy for her.

I think there was more and I just finished two minutes ago and immediately started writing this but I remember bits and flashes of the book like a fever dream and can’t put any of it into words. There was a lot about surfing. And a nun. And a weird mystery that ended up being two mysteries that I kept forgetting existed. I think this is my brain protecting me so I’ll leave it at this.

I like to think I learned something from this. Like, not to trust free audiobooks.
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thebookishowl4's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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