Reviews

The Intangible by C.J. Washington

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d_youngggg's review

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Spoiler

While there are more spurts of sadness, it’s truly a beautiful book with a …. Happy ending!

nbub123's review

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4.0

Kindle First Read.

Wow. I've never read anything like this book. It was one big metaphor in what felt like different dimensions. It was dark, psychological, and twisty. Some parts were dragged out a bit like during one of Marissa's perspectives, she had a monologue about consciousness that I will never understand no matter how many times I read it over.

I'm impressed with the amount of research writing this book probably took for the author. I didn't really like the time stamps and the going back and forth especially toward the end, it made the climax a bit confusing but nonetheless points for this book being different and enjoyable.

maclement's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense 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

2.0

belen394's review

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emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

encounterswiththemoon's review against another edition

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5.0

Spoiler

It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on parental neglect, parental abandonment, substance abuse, physical abuse, domestic violence, infant mortality, pseudocyesis, & others.

When Plato first introduced the philosophical concept to be known as "The Dualism of Man" I wonder if he fathomed a realm of reality in which his questioning regarding the everlasting span of one’s immaterial spirit, might lead to the lives we have lost, in between the one we lead, to find each other in the pages of a book. I wonder if he knew to understand or include the possibility of grief & physical losses experienced in the material, physical form, in his philosophizing.

This book is breathtakingly fascinating. We are introduced to two (2) romantic couples & their struggles with their state of consciousness compared to their perceptions of the world around them. Amanda & Derrick have been married, they have a house which they bought under the notion that it would be filled with the children they would share, they work in high-achieving fields & they appear totally & completely incompatible. In this couple we see two people who never communicate; every conversation they share is hollow & I found it genuinely frustrating to make my way through their chapters because I didn’t like Amanda.

I struggle through literature that puts a liar in the forefront of the plot because I find it difficult to pace myself through a premise that is led by the inability or the voluntary choice of said character to evade the truth. We are, from the jump, meant to feel some level of sympathy towards Amanda. She is dealing with the diagnosis of Pseudocyesis (phantom pregnancy) & holds her ‘inability’ to conceive a child with her husband as being her own fault. However, we are then led through mazes of Amanda’s willful decisions to lie to Derrick, to withhold feelings & thought processes from her husband who is, for all intents & purposes, pursuing the same goal of biological childbirth, alongside her.

I acknowledge that the purpose of frustration felt towards Amanda’s character was most probably intended. Amanda is not one-dimensional. In fact, none of the characters in this book, primary or otherwise, are; every character explored throughout this story held a deeply established dimensionality to them. It was easy to feel that the story being told was true. I must admit that being able to create such well-rounded, profound beings in this fictional world was a great feat. We read about so many different characters, perspectives & inputs that it would be easy to confuse some of their voices. However, this never happens, not once.

Washington is able to bring all of the characters to life. He gives them voices & personalities that fit within the realm in which they exist as well as within the domain in which I do; the reality in which I sit & read a story about a person who experiences things that I have not & in which I seek to respect the differences in our beings, however frustrating that might be.

We also have Patrick & Marissa; academics who dip their toes in the world of those simply seeking to smell the roses & not reinvent mathematics. This couple is profoundly connected by trauma & the innate ability of those who live through life-altering circumstances as young people, to find themselves in the company of similar folks without ever really speaking their truth into reality. As much as it pained me to read the perspectives that were granted by these two, I appreciated it the most. I shan’t go into details as to why I found their insights comforting; as one who reads a familiar scene play out far from reach. However, I will say that the relationships that Marissa & Patrick held with each other & those around them, felt incredibly authentic to me.

Having these two people who were highly intellectual, reveal through dissociated, third-party dialogue, the events which transpired felt refreshing. I was glad to read about people seeking to achieve good things not because of what happened to them but simply because they could/wanted to. It never felt as though Washington was seeking to reinforce the age-old adage that is often told trauma made you who you are—these characters were who they were because that is who they are. I was glad to not read about trauma being credited for the absurd level of success these individuals achieved.

I think what I appreciated the most out of any of the aspects of this story was what it asked of me. I recognized aspects of myself & people around me in the actions of certain characters & within their rationalizations. Therefore, would I have sought to recreate the love I had with my first family dog, had I been given a chance or do I seek to inundate our future pets with the love that I was permitted to have grown within a heart, which I carry with me until I meet my end? I had chosen the latter prior to reading this book & this is but one example of how I was encouraged to question what some might approach as a mundane facet of life; loss.

The experience of grief, most specifically the loss of love, is an incredibly complex emotion, event & experience. Washington meticulously crafted individual people who found themselves coupled; romantically, with familial relations, & within friendships, & he determined to ensure that the loss that was described throughout this book might touch every single reader. One might not have experienced the loss of a child carried within one’s own body, but one has certainly lost someone who was loved.

One might not have lost a family pet that granted that person the security of unconditional love but, one most certainly has felt insecure in their place within the emotional world. I would encourage many & all people to read this book if they can. I acknowledge that the trigger warnings I listed above might prevent some people from advancing with their reading experience & that is okay. However, I applaud this book for bringing into focus the multitude of ways in which we experience loss in our lives.

I cannot help but feel for Marissa. Her quest to seek the comfort of the consciousness of someone she has known, lost in a reality that she no longer inhabits, is both overwhelming & debilitating. How can one be expected to go on when one has lost so much; what is left when we subtract from the sum total of all our parts? I will certainly find myself reading this book again. The themes posed within the plot highlight very important philosophical questions & I do not think that reading it one time will satiate my need to explore the answers that I gathered from this first consumption.

As well, I cannot say that the way in which this book was written intended for the book to be read but once. Reading about a woman who is struggling with phantom pregnancy requires its own single read, as does reading about a husband who drugs his pregnant wife & a man who humours his brother in all things serious, & so does the woman who loses her mind to rationality in a void of grief. Every aspect of this story deserves its own lens, & its own time to blossom within the story; this is a book I will keenly revisit throughout my life.

I find myself humbled after reading this book. It is one thing to see yourself reflected in the words of a stranger but, it is another to wonder what the people who find reflection differing from your own might feel. This was a sad story & I’m glad to have read it.

Thank you to NetGalley, Little A, & C.J. Washington for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

aguaa's review

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4.0

loved it!! the drama,,, the mystery,, the Shocking Revelations,,,,,,,
also meredith is the BEST

"she liked to believe that math existed in the universe, independent of discovery by her or any other mathematician. but if so, what were they discovering? truth. that was the simple answer. but that truth had to be packaged in language. and that language was mathematics. and when the math came, she felt as if she were scooping it from unvisitable regions of the cosmos, like water from the sea. she could drink and drink and never be sated. the magic was in the intangibility of it. the magic, patrick would say, is in the unconscious processing. you are your brain, and yet, so much of what it does happens beyond your awareness. it does its work unbeknownst to you and then passes you the fruits of its labor. that's magic."
"his own memory of the eclipse had been darkened by disillusionment. the celestial display had triggered something akin to a spiritual experience in him. for a moment, he'd believed that marissa's goals transcended the bargaining of grief. he would be exercising his own form of denial to believe that the sight of the eclipse had gifted him with insight. spirituality, he knew, was mediated by the temporal lobe. no divinity required. epilepsy could lead to hallucinations that were experienced as holy."

librarystan4lyfe's review

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2.0

This read dragged for me. I grabbed it by chance at the library after picking it up and reading the first few chapters. I was intrigued at first, but it kind-of lost its way somewhere in the middle. I couldn't tell what the book wanted to be. A twisty mystery? An intellectual exercise?

That was part of the problem for me - I ended up skipping whole pages toward the end with all the math theory talk. The book had already strongly established that Marissa was a brilliant eccentric, and it felt like those pieces were trying to hit me over the head with: SHE IS A BRILLIANT ECCENTRIC. And then at the end she just sort-of....snaps out of it? A heavy lift.

There were some really solid things about this book, but I wouldn't recommend it and I certainly wouldn't re-read it.