giselav's review against another edition
2.0
Such a frustrating read. This book has almost no plot to speak of. You could honestly sum everything that happened in detail in less than a page.
Most of the book is composed with vague, poetic sentences that are very beautiful, yes, but give you absolutely no information whatsoever. I don't mean a couple of beautiful sentences every now and then, but this book is nothing but vague meaningless statement after vague meaningless statement. It goes nowhere! It's so slow as well and the story isn't even that interesting.
It doesn't help that the characters all have different ideas on what's happening but you're not actually sure what is real and what isn't at any point in time. I'm pretty sure that's what Couto intended, but added to everything else it just made for an even more annoying read.
The only mildly exciting part was near the end, but it soon went back to the same sort of vague-ing and bullshitting about. Goddamn. I had to force myself to finish this book the whole time.
Most of the book is composed with vague, poetic sentences that are very beautiful, yes, but give you absolutely no information whatsoever. I don't mean a couple of beautiful sentences every now and then, but this book is nothing but vague meaningless statement after vague meaningless statement. It goes nowhere! It's so slow as well and the story isn't even that interesting.
It doesn't help that the characters all have different ideas on what's happening but you're not actually sure what is real and what isn't at any point in time. I'm pretty sure that's what Couto intended, but added to everything else it just made for an even more annoying read.
The only mildly exciting part was near the end, but it soon went back to the same sort of vague-ing and bullshitting about. Goddamn. I had to force myself to finish this book the whole time.
mel16's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.25
itsme28's review against another edition
- 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
4.25
jeezjane's review against another edition
1.0
- 1.5/5
- this sounds evil of me but i was very excited to give this book one star. i would have actually abandoned it mid-way through because i was having a horrible time with it, but the thought of being able to complete it and being able to legitimately rate it one star pushed me forward.
- then i had to amend my rating to 1.5 star because it was so bad that i still completed the book? that deserves some credit
- anyway imo it was pretty bad
- these lions are terrorizing a tiny village called kulumani, that is still recovering from a past war. women are treated like shit here, and everyone has a shit life. a hunter is hired to get rid of the lions, and the book switches between his pov and the pov of a woman, mariamar, whose sister died from a lionness attack, and who had a past encounter with the hunter in which she fell in love with him(??)
- i found it so grueling to get through. purple prose, non sequitors everywhere, unclear timeliness (some of it probably purposefully done, but i refuse to believe all of it was on purpose, b/c... why would you make it this confusing on purpose), superficial descriptions of the setting but very little detail to allow the reader to actually understand fully what's going on, and for all that, some pointless bits of info are repeated over and over again, with slightly different wording
- there is a mystery rooted in supernatural elements that is never explained. there is personal history and angst that is "resolved" in truly unsatisfactory ways. there is no real character development. on the whole, the writing makes it read like some fever dream, or someone writing their dreams after waking up: it almost makes sense if you just barely think about it, but if you push just a little, it makes... no sense... and i do get that the genre of the book is magic realism, but it really didn't work for me because even the "real life" of the hunter was not really written that well. the author can write some beautiful non-sequitors but the sheer volume of them and lack of focus on the outside world made it seem that much of the hunter's diaries or the girl's introspection/thoughts are just filler to show off those non-sequitors. there is a plot (trying to kill the lions), but i thought the focus was weak/hazy, easily distracted, almost like the story itself needed a pair of glasses.
- did not enjoy it!!! sorry!!!!
- this sounds evil of me but i was very excited to give this book one star. i would have actually abandoned it mid-way through because i was having a horrible time with it, but the thought of being able to complete it and being able to legitimately rate it one star pushed me forward.
- then i had to amend my rating to 1.5 star because it was so bad that i still completed the book? that deserves some credit
- anyway imo it was pretty bad
- these lions are terrorizing a tiny village called kulumani, that is still recovering from a past war. women are treated like shit here, and everyone has a shit life. a hunter is hired to get rid of the lions, and the book switches between his pov and the pov of a woman, mariamar, whose sister died from a lionness attack, and who had a past encounter with the hunter in which she fell in love with him(??)
- i found it so grueling to get through. purple prose, non sequitors everywhere, unclear timeliness (some of it probably purposefully done, but i refuse to believe all of it was on purpose, b/c... why would you make it this confusing on purpose), superficial descriptions of the setting but very little detail to allow the reader to actually understand fully what's going on, and for all that, some pointless bits of info are repeated over and over again, with slightly different wording
- there is a mystery rooted in supernatural elements that is never explained. there is personal history and angst that is "resolved" in truly unsatisfactory ways. there is no real character development. on the whole, the writing makes it read like some fever dream, or someone writing their dreams after waking up: it almost makes sense if you just barely think about it, but if you push just a little, it makes... no sense... and i do get that the genre of the book is magic realism, but it really didn't work for me because even the "real life" of the hunter was not really written that well. the author can write some beautiful non-sequitors but the sheer volume of them and lack of focus on the outside world made it seem that much of the hunter's diaries or the girl's introspection/thoughts are just filler to show off those non-sequitors. there is a plot (trying to kill the lions), but i thought the focus was weak/hazy, easily distracted, almost like the story itself needed a pair of glasses.
- did not enjoy it!!! sorry!!!!
madelena_n's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Fatphobia, Pedophilia, and Sexual violence
Minor: Colonisation
alicew's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
rouge_red's review against another edition
dark
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
This book is about shitty guys and the women/girls (sometimes also men)who patiently endure them. The book was really intriguing in the different ways we deal with trauma- it's mostly perpetrated by men (a lot times by fathers) and the effect that has on the various women in the story. It's interesting to see how women are portrayed- as subservient, forbidden to enter certain spaces (much less seen during important events), as something to be "taken", etc. It's no wonder Kulumani is spoken of as a terrible place separate from the world full of no one and how that relates to the women who are killed. Because why not if the women were no longer alive or happy? So many times I wanted an actual lioness to bust in the room and carry away a useless man in her jaws. The resolution isn't exactly happy, but we see at least one woman, Mariamar, who is able to escape the cycle of abuse.
somojones's review against another edition
3.0
Confusing full of mystical beliefs. Everyone confesses to being a lion or lioness. I didn't get the meaning of that. At the end when Mariamar emerges for Archie to take with him she is described as a young girl. In an earlier part of the book she's 32 not a young girl, very confusing. I guess the diary contained confessions of a 32 year old Mariamar where as she's really just a young child.
_jmperfeito_'s review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0