Reviews

I have great admiration for this book and glad I read it. The prose is spectacular - so intricate with layers upon layers of nuance. It'd be impossible to read this without falling in love with a few passages on the meaning of life and human relationships.

However, that intricacy made this a really hard read for me. There are sentences within sentences within sentences. I lost count of the number of times I had to reread sentences to decipher their meaning. As an example the idea "aren't things spoiled by saying them" is written "aren't things spoiled then, Mrs Ramsey may have asked (it seemed to have happened often this silence by her side) by saying them?". There's obviously way more depth and context to the latter but by God its not a casual read.

For a shortish book, it took me a long time to finish. An admirable book but one that needs to be read in the right conditions. In hindsight, I wish Id read this when I had a week off and could read big chunks during the day. Didn't lend itself well to reading before bed and made it a bit of a slog

mosacreman's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

It’s a classic with some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read. Definitely would take like 4-5 reads to understand it completely with all it’s elegant simplicity.

lois_bozilovic's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring 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? Yes

4.0

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