Reviews

The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor

peanut06's review

dark emotional lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

• 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

3.75

lottie1803's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• 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

3.5

claireguyatt's review

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

2.5

I disliked the characters so much, and it didn’t feel very purposeful on the part of the author. It’s hard to place why, but it felt like Taylor was deaf to his own voice, writing the MOST pretentious protagonist that then angers at the pretentiousness of everyone around him, or uses lines like “he wasn’t trying to be argumentative” as if giving insight, but in reality the character is simply being extremely argumentative? The people were so unlikable and it felt without point - just people being shitty to each other for no particular reason, and that went on and on and on. The end was better than the start but they were always at least a bit irritating with sparse moments of happiness or good. The writing itself was pretty good, with some metaphors that read a little silly to me, and one poing where Taylor confused masochism for sadism. But sometimes it was also pretty, not in content but in prose. 

seeceeread's review against another edition

Every creation was just a silly, slightly deformed, inward reflection.

@/ Jendella recently noted on Threads, "A lot of the black men's stories [Invisible Man x Ellison and Another Country x Baldwin] are often about the black male main character trying to establish himself in the world of whiteness. Collecting the markers of "manhood" in order to be respected."

Taylor's novel documents a new chapter in this culture's understanding of "adulting" (without that word, which I'm sure he would find base, tuh). In 'growing up,' one is simultaneously challenged to know one's purpose, to ascertain an inner, personal, individual drive – and – to compete and hone and arrive in a social cohort.

The work is almost disgustingly contemporary. I feel a little filthy being so ... seen. I am not, nor ever have been, a graduate student in a dance program aspiring (despite my decent grasp on reality and therefore the tenuousness of my dreams) to move to New York. Or a would-be poet schlepping my way through an MFA one brutal, sobbing seminar at a time, until I can cohere form and wrestle diction and finesse punctuation into more than a story about myself. I have never been a gay man boxed on all sides by Midwestern soy fields and lovers who hate the word "fag" so much they will hurt me for thinking it flippantly.

But I have been past the "usual" (literary? cultural? Boomer-assumed?) age of coming into myself, wondering if the path I've chosen will ever clear, sparkle, straighten, lead me. I've struggled to connect to the bright, well-meaning, supposedly similarly oriented small group to which I have been assigned, for which I was selected (over others, always proving merit and privileged access). I've dreaded the next scheduled activity while hating isolation. Craved clarity and blathered through my discomfort because that's what a "party" was, for a few years, there.

Taylor is a witness. A collector of the bruises and the damned. The never-recounted root causes and the brash posturing of the minimally self-reflective. He knows us, generations of USians mired in a shit economy and the perpetual taint of performative outrage. Those of us sure our wounds are big enough for private nursing, but too small to explain our [gesturing awkwardly, trying again, flailing now] ... "nevermind." We are, somehow, always arriving. He writes into embarrassment, splintering neediness, uncertainty.

silver_lining_in_a_book's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• 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

 

The stars, he thought, had been watching him his whole life. They'd seen the whole thing go on and on. Him and the rest of all the people who had ever lived and ever would. It was like living in a museum exhibit or a dollhouse. It was so easy to imagine the hands of some enormous and indifferent God prying the house open and squinting at them as they went about their lives on their circuits like little automatons in an exhibit called The Late Americans. A God with a Gorgon's head peering down in judgment. What were you supposed to do in the face of that? Turn to stone?

Brandon Taylor can never disappoint. I actually read this twice in a row because I was not sure how I felt after the first read through. I had to dive back into this gorgeous writing exploring the selfish thoughts of these thoroughly broken characters.

Yes, there were moments that were disgustingly vivid.
Yes, there were characters that infuriated me completely.
Yes, sometimes the plot felt non-existent.
But I loved it! It did not quite live up to the first two book I read by Taylor (Real Life and Filthy Animals), but I still found this to be a very interesting character study. 

jeanieweber35's review

1.0

Chapter 1 made me dry heave and it still wasn’t my least favorite chapter (that was chapter 4).

hay_jude's review

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This book about a group of friends, mostly gay students in a university town in Iowa was recommended to me by my daughter. It was a satisfying and absorbing read. Brandon Taylor is very good at describing and observing detail, whether it is describing landscapes or the feelings of his characters. His words are carefully chosen and put together so well that his prose often reads beautifully and I found myself getting immersed in the lives of the young people he is writing about. He has imagined a diverse group getting to end of their studies and at a crossroads  traversing the difficulties and challenges that life throws up. I like the way the book ends on a hopeful note, despite the hardships and disappointments that some of the characters have faced.

theromansufi's review

adhd happened. will come back to it.

girl_of_books_and_wheels's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

carlottag's review

Read 100 pages and decided I was not emotionally pulled in by the narrative and the summary is quite misleading. The writing was this book's strongest element though it sometimes came off as pretentious and too explanatory just to showcase some vocabulary. At first I took it as the character's voice but when it continued while in a different pov i knew that was not the case.