Reviews

Chinatown by Thuận

lu_ra_to's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

inga_lara's review against another edition

3.0

Frásögnin byggir á hugarflæði konu, sem fer út um víðan völl í upprifjunum og hugrenningum með endurteknum stefum og frösum. Margs vísari um lífið í Víetnam og líf frásegjandans í Leningrad og París. Samt fór ekki hjá því að margs konar vísanir færu fyrir ofan garð og neðan vegna ókunnugleika.

radialtyres's review against another edition

my white whale. started this sometime in 2022 and it's only 160 pages but I just could not get through it but now I have

katewalton's review against another edition

4.0

A short but great read.

jaredjoseph's review against another edition

5.0

What I'd written might be the first, or it might be the last chapter. But it can't be a short story. It can't end where I'd ended it. I knew how hard it is, the act of ending something. As hard as wrapping up a period of one's life. A period of a life cannot be a short story. Ten years or twenty cannot be a short story. And neither can ten months or twenty. I know at some point in the future I will take it out and continue writing. Continue to reach an end. Continue to wrap it up. I don't write about Thuy. I don't write to Thuy.

soupstix's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

pinkpandan's review against another edition

challenging reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

shaelinsans's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

fhclever's review against another edition

3.0

Interesting novel in the sense that it portrays how stuck the narrator is/feels. There is a lot of self reflection and all in all no real progression of an active storyline (

Spoiler

the narrator is in a metro wondering if she should leave or not when there is an abandoned duffel bag/bomb threat at the beginning of the book and by the end, it is just two hours later and she is still wondering what to do

), which is quite different from anything else I've read in both an interesting way and a challenging way. There is no classical resolution of the narrator's dilemmas which reflects reality more than other books might, but still left me without a perfectly satisfactory ending. Perhaps that was the author's intention?

Either way, it was an intellectually stimulating and unique book if not exactly a page turner. I enjoyed the amorphous, stream of consciousness that made you pay attention and fill in your own blanks about the narrator's life, a bit of a puzzle box, which is just up my alley. Read almost like poetry in a strange way.

jemeela_q's review against another edition

mysterious reflective

4.0