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adam_tries_books's review against another edition
3.0
This is very much a character driven story, focusing mainly on Ant. Ant likes funerals, which I think we can all agree is a bit unusual but maybe there’s more to it than that.
Now this book focuses a lot of grief and lose, which is why I think it didn’t click for me. I’ve been fortunate in my life that I haven’t really lost anyone that close to me, so because of this I think I found it hard to relate and understand the emotions of the characters.
What I will say is I found the writing style really interesting. There are points where the book drifts between the present and the past, which I think works perfectly to convey how Ants mind is drifting through all of his old memories that have been brought up by the death of Ray and his return home!
I think Shah does a fantastic job of depicting how grief and lose can affect people in different ways. I think this is particularly highlighted in the last part of of book, where events take quite an unexpected turn.
Overall a read that didn’t quite click with me but I can appreciate that it is well written and I can understand why people will find this a great read.
Now this book focuses a lot of grief and lose, which is why I think it didn’t click for me. I’ve been fortunate in my life that I haven’t really lost anyone that close to me, so because of this I think I found it hard to relate and understand the emotions of the characters.
What I will say is I found the writing style really interesting. There are points where the book drifts between the present and the past, which I think works perfectly to convey how Ants mind is drifting through all of his old memories that have been brought up by the death of Ray and his return home!
I think Shah does a fantastic job of depicting how grief and lose can affect people in different ways. I think this is particularly highlighted in the last part of of book, where events take quite an unexpected turn.
Overall a read that didn’t quite click with me but I can appreciate that it is well written and I can understand why people will find this a great read.
dwills's review
3.0
For such a short book I have a wide range of feelings. I ultimately liked the flow and prose (sometimes it felt a little heavy handed). The author did a good job of encapsulating the feeling of going back to a place you’ve tried to leave behind but still feel nostalgic for and the bleak drum in the middle of winter. I found all of that comforting in a way. This book had me until the ending. It didn’t click for me in any way. It makes me feel something is unresolved. Maybe that’s the point?
low_keybookish's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
WhiteoutConditions made me think of Crying in H Mart or On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous….authors who don’t waste any words and mix humor with grief and loss.
I was eating up every word! First of all, this is such a good description of the clusterf* that is O’Hare airport:
“I’m back home, braving O’Hare’s crowds—the holidays are through but concourse K is still a nightmarish glut of holly jolly backwash—slowpoke vacationers and duty-free shopaholics, Bing Crosby, and on-sale candy cane pyramid displays that all hound me faster for the exits.” 😂
And like this excerpt:
“I felt nausea like a cold tongue lick me.”
Just oohhh visceral vivid language! Tariq is a poet too, so not surprising how each word is so carefully chosen.
His novel also made me think of when I lived in Illinois and how thick and endless the snow storms would get. Just like the main character trying to navigate his grief of multiple family members, then intrigue and blasé of going to funeral viewings to then thinking about his childhood friends death.
Some images will stick with me for a while because they were so funny, like drunk juggling but the food items progressively getting bigger the more his mom would drink.
There were also themes of male friendships and literal rough housing instead of being able to verbally communicate (or escalating physical violence).
I was eating up every word! First of all, this is such a good description of the clusterf* that is O’Hare airport:
“I’m back home, braving O’Hare’s crowds—the holidays are through but concourse K is still a nightmarish glut of holly jolly backwash—slowpoke vacationers and duty-free shopaholics, Bing Crosby, and on-sale candy cane pyramid displays that all hound me faster for the exits.” 😂
And like this excerpt:
“I felt nausea like a cold tongue lick me.”
Just oohhh visceral vivid language! Tariq is a poet too, so not surprising how each word is so carefully chosen.
His novel also made me think of when I lived in Illinois and how thick and endless the snow storms would get. Just like the main character trying to navigate his grief of multiple family members, then intrigue and blasé of going to funeral viewings to then thinking about his childhood friends death.
Some images will stick with me for a while because they were so funny, like drunk juggling but the food items progressively getting bigger the more his mom would drink.
There were also themes of male friendships and literal rough housing instead of being able to verbally communicate (or escalating physical violence).
upward_not_northward's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Ant likes going to funerals in a Harold and Maude sort of way. One by one, as every important figure in his life either dies or fades into obscurity, Ant finds himself increasingly alone as he grapples with feelings of grief and abandonment. At the end of the novel, with his closest childhood friend having deserted him too, Ant finds solace and companionship in an unlikely, non-human form.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Child death
Moderate: Blood, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Addiction, Death of parent, and Abandonment
blueimelda's review
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty
rahthesungod's review
4.0
Wow.
A book at once a perfect sibling to Krans, Palanhuik, and Nersesian and also an elegy for life in semi-urban poverty. This book shook up a beer bottle of Hold Steady Lyrics and opened it against my temple sending me into my darkest corners and holding me hostage there with lyric and insight.
Balancing somewhere between confessional and sociological study, Whiteout Conditions is an exceptional novel in which the scab will get picked off before it is ready and, at all costs, the truth will come out.
Buzzfeed's review of this book is quoted on the cover, "MEMORABLE." When I saw that prior to reading Whiteout Conditions I laughed, like, what a vague review, but the reality is there isn't much else to say.
Tariq Shah writes a narrator that manages to be a semi-emotionless everyman--a Tyler Durden with self-awareness--in Ant who confesses in the beginning to enjoying funerals, describes them in a way that is both lurid and saccharine and I say that as someone who has lost a lot of people, been to a lot of funerals. The book itself, of course, is a funeral, an elegy. I think anyone who has left a home that tortured them will identify with Ant's experience going home. I think anyone who has had one more funeral to attend, back breaking under this final precious straw, will experience a near-constant state of *there but for the grace of god go I* while reading this book.
Immaculate, sparse, self-aware, and gritty, Shah has created something viscous and something holy.
It has been a long time since I have had such a visceral response to a book.
I want to talk about the formal aspects of Whiteout Conditions. I want to talk about the word play, the repetition of "variations on theme," the imagery. But I am overwhelmed by the experience. Have you been snowed in in Hell? Have you clung desperately to survival? After Whiteout Conditions, you will have.
A book at once a perfect sibling to Krans, Palanhuik, and Nersesian and also an elegy for life in semi-urban poverty. This book shook up a beer bottle of Hold Steady Lyrics and opened it against my temple sending me into my darkest corners and holding me hostage there with lyric and insight.
Balancing somewhere between confessional and sociological study, Whiteout Conditions is an exceptional novel in which the scab will get picked off before it is ready and, at all costs, the truth will come out.
Buzzfeed's review of this book is quoted on the cover, "MEMORABLE." When I saw that prior to reading Whiteout Conditions I laughed, like, what a vague review, but the reality is there isn't much else to say.
Tariq Shah writes a narrator that manages to be a semi-emotionless everyman--a Tyler Durden with self-awareness--in Ant who confesses in the beginning to enjoying funerals, describes them in a way that is both lurid and saccharine and I say that as someone who has lost a lot of people, been to a lot of funerals. The book itself, of course, is a funeral, an elegy. I think anyone who has left a home that tortured them will identify with Ant's experience going home. I think anyone who has had one more funeral to attend, back breaking under this final precious straw, will experience a near-constant state of *there but for the grace of god go I* while reading this book.
Immaculate, sparse, self-aware, and gritty, Shah has created something viscous and something holy.
It has been a long time since I have had such a visceral response to a book.
I want to talk about the formal aspects of Whiteout Conditions. I want to talk about the word play, the repetition of "variations on theme," the imagery. But I am overwhelmed by the experience. Have you been snowed in in Hell? Have you clung desperately to survival? After Whiteout Conditions, you will have.
elisemiddletonxo's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Violence
pap3rcut__'s review
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Ant has returned to Chicago for a funeral which he typically enjoys its his way of deflecting his own pain as most of his family has passed away he finds funerals endearing. His friend Ray tragically dies which leads to Ray's cousin Vince picking Ant up at the airport during a snow storm to get to the funeral.
Whiteout Conditions is a dark novel but at times humouress as it explores the impact of death and how we deal with grief. A slow burner which ends with a shocking sinister climax. The core of the novel is the grief shared between Ant and Vince but we also get an insight into Ants past which was dreamlike and disorientating to the reader - this is due to the drug use explored in the novel as a coping mechanism for bereavement.
Shah has written a well crafted prose with a unique narrative that quides the reader through loss, grief and vengeance even though its rather grim there are shimmers of light throughout.
Whiteout Conditions is a dark novel but at times humouress as it explores the impact of death and how we deal with grief. A slow burner which ends with a shocking sinister climax. The core of the novel is the grief shared between Ant and Vince but we also get an insight into Ants past which was dreamlike and disorientating to the reader - this is due to the drug use explored in the novel as a coping mechanism for bereavement.
Shah has written a well crafted prose with a unique narrative that quides the reader through loss, grief and vengeance even though its rather grim there are shimmers of light throughout.
akaybarlow's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0