kbecker40's review against another edition
4.0
This is a book about grief. The narrator loses her best friend to suicide and later inherits his great dane. She spends much of the book talking to her friend and addressing him directly in the text. Eventually her dialog becomes more vignettes than actual conversation. And finally she talks to the dog, in proxy for her friend who she continues to mourn.
At first I really enjoyed this book. However, although I liked her writing, it's not really a cohesive novel. It's her inner dialogue, her imagined conversation with her dead best friend, reading out loud to a dog, and observations about writers and the writing life.
There are many heartstopping moments of her reactions to grief, and many moments of love for the dog (which is obviously a substitute for the man she lost and most likely was in love with). I would have enjoyed a complete novel with her analysis of her own grief process.
At first I really enjoyed this book. However, although I liked her writing, it's not really a cohesive novel. It's her inner dialogue, her imagined conversation with her dead best friend, reading out loud to a dog, and observations about writers and the writing life.
There are many heartstopping moments of her reactions to grief, and many moments of love for the dog (which is obviously a substitute for the man she lost and most likely was in love with). I would have enjoyed a complete novel with her analysis of her own grief process.
epiphame's review
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
bundy23's review
3.0
I didn't like the narrator/author. She tries way too hard to seem intellectual while also coming across as pathetic for her love of a man who fucked everyone other than her. And the final chapter of *her* book was embarrassingly awful.
Overall I thought it made for a better essay on suicide than it did as a novel.
Overall I thought it made for a better essay on suicide than it did as a novel.
lightfoxing's review
4.0
Sigrid Nunez's The Friend is about a woman whose friend commits suicide. She's then asked to take in his dog, as his wife is repulsed by the Great Dane. I mean, that's the plot. It's about grief, about grieving, about depression, and anxiety, and mental health, about the changing views on literature and authors and academics and classrooms and sexual harassment, about The Death of the Author in terms of Barthes and plot. It's about friendship, romance, the blurring of these two. It's excellent. It's topical. It's current. It's gorgeous.
Our characters are all unnamed, and yet come to life easily under Nunez's pen. Our mourning narrator. Her deceased friend. His Wife One. His Wife Two. His Wife Three. His Daughter, child of Wife Two. The therapist. And then, Apollo, the dog. The only character with a name. He, like our narrator, is grieving. He, like our narrator, she posits, cannot understand suicide, not really. But, who can? Our narrator offers us theories, stories, the words of authors who committed suicide, the words of authors repulsed by it. She uses literature, familiar, to make sense of what is horrifying and unfamiliar.
Throughout, we are treated to quotes, excerpts, ideas, cribbed from other writers. These bolster the narrative, but it really is Nunez's writing that shines. Her prose is delicate, emotional, simple, refusing to be stifled or to sound too snooty, perfectly in line with some of the smaller ideas being brought into the novel, like the changing perceptions of literature in society, what we expect of our authors, how students approach creative writing, how frustrated older academics might be because of it, the struggle to adapt in a world so marked by technology (although she notes that it never appears in the work of students).
Overall, excellent. Really fantastic read, really tragically sad, particularly Parts Eleven and Twelve.
Our characters are all unnamed, and yet come to life easily under Nunez's pen. Our mourning narrator. Her deceased friend. His Wife One. His Wife Two. His Wife Three. His Daughter, child of Wife Two. The therapist. And then, Apollo, the dog. The only character with a name. He, like our narrator, is grieving. He, like our narrator, she posits, cannot understand suicide, not really. But, who can? Our narrator offers us theories, stories, the words of authors who committed suicide, the words of authors repulsed by it. She uses literature, familiar, to make sense of what is horrifying and unfamiliar.
Throughout, we are treated to quotes, excerpts, ideas, cribbed from other writers. These bolster the narrative, but it really is Nunez's writing that shines. Her prose is delicate, emotional, simple, refusing to be stifled or to sound too snooty, perfectly in line with some of the smaller ideas being brought into the novel, like the changing perceptions of literature in society, what we expect of our authors, how students approach creative writing, how frustrated older academics might be because of it, the struggle to adapt in a world so marked by technology (although she notes that it never appears in the work of students).
Overall, excellent. Really fantastic read, really tragically sad, particularly Parts Eleven and Twelve.
cedrics_mom's review against another edition
4.0
The National Book Award winner for 2018, The Friend is written in second person and often present tense. The narrator never tells us her name, but by the end I was certain that the friend is Apollo, the Great Dane. I wasn’t sure because the book is mostly the narrator talking to her male friend who is also unnamed. Both writers and college writing teachers, the 2 had a decades-long friendship until his suicide. She is given the dog. The Friend was marketed as a dog story but there’s far more going on here. Lots of wisdom and experience on writing for one thing. Her musings read like eavesdropping on the conversations with her deceased friend. I will re-read this one with pen in hand.
fungisportino's review
reflective
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.75
cole_razz's review
dark
emotional
reflective
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? No
3.0
everydaylifewithkat's review
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
andcaitlin's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide