Reviews

Stella Maris, by Cormac McCarthy

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keerak's review against another edition

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dark 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

5.0

grandmasterray's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

gooberintheclub's review against another edition

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5.0

Amazing. I’m reeling. I don’t know what reeling means and i’m probably not reeling. I’m feeling. What a fucking book. Read in a whirlwind. One of my favorites ever.

lonestarwords's review against another edition

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dark emotional fast-paced

3.0

Women enjoy a different history of madness. From witchcraft to hysteria, we're just bad news. We know that women were condemned as witches because they were mentally unstable, but no one has considered the numbers, even few as they might be, of women who were stoned to death for being bright....if we still believed in witches, we'd still be burning them.
Stella Maris
Cormac McCarthy
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Having read The Passenger in November, Stella Maris was waiting for me in the wings. To be honest, I wasn't that excited to begin because The Passenger wasn’t my cup of tea. I understand how beloved McCarthy's novels are, but I believe The Passenger was not the best place to begin his works.
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That said, I'm a completist, and Stella Maris is Passenger #2, so the other day I queued it up when I headed out for a walk, and low and behold I could not stop listening. I could not believe how engaging and disturbing this second book is and how much McCarthy says in just 190 pages.
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The Passenger and Stella Maris are the stories of Bobby Western and his sister Alicia. The Passenger features Bobby and Stella Maris is Alicia's book. And wow, does she have a lot to say. The book is a series of recordings between Alicia and her psychiatrist after she checks herself into a psychiatric hospital. Their conversations are a game of cat and mouse as Alicia outwits her doctor at every turn. She is a mathematician who began college at the age of 16; she is a savant who also has synesthesia. Listening to her banter with her doctor was an incredibly entertaining battle of wits as he tries to break through her walls and isolate the cause of undoing.
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I won't give away the answer, but suffice it to say the reveal is disturbing, and yet Alicia is such a compelling and sympathetic character. The world is too much for her and yet math makes sense -- her dead brother haunts her and McCarthy uses this storyline to pose sweeping and provocative thoughts about the human mind and the universe.
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If you love McCarthy, don't miss this. If you read The Passenger and didn't enjoy it, don't miss this. It felt like closure.
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Thank you @prhaudio and @librofm for my copy!