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athenas99's review against another edition
reflective
sad
slow-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
3.75
The best parts of this book were the lovely prose, the sensual, complex relationship between the two main characters and the narrator’s meditations on what it means to be an Asian woman in predominately white male spaces. The masterful incorporation of food and taste as kind of secondary characters in the novel was also a highlight. However, despite a very interesting premise, the book was extremely boring. Pretty much everything that’s really interesting - animal de-extinction, negotiations with investors, climate collapse- happens off the page. You spend most of the novel trapped in the narrator’s mind, and it gets repetitive in there. Also, although the writing itself was lovey, due to the narrator’s interiority, I often found myself annoyed by all the metaphor and florid language. There were many moments where I wished the author would just write plainly. Now, I don’t mind a slow pace if there’s payoff and there is a surprise of sorts at the very end, but it didn’t feel earned at all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship
rei_reads's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Toxic relationship, and Classism
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Physical abuse, Racism, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, and Alcohol
Minor: Car accident
laurensilva's review
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I found the writing to be aloof a lot of the time, a bit disconnected, which made this a slower read for me. But the story and characters at its core will remain in the back of my mind for a while.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse
trin's review against another edition
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
A book about food that is unappetizing; a book about how rich people are terrible that is somehow unconvincing, even though that seems like the biggest layup imaginable. This was not for me. I found the prose pretentious -- very capital-L Literary in an unearned way -- and the characters thin and unbelievable. The protagonist is not terribly competent and makes insane, out-of-left-field decisions, as dictated by the achingly slow plot. I appreciate some of what Zhang was trying to say, especially about the experience of being an Asian woman, but it was buried under what felt like an extended version of that scene from Succession where Tom and Greg eat ortolan, except less entertaining, or effectively satire.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Physical abuse, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Injury/Injury detail
pipettesandpages's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Blood
Moderate: Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, and Xenophobia
jayisreading's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
I really enjoyed Zhang’s debut novel, so I entered Land of Milk and Honey with relatively high expectations. Much like How Much of These Hills Is Gold, Zhang delivered exquisite lyricism and a distinct writing style that will be hit-or-misses for readers. She also presented some really interesting themes in Land of Milk and Honey—especially in relation to a dystopian world—which was a variety that included beauty, social class, pleasure, and climate change. I will say, though, that the themes were not overtly stated and might require the reader to tease them out, which could be frustrating given the prose. I also thought it would have been nice if Zhang had stuck with fewer themes to explore in-depth as opposed to the multiple that she seemed to have wanted to discuss.
I think Land of Milk and Honey fell flat for me because I wasn’t entirely invested in either the story or the characters. Regarding the story, there certainly was a plot, but it was a very slippery one to grasp that resulted in me losing interest over time. As for the characters and their relationships with one another, they were interesting enough, but I didn’t think they were particularly memorable. With all this said, I will say that I think I may have picked this book up at the wrong time and just wasn’t in the right headspace for it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Racism, Violence, and Classism
Moderate: Eating disorder, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Drug use, Car accident, and Alcohol
jfin54's review against another edition
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, Vomit, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
bookishmillennial's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial
This book follows a nameless Chinese American narrator who is stranded in London and accepts a job in a billionaire's compound, a mountaintop area in Italy which is accessible to sunlight and is populated by extremely wealthy folks who bought their way in. It's an interesting enough premise, though the first half of this book's narrative is incredibly slow-paced, so buckle up!
There were so many topics explored in this (climate change, socioeconomic status, greed, famine), butI do wish the author went just a tiny bit deeper to make more of a commentary on them! Gosh, this is such a bummer for me because this has such incredibly gorgeous and unique prose, and I loved the sensual experience of reading this book (I was *hungry* lol). However, I just don't know that this book distinctly delivered any message or answered any question that it intended to.
I will absolutely read more from C Pam Zhang in the future, because the writing was absolutely stunning! I liked parts of this, and could appreciate the mirrors to our current societal letdowns and mishaps, but this was just fine to me.
Quotations that stood out to me:
This book follows a nameless Chinese American narrator who is stranded in London and accepts a job in a billionaire's compound, a mountaintop area in Italy which is accessible to sunlight and is populated by extremely wealthy folks who bought their way in. It's an interesting enough premise, though the first half of this book's narrative is incredibly slow-paced, so buckle up!
There were so many topics explored in this (climate change, socioeconomic status, greed, famine), butI do wish the author went just a tiny bit deeper to make more of a commentary on them! Gosh, this is such a bummer for me because this has such incredibly gorgeous and unique prose, and I loved the sensual experience of reading this book (I was *hungry* lol). However, I just don't know that this book distinctly delivered any message or answered any question that it intended to.
I will absolutely read more from C Pam Zhang in the future, because the writing was absolutely stunning! I liked parts of this, and could appreciate the mirrors to our current societal letdowns and mishaps, but this was just fine to me.
Quotations that stood out to me:
“How can I describe my life in the years leading up to this moment except in shades of gray? All the scrape and grind of it, all the empty shelves and lost ambition, all the soot grown hard on windows, season after season the only black harvest. The bad news, the debts, the visa applications, the flesh of your arm humping white between a nurse's fingers as she stuck you with a paltry twelve months' protection against whatever new strain of disease, as if bankruptcy or homelessness or a weariness at aping at the motions of life weren't more likely to kill you first.”
“I refused to be stuck. In Pasaje, California. In the smallness of my mother's life. In a fixed notion of my cooking, my abilities, my worth as ascribed to my Chineseness my Asianness my smallness my womanness my perpetual foreignness--myself.”
“Fear fueled a country so intent on perfection that they would give up the world.”
“We all die. We have only the choice, if we are privileged, of whether death comes with a whimper or a bang; of what worlds we taste before we go.”
“What sustains in the end are doomed romances, and nicotine, and crappy peanut butter, damn the additives and cholesterol because life is finite and not all nourishment can be measured.”
“Religion is a flimsy construction of rituals infused with arbitrary power. The gestures have always been empty; behind them stand hustlers no different from you. All that is required is a convincing performance.”
“You believe in a country that does not exist as you imagine it, in a code of morality as fanciful as any creation myth. What do you call that if not blind faith?”
“We shouldn’t be forced to choose at all. The fury in Aida’s voice was familiar. Nostalgic. I’d once possessed that strain of fury, as had my fellow cooks, my friends, my produce guy, a virulent rage against our tainted inheritance of this stupid, smog-choked planet. But it couldn’t last. We’d been inoculated from rage by other, more immediate concerns. For example: how to pay rent, how to stay alive. Aida, rich as she was, hadn’t been forced to choose between anger and dinner. For the first time in years, I tasted, through her, that feeling.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Racism, and Classism
Moderate: Child death, Physical abuse, Car accident, and Death of parent
themandaflorian's review
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Physical abuse, Racism, and Classism
daniellemjoyce's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Cultural appropriation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Drug use, Eating disorder, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Murder and Pandemic/Epidemic