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A review by emsemsems
Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz
3.0
Had a very promising start, which led to a messy middle. The ending was frustratingly anticlimactic. Too much animal imagery and symbolism - which I personally did not appreciate. I thought I enjoyed the tone of the narrator even though it was a bit intense and vaguely provocative. I thought wrong - because it got a bit overwhelming - there was no rhythm to it. The constancy of the intensity caused a sort of sedative monotony.
I actually really liked the part where Harwicz wrote about one of the men's perspective, but it was very limited. I wish she had worked on that a bit more. It almost felt pointless to introduce that to the readers if she wasn't going to incorporate that further into the plot later in the book. Unless that was actually the woman/narrator's imagination of him? The narrative was slightly confusing (but I think that that was intentional - and/but it really fits well to the idea/theme of the novel).
In a general sense, I think the book is about a domestic nightmare(s). It explores the domestic life and issues of contemporary/'modern' women and men quite well (to be clear : 'straight marital lives'). There was one bit though that made me feel quite conflicted. The bit where the narrator observes a gay social media influencer contemplating suicide from afar. It was a very short scene - only a couple lines; and it was made to sound like that was just waffled in and presented as a 'roadside festivity/attraction'. Why did Harwicz find it necessary to put that into the book? That paralleled with all the strictly/aggressively 'straight' characters in the book made me roll my eyes involuntarily.
I really enjoyed the beginning, but as a whole the book felt like it was all over the place - did not feel like it had a real 'direction'. I didn't come to this conclusion because of the very disappointing ending, but I think from the middle on, it almost felt like the writer had lost her flow. I'm still giving it 3-stars because of how well the first half of the book was written. It's like one of those TV series - Games of Thrones? Fuck that half-arsed final season.
I actually really liked the part where Harwicz wrote about one of the men's perspective, but it was very limited. I wish she had worked on that a bit more. It almost felt pointless to introduce that to the readers if she wasn't going to incorporate that further into the plot later in the book. Unless that was actually the woman/narrator's imagination of him? The narrative was slightly confusing (but I think that that was intentional - and/but it really fits well to the idea/theme of the novel).
In a general sense, I think the book is about a domestic nightmare(s). It explores the domestic life and issues of contemporary/'modern' women and men quite well (to be clear : 'straight marital lives'). There was one bit though that made me feel quite conflicted. The bit where the narrator observes a gay social media influencer contemplating suicide from afar. It was a very short scene - only a couple lines; and it was made to sound like that was just waffled in and presented as a 'roadside festivity/attraction'. Why did Harwicz find it necessary to put that into the book? That paralleled with all the strictly/aggressively 'straight' characters in the book made me roll my eyes involuntarily.
I really enjoyed the beginning, but as a whole the book felt like it was all over the place - did not feel like it had a real 'direction'. I didn't come to this conclusion because of the very disappointing ending, but I think from the middle on, it almost felt like the writer had lost her flow. I'm still giving it 3-stars because of how well the first half of the book was written. It's like one of those TV series - Games of Thrones? Fuck that half-arsed final season.