A review by marcopoloreads
I Crawl Through It by A.S. King
3.0
This book was really weird...
My experience with A.S. King’s books has been a mixed bag. I didn’t like her novel REALITY BOY but loved STILL LIFE WITH TORNADO. After reading I CRAWL THROUGH IT, my feeling towards her books have become even more mixed.
While many people consider this novel to be magical realism, I consider it to be surrealism. Her novel STILL LIFE WITH TORNADO was more of magical realism in my eyes. I’m still not quite sure how I feel about this book. From what I can tell, it’s one of those books where you just get it or you don’t; I think I understood what A.S. King was going for, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the execution of this plan.
The story follows these teenagers, all of whom have different aspects of surrealism to them. Gustav is building an invisible helicopter, Stanzi splits herself in two, China swallows herself inside out, and Lansdale’s hair grows whenever she lies. I didn’t have a problem with this, however, most of these characters were extremely forgettable. The only ones that stood out to me much were Stanzi and China, and I think that was only because they were at the forefront of the story. In my opinion, I think this issue could’ve been fixed if one of the main characters were written out of the story or if they became a side character instead. There was just too much going on in this story, and the length of the book couldn’t handle all of the plot points well without making a few weak.
For the most part, I was just confused about everything going on in this book; It was all over the place. While it is an extremely unique, one-of-a-kind book, it didn’t do much for me since I didn’t really understand the purpose behind it. All while I was reading it I was just like “okay, I feel like A.S. King is trying to be really deep here but I don’t get it.” It just left me not knowing how to feel from beginning to end.
The writing is pretty interesting as well. Every now and then there is text that is flipped upside down, so you have to flip the book upside down in order to read it. This was a really cool addition to the novel, though it only happens a few times and I feel like it could’ve been used more often. The writing overall is easy to read and digestible, which was helpful because the writing saved this book from becoming two stars to me.
I feel like I don’t have much more to say on this book since I didn’t really understand what its purpose was. It is indeed really interesting and stands out a lot, but it makes literally no sense. It actually reminded me of another author whose books I don’t like. That being Andrew Smith.
Overall, I just don’t have any strong opinions on this book. It isn’t terrible, but it’s not that good either. It’s just weird. I think that fans of Andrew Smith’s books might enjoy this one because it does give off similar vibes as his books.
My experience with A.S. King’s books has been a mixed bag. I didn’t like her novel REALITY BOY but loved STILL LIFE WITH TORNADO. After reading I CRAWL THROUGH IT, my feeling towards her books have become even more mixed.
While many people consider this novel to be magical realism, I consider it to be surrealism. Her novel STILL LIFE WITH TORNADO was more of magical realism in my eyes. I’m still not quite sure how I feel about this book. From what I can tell, it’s one of those books where you just get it or you don’t; I think I understood what A.S. King was going for, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the execution of this plan.
The story follows these teenagers, all of whom have different aspects of surrealism to them. Gustav is building an invisible helicopter, Stanzi splits herself in two, China swallows herself inside out, and Lansdale’s hair grows whenever she lies. I didn’t have a problem with this, however, most of these characters were extremely forgettable. The only ones that stood out to me much were Stanzi and China, and I think that was only because they were at the forefront of the story. In my opinion, I think this issue could’ve been fixed if one of the main characters were written out of the story or if they became a side character instead. There was just too much going on in this story, and the length of the book couldn’t handle all of the plot points well without making a few weak.
For the most part, I was just confused about everything going on in this book; It was all over the place. While it is an extremely unique, one-of-a-kind book, it didn’t do much for me since I didn’t really understand the purpose behind it. All while I was reading it I was just like “okay, I feel like A.S. King is trying to be really deep here but I don’t get it.” It just left me not knowing how to feel from beginning to end.
The writing is pretty interesting as well. Every now and then there is text that is flipped upside down, so you have to flip the book upside down in order to read it. This was a really cool addition to the novel, though it only happens a few times and I feel like it could’ve been used more often. The writing overall is easy to read and digestible, which was helpful because the writing saved this book from becoming two stars to me.
I feel like I don’t have much more to say on this book since I didn’t really understand what its purpose was. It is indeed really interesting and stands out a lot, but it makes literally no sense. It actually reminded me of another author whose books I don’t like. That being Andrew Smith.
Overall, I just don’t have any strong opinions on this book. It isn’t terrible, but it’s not that good either. It’s just weird. I think that fans of Andrew Smith’s books might enjoy this one because it does give off similar vibes as his books.