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A review by cscutt
Three by Valérie Perrin
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
A meditative and weighty book about relationships, friendships, family and growing up. It had its moments and the characters were all brilliantly rendered, but structurally and tonally I found it a bit all over the place.
I get that life is chaotic, and that this is a book about life, but at times I found it difficult to keep a grasp on timelines and who knew what or who was related to who. This probably wasn't helped by my edition having a bunch of typos and grammatical confusions in it.
I don't know if my difficulties came from the writing, the translation or the editing, but it all ended up as a really uneven experience. Flashes of profound brilliance and emotion, but each separated by about 100 pages of stuff that felt kind of aimless and scattered. I could have loved it if it were just a little sharper.
I get that life is chaotic, and that this is a book about life, but at times I found it difficult to keep a grasp on timelines and who knew what or who was related to who. This probably wasn't helped by my edition having a bunch of typos and grammatical confusions in it.
I don't know if my difficulties came from the writing, the translation or the editing, but it all ended up as a really uneven experience. Flashes of profound brilliance and emotion, but each separated by about 100 pages of stuff that felt kind of aimless and scattered. I could have loved it if it were just a little sharper.