Scan barcode
A review by incunabula_and_intercourse
Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport
challenging
reflective
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
3.5
Read for my personal Jewish/AAPI readathon for May.
Oddly enough, not exactly in the vein of other magical realist family sagas I've read. Not to say it's the worst, but I fear that the interesting cast, complex relationships, and tense family drama wasn't presented in the best way.
In other family sagas, the story is presented in a linear fashion, to give parallels and plotlines room to develop and grow. The constant jumping and summarizing of entire backstories almost had the effect of flattening out the characters and making the parallels too obvious.
Also? Way too much sex. It kinda bugged me in Confessions of the Fox, but seeing as it's all about the criminalization of underclasses including sex workers and LGBTQ people, it makes sense. Here, you could find yourself in the middle of a detailed, two page sex scene for no reason. And even with the weird kinky shit that Rachel and Hiro get up to, they all sound exactly the same after a while. The House of the Spirits has a lot of sex, too, but Allende knew when to condense and summarize. We didn't need graphic descriptions of exactly how Blanca and Pedro Tercero fucked to get that they're fucking; a few poetically vague paragraphs will suffice.
And as for the prose, while it was often very beautiful, it relied a bit too much on run-ons for my taste. I get that this is just a magical realism family saga thing—I'll never forget Spirit's two-page sentence, lol—but these ones are frequent and noticable with to bug me. The ebook is also sadly lousy with typos—not every single page, but again, enough to be noticable.
Overall, the history was powerful, as were the final 150-odd pages when the plot really began to kick into high gear. But this could have—and should have—easily lost a quarter of its girth in order to really hit hard.
Oddly enough, not exactly in the vein of other magical realist family sagas I've read. Not to say it's the worst, but I fear that the interesting cast, complex relationships, and tense family drama wasn't presented in the best way.
In other family sagas, the story is presented in a linear fashion, to give parallels and plotlines room to develop and grow. The constant jumping and summarizing of entire backstories almost had the effect of flattening out the characters and making the parallels too obvious.
Also? Way too much sex. It kinda bugged me in Confessions of the Fox, but seeing as it's all about the criminalization of underclasses including sex workers and LGBTQ people, it makes sense. Here, you could find yourself in the middle of a detailed, two page sex scene for no reason. And even with the weird kinky shit that Rachel and Hiro get up to, they all sound exactly the same after a while. The House of the Spirits has a lot of sex, too, but Allende knew when to condense and summarize. We didn't need graphic descriptions of exactly how Blanca and Pedro Tercero fucked to get that they're fucking; a few poetically vague paragraphs will suffice.
And as for the prose, while it was often very beautiful, it relied a bit too much on run-ons for my taste. I get that this is just a magical realism family saga thing—I'll never forget Spirit's two-page sentence, lol—but these ones are frequent and noticable with to bug me. The ebook is also sadly lousy with typos—not every single page, but again, enough to be noticable.
Overall, the history was powerful, as were the final 150-odd pages when the plot really began to kick into high gear. But this could have—and should have—easily lost a quarter of its girth in order to really hit hard.