A review by lalalaluziie
Barcelona Dreaming by Rupert Thomson

adventurous challenging mysterious tense fast-paced

2.0

why did I read this

the last story was the best but they were all pretty weird and unnecessary and strange (not in a good way) and very clearly written by a man and this was a waste of my time even twilight was more of a literary masterpiece than this. 

i had really hoped for Barcelona as a city/place to play more of an active role here and take on a sense of character in itself. Instead he just mentioned a few places in the city and left it at that. There was little sense of place and it could've taken place in any other city. I wanted to experience Barcelona and feel the heat, the smells, the sounds seep through the pages. But, alas. None of that. I'm not angry I'm just disappointed. 

i tagged it "adventurous" and "challenging" in the sense that you never knew what kind of fucked up shit he would start mentioning next and that I found it very challenging to finish and not dnf it. 

The first story felt orientalist and all of them a bit strangely misogynistic but I can't put my finger on why quite yet. It felt like the characters and by extension the author think too highly of themselves.