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3.22 AVERAGE
3.22 AVERAGE
The regrets, Amy Bonnaffons
A man dies a terrible death. Due to a mistake with an angel, he's forced to spend three months in limbo on earth. The rules are don't look up anything about your death and don't have any relationships with any living people. Just hang.
Well, he's pretty good about following all the rules until he sees a beautiful young women and starts appearing at her bus stop. She's enthralled by the beautifu, brooding, blond guy and eventually she strikes up a conversation with him. And guess what, they end up in bed together. Well, it's like no sex she's ever had.
Due to certain circumstances, he eventually has to tell he's dead and will no longer be around in a month. She falls in love anyway, slowly removing herself from her life to be with him. In the end he still dies and she finds she must extricate herself from his clinging ghost to go back to living her life.
It didn’t take me long to figure out why I didn’t like this book beyond the ridiculous story. Neither main character is likable. They use people. The dead guy won't let go of the woman nice enough to love him while he’s in limbo. He haunts her and holds on to her once he’s finally really dead. And the woman uses an old boyfriend to try and rid herself of the ghost. Just not nice people dead or alive. And the whole “you can't be really dead yet but you are dead” story line, silly and not fully flushed out. Are there others like him? Why aren't they together for their short time in limbo instead of having to deal with their time back on earth alone? Why send them back to earth with all it’s temptations? How come he’s able to haunt her after he’s gone? What the hell are the regrets he’s creating? We never get to hear from him about what they are although creating regrets gets talked about. Is it the love affair? Or is it the sticking around afterwards? Who knows? Do I care? Nope.
A man dies a terrible death. Due to a mistake with an angel, he's forced to spend three months in limbo on earth. The rules are don't look up anything about your death and don't have any relationships with any living people. Just hang.
Well, he's pretty good about following all the rules until he sees a beautiful young women and starts appearing at her bus stop. She's enthralled by the beautifu, brooding, blond guy and eventually she strikes up a conversation with him. And guess what, they end up in bed together. Well, it's like no sex she's ever had.
Due to certain circumstances, he eventually has to tell he's dead and will no longer be around in a month. She falls in love anyway, slowly removing herself from her life to be with him. In the end he still dies and she finds she must extricate herself from his clinging ghost to go back to living her life.
It didn’t take me long to figure out why I didn’t like this book beyond the ridiculous story. Neither main character is likable. They use people. The dead guy won't let go of the woman nice enough to love him while he’s in limbo. He haunts her and holds on to her once he’s finally really dead. And the woman uses an old boyfriend to try and rid herself of the ghost. Just not nice people dead or alive. And the whole “you can't be really dead yet but you are dead” story line, silly and not fully flushed out. Are there others like him? Why aren't they together for their short time in limbo instead of having to deal with their time back on earth alone? Why send them back to earth with all it’s temptations? How come he’s able to haunt her after he’s gone? What the hell are the regrets he’s creating? We never get to hear from him about what they are although creating regrets gets talked about. Is it the love affair? Or is it the sticking around afterwards? Who knows? Do I care? Nope.
I don't usually read rom coms, but I was 3/4 the way through before I even realized this is a tale about young love, sort of...and childhood trauma, and memory, and maybe natural and supernatural. Regardless. This is beautifully written. I would happily go down any little path clutching the hand of Amy Bonnaffons. I was enchanted and entertained. Probably uplifted a little as well.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Thanks to BiblioFinder and Little, Brown for the free copy. All opinions are my own.
I'll be thinking of about this strange and compelling story for a long time to come. It's such an interesting take on relationships, on connection, on grief and death. It blurs the lines of reality in so many ways, and yet I found so much to be relatable in how these characters interacted and connected and came apart. Appropriately for the subjects of this book, is has this hazy, dreamy feel where truth lies under the prose. Despite it's depth I found it a quick read. This would be an interesting one for book groups- a lot to talk about with death and dreams.
I'll be thinking of about this strange and compelling story for a long time to come. It's such an interesting take on relationships, on connection, on grief and death. It blurs the lines of reality in so many ways, and yet I found so much to be relatable in how these characters interacted and connected and came apart. Appropriately for the subjects of this book, is has this hazy, dreamy feel where truth lies under the prose. Despite it's depth I found it a quick read. This would be an interesting one for book groups- a lot to talk about with death and dreams.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
(Note: I wrote this review 30 minutes after finishing this book, so these are my unfiltered post-book thoughts) Wow. Just freaking WOW. This book is weird. Like possibly one of the weirdest books I've ever read. It's surreal and philosophical and very sexual. And I LOVED it.
I read Amy Bonnaffons' short story collection, The Wrong Heaven, last year and loved it cautiously. It's not the kind of book you hand to people and say here, read this, because you have no idea if they're going to read it and be like, "Why did you give me a book where women turn into horses (or have sex with angels or talk to lawn ornaments, etc)" I was cautious, too, because I didn't know if she could pull off that alchemy between strangeness and reality in a novel-length story. I mean, just getting a reader to suspend their disbelief for the length of a normal not-super-weird novel is a Herculean task.
I think what I love about her writing is the way she perfectly balances weirdness with truth. Or maybe it's wisdom or relatablity (though I hesitate to say I "related" to any of these characters...yikes). But either way she counters all the strangeness with these little persistent kernels of truth-with-a-capital-T. They kind of sneak up on you when you least expect them and suddenly you're nodding your head yes, I know, of course, at the same time that something utterly bizarre is happening to the characters. I honestly don't know how she does it. It's some kind of alchemy or magic or something.
This book comes out February 2020. I'll come back to this review then and see if my thoughts are still the same, but for what it's worth now: this book is an experience I'm glad I had. Even if it was a very bizarre experience.
PS. Oh, and did I mention this book is funny? I laughed out loud. A lot. Sometimes at the absurdity, sometimes while shaking my head at some sentence Amy Bonnaffons had the gall to write, sometimes just because it was actually, completely, old-fashionedly comical. How does she do it?? I'll never know.
I read Amy Bonnaffons' short story collection, The Wrong Heaven, last year and loved it cautiously. It's not the kind of book you hand to people and say here, read this, because you have no idea if they're going to read it and be like, "Why did you give me a book where women turn into horses (or have sex with angels or talk to lawn ornaments, etc)" I was cautious, too, because I didn't know if she could pull off that alchemy between strangeness and reality in a novel-length story. I mean, just getting a reader to suspend their disbelief for the length of a normal not-super-weird novel is a Herculean task.
I think what I love about her writing is the way she perfectly balances weirdness with truth. Or maybe it's wisdom or relatablity (though I hesitate to say I "related" to any of these characters...yikes). But either way she counters all the strangeness with these little persistent kernels of truth-with-a-capital-T. They kind of sneak up on you when you least expect them and suddenly you're nodding your head yes, I know, of course, at the same time that something utterly bizarre is happening to the characters. I honestly don't know how she does it. It's some kind of alchemy or magic or something.
This book comes out February 2020. I'll come back to this review then and see if my thoughts are still the same, but for what it's worth now: this book is an experience I'm glad I had. Even if it was a very bizarre experience.
PS. Oh, and did I mention this book is funny? I laughed out loud. A lot. Sometimes at the absurdity, sometimes while shaking my head at some sentence Amy Bonnaffons had the gall to write, sometimes just because it was actually, completely, old-fashionedly comical. How does she do it?? I'll never know.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes