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rainbowbookworm's review against another edition
2.0
I was appalled by the writing early on, but ultimately I was not engaged by the protagonist or her quest to connect the dots.
hatrireads's review against another edition
2.0
There were a lot of things I liked about the book. I enjoy books set in art museums. "The Mixed Up Files..." was - and still is - one of my favorite books. I love books set in NYC in urbane, sophisticated households. The plot was interesting. A co-worker at the Central Museum (fictional Met) disappears. That mystery is set along side a historical art mystery and then the two overlap. I love maps and they were an aspect of the story. The main character was interesting and had depth. But there were questions left hanging or maybe I didn't figure them out. The novel was also funny in a biting way at times. But overall the language was too dense and the style too wordy for my taste. I struggled through the forest at times in this book to see the trees. Some characters were fuzzy and there was way too much inner monologue. The book was clever but almost too much so.
linesuponapage's review against another edition
3.0
ADVANCE GALLEY REVIEWS from Penguins First to Read
by Sandra Brower, Lincoln
Rated 3.5
This book took until page 80 for me to straighten out in my brain the writing style of Ms. Ives. Finally, I realized that I found the book oddly delightful in ways. Maybe, because as a fellow deep thinker, all over the place, go into my brain and see things happening in story form, like Stella's view of her own maddening stagnation when it came to one of her relationships (I mean, she uses a Star Wars reference for Pete's sake!!)
I just got the formation of her thoughts. Ms. Ives creates an impossible view of the inner workings of an inner NYC museum, that none of us might ever get a glimpse of seeing.
I did find it a little bit forced at the end. Through 304 pages of story it's only until towards the end we get even a hint of a resolution coming to the mysteryof Elysia.
I am a notetaker when it comes to reading as I review these books. There are a ton of art references in this book. If only for the fun of exploring a museum might you read Impossible Views of the World. If for pure reading, it might just be too Impossible to finish. Boy, did a re-learn a lot about Limner art! If nothing else.
Sorry, I gives this book a 2.5 rating.
by Sandra Brower, Lincoln
Rated 3.5
This book took until page 80 for me to straighten out in my brain the writing style of Ms. Ives. Finally, I realized that I found the book oddly delightful in ways. Maybe, because as a fellow deep thinker, all over the place, go into my brain and see things happening in story form, like Stella's view of her own maddening stagnation when it came to one of her relationships (I mean, she uses a Star Wars reference for Pete's sake!!)
I just got the formation of her thoughts. Ms. Ives creates an impossible view of the inner workings of an inner NYC museum, that none of us might ever get a glimpse of seeing.
I did find it a little bit forced at the end. Through 304 pages of story it's only until towards the end we get even a hint of a resolution coming to the mysteryof Elysia.
I am a notetaker when it comes to reading as I review these books. There are a ton of art references in this book. If only for the fun of exploring a museum might you read Impossible Views of the World. If for pure reading, it might just be too Impossible to finish. Boy, did a re-learn a lot about Limner art! If nothing else.
Sorry, I gives this book a 2.5 rating.
msmadeline_5050's review against another edition
1.0
I had to push myself to finish this one. Preview made this one sound interesting, like it was going to be a great, interesting read... not the case. I am not fan of writing that includes large, unnecessary words for fillers, and that is what most of this book contains, like it was the 30 page paper I had to write in college and had to think of any word under the sun to add in order to reach my word/page count. Was the book terrible... no, but would I recommend or read again... never.
hannahkkitchen's review against another edition
1.0
Review from May 14th, 2018 (I saw it on my Amazon profile and realized I never posted it here haha).
———
This is the single worst book I've ever read, and as I am (or once was) an avid reader, that is truly saying something. I thought only a few pages into it, at around page 6 and then again by page 26 that I didn't want to finish it but I pushed through as I didn't want to think “what if” lol. That was a mistake. I want those hours back. I also want my $25 back as I purchased it on a whim at Barnes and Noble. I thought the premise seemed interesting and as an educated twenty something, interested in art it drew me in but was an utter waste of time and money. This book is overly pretentious, and so hard to get through. Someone else described the language as overly verbose and that is completely it. I wish so badly I had read the goodreads reviews before purchasing it but I've never had such a reaction to a book and didn't realize I was in for the worst book to ever be written. The plot basically goes nowhere, the author has to explain a lot of very detailed uninteresting stuff while trying to tell the story and it just sounds like someone was trying to sound intelligent for the sake of sounding smart, not to serve a story. I don't even know how to articulate how horrible this book is. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.
Edit to add: I got rid of it/gave it away because I couldn’t even stand to look at it
———
This is the single worst book I've ever read, and as I am (or once was) an avid reader, that is truly saying something. I thought only a few pages into it, at around page 6 and then again by page 26 that I didn't want to finish it but I pushed through as I didn't want to think “what if” lol. That was a mistake. I want those hours back. I also want my $25 back as I purchased it on a whim at Barnes and Noble. I thought the premise seemed interesting and as an educated twenty something, interested in art it drew me in but was an utter waste of time and money. This book is overly pretentious, and so hard to get through. Someone else described the language as overly verbose and that is completely it. I wish so badly I had read the goodreads reviews before purchasing it but I've never had such a reaction to a book and didn't realize I was in for the worst book to ever be written. The plot basically goes nowhere, the author has to explain a lot of very detailed uninteresting stuff while trying to tell the story and it just sounds like someone was trying to sound intelligent for the sake of sounding smart, not to serve a story. I don't even know how to articulate how horrible this book is. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.
Edit to add: I got rid of it/gave it away because I couldn’t even stand to look at it
sasha_in_a_box's review against another edition
Hard pass on everything that's lauded as The Goldfinch read-alike.
adammaid's review against another edition
3.0
Did Lucy Ives make Reddit mad or something? Why are there so many "did not finish" reviews tanking this perfectly good book?
marshaskrypuch's review against another edition
1.0
It's a rare novel that I don't finish, but going through this one was like wading through a weedy garden. All the clever words hid a possibly interesting story.
Thank you net galley for the ereview edition of this book.
Thank you net galley for the ereview edition of this book.
brjennings93's review against another edition
2.0
Why oh why did I not read the reviews before buying this book? The premise made it sound fun and exciting and mysterious and quirky--but the actual book is verbose to the point of being painful. The narrator is like that one friend who talks and talks and talks, and doesn't seem to notice that your eyes are slowly drooping until suddenly in the middle of a sentence she just screams "fuck!" and then you jerk awake only to realize she's still talking and then it just goes on and on and on....
That is our heroine Stella for you, in a nutshell. She's selfish, two-faced, not very nice, and I just found her overall to be an unlikable character. Like, I get it, you're not content with your life and you feel personally victimized by every little thing that goes wrong, but that doesn't mean you get to be a total bitch about it.
How do I even begin to explain the plot? It's like a pretzel that has no beginning and no end. It just keeps on going and even halfway through the book, I'm still not sure what's going on. I know she works at a museum where she feels under-appreciated; I know she's awful to her mother; I know she is being stalked by her ex-husband while also being in love with a total jerkface who she works with; I know one of her coworkers died (and she seems to be deeply affected but to be honest I don't get their relationship to begin with); and I know she has set herself on this quest that makes no sense and isn't really explained. I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.
One of my biggest issues with the book is the style of writing. I can tell Ives loves words, and she knows how to write a juicy sentence, but when it takes two and a half pages to describe the narrator's thoughts on a thing before she actually does it, you've lost me. I would post an example, but honestly the paragraphs are incredibly long and loquacious and I'm trying to finish this review before my boss sees me not working. A summary of such example: Stella is on her way to visit her mother, but it takes her four pages to get there because she needs to describe all of the reasons why she hates her mother and why she's having an existential crisis, and man she just can't stop thinking about Fred and his magic hands and how Bonnie probably knows about their one night stand and by the way did she mention she hates her mother?
This book has so much potential. Ives is not a bad writer. Heck, she published a book and I can barely get one paragraph down before I give up! Her characters have personality (even if I don't like most of them) and obviously the plot is going somewhere, but she's just so dang wordy. While I understand our heroine works at a museum and would therefore be bursting with knowledge, I immediately lose focus when it takes her two paragraphs to describe one small, minute detail, or when she info-dumps in this totally pretentious and unlikable way.
This makes it hard to appreciate that the book is technically a mystery. There's no action. We're always stuck in Stella's head and she's always stuck moaning about miserable life. If Ives pulled back a bit and went a little less heavy on the information overload, I think this would be a really enjoyable story. The plot is there, it just needs more structure and focus.
That is our heroine Stella for you, in a nutshell. She's selfish, two-faced, not very nice, and I just found her overall to be an unlikable character. Like, I get it, you're not content with your life and you feel personally victimized by every little thing that goes wrong, but that doesn't mean you get to be a total bitch about it.
How do I even begin to explain the plot? It's like a pretzel that has no beginning and no end. It just keeps on going and even halfway through the book, I'm still not sure what's going on. I know she works at a museum where she feels under-appreciated; I know she's awful to her mother; I know she is being stalked by her ex-husband while also being in love with a total jerkface who she works with; I know one of her coworkers died (and she seems to be deeply affected but to be honest I don't get their relationship to begin with); and I know she has set herself on this quest that makes no sense and isn't really explained. I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.
One of my biggest issues with the book is the style of writing. I can tell Ives loves words, and she knows how to write a juicy sentence, but when it takes two and a half pages to describe the narrator's thoughts on a thing before she actually does it, you've lost me. I would post an example, but honestly the paragraphs are incredibly long and loquacious and I'm trying to finish this review before my boss sees me not working. A summary of such example: Stella is on her way to visit her mother, but it takes her four pages to get there because she needs to describe all of the reasons why she hates her mother and why she's having an existential crisis, and man she just can't stop thinking about Fred and his magic hands and how Bonnie probably knows about their one night stand and by the way did she mention she hates her mother?
This book has so much potential. Ives is not a bad writer. Heck, she published a book and I can barely get one paragraph down before I give up! Her characters have personality (even if I don't like most of them) and obviously the plot is going somewhere, but she's just so dang wordy. While I understand our heroine works at a museum and would therefore be bursting with knowledge, I immediately lose focus when it takes her two paragraphs to describe one small, minute detail, or when she info-dumps in this totally pretentious and unlikable way.
This makes it hard to appreciate that the book is technically a mystery. There's no action. We're always stuck in Stella's head and she's always stuck moaning about miserable life. If Ives pulled back a bit and went a little less heavy on the information overload, I think this would be a really enjoyable story. The plot is there, it just needs more structure and focus.
jcpdiesel21's review against another edition
2.0
Not for me. I wanted to like this book given its stunning cover and intriguing summary, but found it to be a challenging slog despite the brief length. Ives' writing is far too pretentious to be enjoyable; I constantly had to reread sentences to fully comprehend what was happening. None of the characters are particularly compelling and a mere wisp of plot is present, which led me to wonder about the overall point of the story. One positive is that the tale allows for a peek behind the curtain at the world of art and curators, but that is not enough for me to recommend it.
Thanks to the First to Read program for providing me with an ARC of this title.
Thanks to the First to Read program for providing me with an ARC of this title.