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irisirae's review
reflective
slow-paced
1.0
I have never read so many similes and metaphors in my life - I counted them for a bit: around 70 in the first 50 pages. Terrible writing.
dianafurnea's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
bookepiphanies's review
4.0
(4.0-4.5*)
Deliciously compulsive, hilarious, sharp and - at times - heartbreaking.
Deliciously compulsive, hilarious, sharp and - at times - heartbreaking.
maejanta's review
4.0
“I guessed that she, like me, held back from definitively securing the territories of her existence. Sometimes, when I looked at the people I knew, I saw them as the generals of invisible armies, always advancing and expanding. Their lives seemed to bulk out around them like pyramidal structures by which they were lifted higher and higher until they became almost impossible to see, and when they spoke it was of the next campaign and the one after, so that they appeared peculiarly more burdened by the future than by the past.”
nuff said.
nuff said.
petrichorandcoffee's review against another edition
emotional
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.5
I didn't really enjoy the first couple of chapters. It opens into it's excellence, though, as it progresses. The dialogue is very good and the characters are richly developed. I generally tend away from novels centering around people who have become so entrenched in their permanent dissatisfaction with their lives and the people in them that they do not know how to experience anything without a veil of resigned bitterness. While this is partially true of this book, I still enjoyed it because there is space for the characters to change. There is redemptability. There is one character who we meet toward the end who I love.
Also, I felt slightly betrayed by the book jacket which calls the book "appallingly funny," a "dark comedy," and calls Cusk "outright hilarious." The book is very good, and wonderful toward the end, however these descriptions are misleading. I would not call this book a comedy of any sort.
Also, I felt slightly betrayed by the book jacket which calls the book "appallingly funny," a "dark comedy," and calls Cusk "outright hilarious." The book is very good, and wonderful toward the end, however these descriptions are misleading. I would not call this book a comedy of any sort.
purslane's review against another edition
3.0
If only the author possessed greater discipline, this book would not be so awash in similes, bloated reflections, tiresome characterizations of houses and rooms. But the biggest of these problems is Cusk's unfortunate impulse to append a clause beginning with "as though" to every third paragraph. It's as though she's being paid by the metaphor.
jillysnz's review against another edition
3.0
At a disturbing period of his life, Michael re-visits Egypt, the farm house of a university friend which he remembers with great warmth. Several eccentric houses are described which which are inhabited with odd people and their odd relationships. I love the language and the humour: sheep barge about "as broad and brainless as sofas" - children come home from boarding school and open everything "It was like having burglars to stay" - Michael's wife tries out bad behaviour "She felt she had no entitlement to youth and irresponsibility: Rick and Ali (her parents) would not relinquish them" - and Paul thinks "If they've got nowhere to live then they shouldn't have been born."
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