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A review by 11corvus11
An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
3.0
I have mixed feelings about this book.
It gets 5 stars for writing style, debut, and for accurately portraying PTSD. It definitely held my attention and made me read it through the end.
What makes me give it three stars is that I honestly found all of the characters incredibly unlikable and unrelatable. I was supposed to be empathizing with the main character and I could not, despite things we have in common. I also found it to be trauma after trauma and I wasn't sure what the point of it was. It didn't feel liberating at all throughout the book, and I found it on a feminist book list. I found that the main character's class privilege was (perhaps accurately) reflected in her behavior which made it really hard to relate to her and want to read about her, even though what happens to her is so devastating and she is indeed strong.
I don't know, I'd read something else by this author for sure because the writing was excellent. I just didn't like this book and wouldn't recommend it.
It gets 5 stars for writing style, debut, and for accurately portraying PTSD. It definitely held my attention and made me read it through the end.
What makes me give it three stars is that I honestly found all of the characters incredibly unlikable and unrelatable. I was supposed to be empathizing with the main character and I could not, despite things we have in common. I also found it to be trauma after trauma and I wasn't sure what the point of it was. It didn't feel liberating at all throughout the book, and I found it on a feminist book list. I found that the main character's class privilege was (perhaps accurately) reflected in her behavior which made it really hard to relate to her and want to read about her, even though what happens to her is so devastating and she is indeed strong.
I don't know, I'd read something else by this author for sure because the writing was excellent. I just didn't like this book and wouldn't recommend it.