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A review by rhiannonagnes
The Regrets by Amy Bonnaffons
5.0
This was everything I wanted it to be. (Context: I saw it and thought it was right up my alley back in March on the new shelf at my library, went to check it out the last hours of the final day before we closed to wait out COVID and discovered a patron had nabbed it. Shrugged and put it on hold and figured I’d get it when they were done. Then everything was closed much longer than we all imagined, and it wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that I got another copy in hand. So I remembered and was casually thinking about this book for several months, and that’s part of why it being everything I wanted it to be means something.)
ANYWAY, I loved the matter of factness and casual strangeness and familiar reactions from unfamiliar beings from the very start. Partway through reading I saw the quote on the cover that says this is “like Haruki Murakami for the millennial generation,” which I must heartily disagree with, but in a positive way, hear me out. I adore Murakami, and I suppose I can see a similar matter of fact but also dreamlike quality to the prose, but I can make a much more astute comparison to another of my favorite authors: Nicholson Baker! The casual sexuality and cutting insight mixed in with dreamlike wonder and openmindedness to the world screams Baker to me, and I loved that about it as soon as I thought of the comparison. It stuck with me throughout reading from there and added a fun layer.
The characters and plot and language were excellent, and the concepts and ideas raised were so very interesting, so plausibly weird and comfortingly familiar to the human experience. Literary but without being hard to read (again, Baker). So very good.
ANYWAY, I loved the matter of factness and casual strangeness and familiar reactions from unfamiliar beings from the very start. Partway through reading I saw the quote on the cover that says this is “like Haruki Murakami for the millennial generation,” which I must heartily disagree with, but in a positive way, hear me out. I adore Murakami, and I suppose I can see a similar matter of fact but also dreamlike quality to the prose, but I can make a much more astute comparison to another of my favorite authors: Nicholson Baker! The casual sexuality and cutting insight mixed in with dreamlike wonder and openmindedness to the world screams Baker to me, and I loved that about it as soon as I thought of the comparison. It stuck with me throughout reading from there and added a fun layer.
The characters and plot and language were excellent, and the concepts and ideas raised were so very interesting, so plausibly weird and comfortingly familiar to the human experience. Literary but without being hard to read (again, Baker). So very good.