I almost wish I actually hated this book because then I could summon enough vitriol to fill a full 250-word review. As it stands, all I really got is ” … meh”. I kind of wish I’d done CBR last year just so y’all could have been treated to my screed on My Absolute Darling but nope, you guys are stuck with this much masquerading as a philosophical journey.
It’s a writer writing about a writer writing about a writer. She’s so far up her own ass I’m surprised she can find the keyboard. I am given absolutely no reason to care about anybody or their motivations or their actions or their fates. I a little bit hoped that one of them would die in the desert, honestly, at least then something would have happened. The most exciting adventure was one dude’s search for his coat someone else accidentally picked up at a party. I guess it’s supposed to be some grand novel on introspection and the meaning of it all but my god I was just bored.
And then just UGH the writing style itself. Her paragraphs are longer than pages, it’s just this wall of text you can’t escape and my eyes completely glazed over. It felt like I wasn’t so much reading as staring at the page and turning to the next one when it felt like enough time had passed. I’m writing this review really just to put the book in my rearview mirror and move on to something that can actually hold my attention.
I’ve only read one book by this author and I loved it at the time. The History of Love, I think it was called? Anyway, now I can’t think of her without thinking, poor lady, she was married to that Jonathan Safran Foer guy (the one that decided to divorce her because he thought Natalie Portman was in love with him, except she wasn’t, she just liked your books, dummy, and whoops, awkward).
Can you please write out your screed for My Absolute Darling anyway? Please? Nobody has reviewed it yet on CBR. (I don’t think?)
Whaaaaaa now?? I did not know that. Oof, that’s a shitty dude.
I may have been optimistic calling it a screed. It would be more of a “FUUUUUCK THIIISSS BOOOOOOOK” over and over and over until I hit my 250. It’s a rape/revenge story where the main character is FOURTEEN YEARS OLD, totally isolated from society, and abused BY HER FATHER. And it was WRITTEN BY A DUDE. Like if I knew that author personally, I’d keep the cops on speed dial just in case I saw him around a child. People who have healthy relationships with little girls don’t write books like that. I held onto it for the full duration of my 3-week loan just to spare the next person in line for a little longer.
Yuuup: https://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12187884/jonathan-safran-foer-natalie-portman-emails
There’s a life giving review of that book on GR by Roxane Gay, which is what turned me on to how gross it was. I’ve been waiting for someone to rip it apart on here ever since. I refuse to be the one that reads it. I will not take that one for the team!
I held onto it for the full duration of my 3-week loan just to spare the next person in line for a little longer.
That is so thoughtful of you! :D
I re-read History of Love (narfna is correct) recently and loved it as much as I did the first time, and part of me thinks that because I’m a fan of her writing style I might like this one, but the other part of me is convinced by your review and, anyway, much more interested in “genre” these days than philosophical meanderings.