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A review by shaun_trinh
The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata
5.0
What a great read, I had heard amazing things about Mariana Zapata's writing, but she completely blew me out of the park with this book. Now at first I must admit I was skeptical when the it had arrived at my house after ordering it online, I thought "why the hell was this book so long"?" When I bought it I only knew what the synopsis was, and I had no idea how Zapata was going to make it last 665 pages long. But alas she did and it was amazing.
Something that immediately stood out to me as I read The Wall of Winnipeg and Me was the pacing. Zapata made those 600+ pages go by in a breeze. I never felt like the story was dragging on too much. It wasn't too slow to where I would get bored, and it didn't go to fast to where I was left confused on what was going on. The pacing was perfect. Part of why it was so good was that the story never made any pit stops for minor side plots. When it came to Van's family drama, it wasn't ignored at all, but we didn't spend pages among pages dealing with it. We saw that Van went to her mom's birthday party, what was going to go down was established, but we didn't get any fluff to draw out this part of the story. In fact in ended shortly after Van arrived. Afterwards we were told what happened in a smooth and effortless way while also highlighting how it affected Van. It also let the readers get to scenes and characters that they cared about more faster and not making them skim through needless fluff. She also didn't give us the typical relationship-breaking drama in the 3rd act of the book which almost every romance and YA book has at it's climax. But to my pleasant surprise, nothing was pulled out from the rug under me to randomly force our main characters to have a giant dispute just for the sake of being a cookie cutter YA/romance book.
I also loved how isolated the story was, it had these side plots as mentioned earlier, but for the most part it focused in on our 2 main characters and lead supporting character being Van, Aiden, and Zach. The passage of time felt seem-less. In a lot of romance novels authors tend to have a lot of scenes that aren't necessarily fluff, but are noticeably less interesting to read about then others. That wasn't the case here at all. Every scene felt interesting and that it had a reason to be there that wasn't a drag to get through. Zapata made great use of these scenes that could have been an obstacle for the reader to get through, and turned them into great character and plot building moments. I wouldn't take out any of them.
Another thing I loved how drawn out the main plot point of the synopsis was. The readers are told that essentially Van is working for Aiden as his assistant, but that she had enough of the way he was treating her and quit. Only for him to come back and beg her to return. Not only was this important plot not rushed at all, it didn't give away how the rest of the book was going to specifically go. In a lot of books of any genre, the founding plot line that dives the rest of the book is often put into motion fairly quickly, around 20 pages or less, but this book spent 85 pages to execute it. Now some of you may think that's preposterous, but it was honestly a great decision by the author. Zapata spent those 85 pages to thoroughly establish the foundation of both Van and Aiden's characters individually, and what their relationship was like at the start of the story. It's because of this well-established starting point that the book flows as well as it does, because we know exactly where these characters stand, what their fundamental beliefs are, behavioral tendencies, all of it. Now we obviously don't know everything to the fullest extent by any means, but it's this writing choice that makes EVERY scene that follows it for the rest of the book so much more worth it.
Which leads me to talking about the best thing in this book. The RELATIONSHIP. Watching how both Van and Aiden progress throughout the story was infatuating because I loved just about every scene they shared. They started with seemingly nothing of mutual personal value and appreciation, but slowly(but still at a good pace) grew closer and closer to each other. What also made it so satisfying was the characters themselves acknowledging it, from Van being surprised that Aiden remembered and knew things about her she though he didn't care enough to notice, and Aiden being reminded of how before Van came back he really didn't treat her right, how he didn't notice things he should have after working with her for 2-3 years. None of this happened abruptly either, it all happened across the entirety of the book. We got to see both small and big details arise in their scenes which indicated how far their relationship was at any given point in the story. I also loved how everything wasn't automatically all good between the two either after they made a deal that would help both of them. Van had quit for a reason and things weren't sunshine and daisy's as if nothing had happened before. Their relationship had it's ups and downs before it stabilized which I loved. They went having a weird semi-mutual respect for each other but were just acquaintances, to being friends, to having unspoken feelings to one another, to actually being together by the end of the book. It wasn't a smooth ride to get from A to Z, but it wasn't filled with obstacles of toxicity either. It felt like their relationship with one another was genuinely evolving at an appropriate and satisfying pace. Love them.
Now to them individually. I love Van as a main character. She's mature, nice, quick tempered, hard-working, funny, and is rooted in being human, not just a stereotype or caricature. She's gone through a lot of shit with her biological family, with dealing with Aiden, her concerns for her best friend, and her own dreams and journey. It never felt like her character was compromised for the sake of drama. She approached problems and people(often these intersect) with a level of civility, but also not to the point of being annoyingly too nice. She stood up for herself, she got angry, she explained how she felt and why, and she had sympathy for those close to her, even if she felt like they had done something wrong to her(this is specifically with Aiden). Van was also grounded by the fact that Zapata didn't make her the best at everything just for the sake of making her a main character that was perfect. Van was good and bad at things, and wasn't given the main character treatment of outshining everyone or having unrealistic success. Van had good but limited exposure as a grapgic design artist, so she wasn't getting crowded by people at a convention for her talent. Van participated in a marathon but in training wasn't able to jog the full 26 miles, and she didn't magically gain the ability to the day of the race even after getting a pep talk from Aiden. Van was the main character, but she wasn't treated like she was the main character in her world. She knew what she wanted, what she expected, how she felt, and was a perfectly flawed, but understandable and developed character. I never felt bored having her be the main character we followed, and I never felt the need to skim through her thoughts/inner monologues.
Now to Aiden, yes he was an absolute asshole for the first 150 or so pages of the book. But Zapata had Van refine him into someone who you can genuinely care and root for. He wasn't the way he was, an inconsiderate jackass who was also a loner, for no reason. But those reasons didn't guilt trip the reader into liking him as an individual and not just the relationship he's developing with Van. Now yes part of his backstory is definitely traumatic and upsetting, but in my opinion Zapata doesn't write in a way to where we're meant to ignore the flaws in his personality that were probably caused by his past. In fact she uses it to strengthen his character and his actions towards others throughout the entire book. Which again wasn't justifying how he treated Van in this first section of the book, but it helps us understand where he's coming from, and makes us appreciate his character transition more and more as the book moves on. I mentioned this a little earlier, but Aiden throughout the book would realize things about Van that he had missed or ignored about her, and how he treated her. Such as her leg injury, or how she played fantasy football with his roommate Zach, or how he quite literally never cared to actively learn anything about her before she quit. Which again is never ignored, it's brought up by both leading characters multiple times. The faults in his character and how he treated Van isn't ignored for the sake of bringing them closer together. I did want to punch him sometimes in the first 150 pages of the book, but his character cleans up really nice as the story progresses and he becomes a fully supportive and caring guy who stays true to is more closed, 'not giving a shit' personality. (Also yes if someone had come to my apartment to beg me to come back to help him multiples times after he was told no, I would be concerned and scared for my safety. But this is fiction so I have the advantage of seeing his actual context, intents and reasons so I'm fine with ignoring this.)
A more subtly done message in the book that I liked was that not everything needs to be wrapped up and given closure. Van has a terrible family and in a lot of books, the main character would have resolved their issues with said family or had a final "fuck you" monologue to them. But that wasn't the case here. Van simply decided she didn't want to be anywhere near them anymore. She didn't need them to understand why, she didn't feel the need to keep on trying with them, and she didn't need to have some final showdown with them. She decided for her own comfort and mental health, that she didn't need to which I respect. Far to often do we as people feel like we need to have some closure from the ones who wronged us, that we can't be happy without it. But we can, and Van showed that.
One last thing I do want to mention though is that I wish that the side character plots were wrapped up more cleanly. Diana had her side plot with her boyfriend physically abusing her near the end of the book, but then nothing is really done with it. It literally just served to make Van more sad at that point in the story which isn't exactly what I would call great writing. Zach is also kind of left in the dust near the end of the book as well, he's randomly side lined from running the marathon with Van which they had been training for, for most of the book, because he broke his ankle. This was also done for the sake of Van feeling more alone and making her more sad. Now yes Zach's story was more properly concluded in the epilogue, more then Diana's was, I just wish they were both handled better in the end.
Overall though I absolutely adore this book. I understand why people rave over it and Mariana Zapata and I'll definitely have to look at her other works now because I can't deny talent when I see it.
Something that immediately stood out to me as I read The Wall of Winnipeg and Me was the pacing. Zapata made those 600+ pages go by in a breeze. I never felt like the story was dragging on too much. It wasn't too slow to where I would get bored, and it didn't go to fast to where I was left confused on what was going on. The pacing was perfect. Part of why it was so good was that the story never made any pit stops for minor side plots. When it came to Van's family drama, it wasn't ignored at all, but we didn't spend pages among pages dealing with it. We saw that Van went to her mom's birthday party, what was going to go down was established, but we didn't get any fluff to draw out this part of the story. In fact in ended shortly after Van arrived. Afterwards we were told what happened in a smooth and effortless way while also highlighting how it affected Van. It also let the readers get to scenes and characters that they cared about more faster and not making them skim through needless fluff. She also didn't give us the typical relationship-breaking drama in the 3rd act of the book which almost every romance and YA book has at it's climax. But to my pleasant surprise, nothing was pulled out from the rug under me to randomly force our main characters to have a giant dispute just for the sake of being a cookie cutter YA/romance book.
I also loved how isolated the story was, it had these side plots as mentioned earlier, but for the most part it focused in on our 2 main characters and lead supporting character being Van, Aiden, and Zach. The passage of time felt seem-less. In a lot of romance novels authors tend to have a lot of scenes that aren't necessarily fluff, but are noticeably less interesting to read about then others. That wasn't the case here at all. Every scene felt interesting and that it had a reason to be there that wasn't a drag to get through. Zapata made great use of these scenes that could have been an obstacle for the reader to get through, and turned them into great character and plot building moments. I wouldn't take out any of them.
Another thing I loved how drawn out the main plot point of the synopsis was. The readers are told that essentially Van is working for Aiden as his assistant, but that she had enough of the way he was treating her and quit. Only for him to come back and beg her to return. Not only was this important plot not rushed at all, it didn't give away how the rest of the book was going to specifically go. In a lot of books of any genre, the founding plot line that dives the rest of the book is often put into motion fairly quickly, around 20 pages or less, but this book spent 85 pages to execute it. Now some of you may think that's preposterous, but it was honestly a great decision by the author. Zapata spent those 85 pages to thoroughly establish the foundation of both Van and Aiden's characters individually, and what their relationship was like at the start of the story. It's because of this well-established starting point that the book flows as well as it does, because we know exactly where these characters stand, what their fundamental beliefs are, behavioral tendencies, all of it. Now we obviously don't know everything to the fullest extent by any means, but it's this writing choice that makes EVERY scene that follows it for the rest of the book so much more worth it.
Which leads me to talking about the best thing in this book. The RELATIONSHIP. Watching how both Van and Aiden progress throughout the story was infatuating because I loved just about every scene they shared. They started with seemingly nothing of mutual personal value and appreciation, but slowly(but still at a good pace) grew closer and closer to each other. What also made it so satisfying was the characters themselves acknowledging it, from Van being surprised that Aiden remembered and knew things about her she though he didn't care enough to notice, and Aiden being reminded of how before Van came back he really didn't treat her right, how he didn't notice things he should have after working with her for 2-3 years. None of this happened abruptly either, it all happened across the entirety of the book. We got to see both small and big details arise in their scenes which indicated how far their relationship was at any given point in the story. I also loved how everything wasn't automatically all good between the two either after they made a deal that would help both of them. Van had quit for a reason and things weren't sunshine and daisy's as if nothing had happened before. Their relationship had it's ups and downs before it stabilized which I loved. They went having a weird semi-mutual respect for each other but were just acquaintances, to being friends, to having unspoken feelings to one another, to actually being together by the end of the book. It wasn't a smooth ride to get from A to Z, but it wasn't filled with obstacles of toxicity either. It felt like their relationship with one another was genuinely evolving at an appropriate and satisfying pace. Love them.
Now to them individually. I love Van as a main character. She's mature, nice, quick tempered, hard-working, funny, and is rooted in being human, not just a stereotype or caricature. She's gone through a lot of shit with her biological family, with dealing with Aiden, her concerns for her best friend, and her own dreams and journey. It never felt like her character was compromised for the sake of drama. She approached problems and people(often these intersect) with a level of civility, but also not to the point of being annoyingly too nice. She stood up for herself, she got angry, she explained how she felt and why, and she had sympathy for those close to her, even if she felt like they had done something wrong to her(this is specifically with Aiden). Van was also grounded by the fact that Zapata didn't make her the best at everything just for the sake of making her a main character that was perfect. Van was good and bad at things, and wasn't given the main character treatment of outshining everyone or having unrealistic success. Van had good but limited exposure as a grapgic design artist, so she wasn't getting crowded by people at a convention for her talent. Van participated in a marathon but in training wasn't able to jog the full 26 miles, and she didn't magically gain the ability to the day of the race even after getting a pep talk from Aiden. Van was the main character, but she wasn't treated like she was the main character in her world. She knew what she wanted, what she expected, how she felt, and was a perfectly flawed, but understandable and developed character. I never felt bored having her be the main character we followed, and I never felt the need to skim through her thoughts/inner monologues.
Now to Aiden, yes he was an absolute asshole for the first 150 or so pages of the book. But Zapata had Van refine him into someone who you can genuinely care and root for. He wasn't the way he was, an inconsiderate jackass who was also a loner, for no reason. But those reasons didn't guilt trip the reader into liking him as an individual and not just the relationship he's developing with Van. Now yes part of his backstory is definitely traumatic and upsetting, but in my opinion Zapata doesn't write in a way to where we're meant to ignore the flaws in his personality that were probably caused by his past. In fact she uses it to strengthen his character and his actions towards others throughout the entire book. Which again wasn't justifying how he treated Van in this first section of the book, but it helps us understand where he's coming from, and makes us appreciate his character transition more and more as the book moves on. I mentioned this a little earlier, but Aiden throughout the book would realize things about Van that he had missed or ignored about her, and how he treated her. Such as her leg injury, or how she played fantasy football with his roommate Zach, or how he quite literally never cared to actively learn anything about her before she quit. Which again is never ignored, it's brought up by both leading characters multiple times. The faults in his character and how he treated Van isn't ignored for the sake of bringing them closer together. I did want to punch him sometimes in the first 150 pages of the book, but his character cleans up really nice as the story progresses and he becomes a fully supportive and caring guy who stays true to is more closed, 'not giving a shit' personality. (Also yes if someone had come to my apartment to beg me to come back to help him multiples times after he was told no, I would be concerned and scared for my safety. But this is fiction so I have the advantage of seeing his actual context, intents and reasons so I'm fine with ignoring this.)
A more subtly done message in the book that I liked was that not everything needs to be wrapped up and given closure. Van has a terrible family and in a lot of books, the main character would have resolved their issues with said family or had a final "fuck you" monologue to them. But that wasn't the case here. Van simply decided she didn't want to be anywhere near them anymore. She didn't need them to understand why, she didn't feel the need to keep on trying with them, and she didn't need to have some final showdown with them. She decided for her own comfort and mental health, that she didn't need to which I respect. Far to often do we as people feel like we need to have some closure from the ones who wronged us, that we can't be happy without it. But we can, and Van showed that.
One last thing I do want to mention though is that I wish that the side character plots were wrapped up more cleanly. Diana had her side plot with her boyfriend physically abusing her near the end of the book, but then nothing is really done with it. It literally just served to make Van more sad at that point in the story which isn't exactly what I would call great writing. Zach is also kind of left in the dust near the end of the book as well, he's randomly side lined from running the marathon with Van which they had been training for, for most of the book, because he broke his ankle. This was also done for the sake of Van feeling more alone and making her more sad. Now yes Zach's story was more properly concluded in the epilogue, more then Diana's was, I just wish they were both handled better in the end.
Overall though I absolutely adore this book. I understand why people rave over it and Mariana Zapata and I'll definitely have to look at her other works now because I can't deny talent when I see it.