peeled_grape's reviews
134 reviews

Ambitiously human and admirably honest. I had to set this book down after several sections to let them sink in all the way. This one was gutting in ways I didn't expect. It is stunning and clever and moving. I think I am mostly speechless.

Y'all, I got 200 pages into this book and never felt like it started. It's theoretically great, and I like the idea of it -- lots of paradoxes to chew on, it's extremely clever -- but in practice, it's not good. I appreciate what it's trying to do, but I couldn't focus on this book enough to finish it. It makes its point in the first chapter and then does it again and again and again. So repetitious. Like, I get it. I get it! Can we move on now!

I can tell this writing is super high quality, but it was hard for me to get through. I had to focus very hard to not space out while reading parts of this (though, admittedly, I have a short attention span, and this is likely more of a me problem than anything else). The stories I did get through were great. They all blend into each other a little, and I found it hard to separate them when I was done. I can tell Blackburn knows what she's doing, but it wasn't for me.

For me, this was almost comically depressing. I kept thinking of that John Mulaney skit with the “God can’t hear you” joke. It didn’t rip my heart out the way I wanted it to, and that may have been why—I just wasn’t sucked in to the horror of the world. I applaud this for keeping my attention as well as it did—it was colorless and bleak and there is no plot. I could not figure out why I couldn’t put it down for long. I am in love with all of the dialogue, and I both love and hate the way this is written.