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A review by sauvageloup
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
my views on this book are about as muddled as the book itself
pros:
- it's certainly not something i could've written and was reasonably original at least in style. Harkaway can definitely paint a visual image and there's some very cool metaphors and descriptions in there.
- It makes a commentary on capitalism that is well said and not too preachy and interesting.
- there's a lot of research in there, or very well-faked research, which was detailed and occasionally interesting.
- I liked the idea of Stuff turning your thoughts into the real, that was neat.
- I liked the sheer variety of characters and their different personalities.
- the plot does come together pretty neatly and i did gave a small laugh of glee when the mimes turned out to be the Voiceless Dragon students.
- I did actually like the twist of the narrator being Gonzo's imaginary friend/brother/opposite. It was a bit of a mind twist and I'm still not entirely clear on how it exactly fits in (did Gonzo do the anarchist stuff?), it was still pretty cool and made a lot of narrative sense.
- I liked the ending and that it was happy and not dismal, which i did start to fear when everyone seemed to forget the narrator
cons:
- I just can't rank it higher because for more than half of it, I was bored and wanted to DNF. Harkaway rambles all the time. Some of it is decent, and some of it is useless crap that is annoying and adds nothing. For me, almost the entirety of the childhood growing up bit, all 250 odd pages of it, felt pretty useless. Yes, the plot did loop back and neatly fitted it in and it worked somewhat in retrospect but while i was reading it, i hated it.
- i very much disliked the frequent, explicit and totally unnecessary sexualisation of women. We get it, he's a randy young man and so is every man around him apparently. It seemed coded into the narrative that men like sex, have a right to goggle at women (who won't mind), and that no woman escapes the narrator's sexualising eye.
- the presentation of queer people felt stereotypical at best or just plain offensive, as did that of POC. I would be interested to hear a POC's view on it.
- basically it needed a good solid edit, for Harkaway to stop showing off, and for it to be read by some feminists and sensitivity readers, imo.
overall, i don't know. there was much I liked and admired, and much that was annoying and/or gross.
(quotes i liked were located on pg.104, 334, 415, 541.
pros:
- it's certainly not something i could've written and was reasonably original at least in style. Harkaway can definitely paint a visual image and there's some very cool metaphors and descriptions in there.
- It makes a commentary on capitalism that is well said and not too preachy and interesting.
- there's a lot of research in there, or very well-faked research, which was detailed and occasionally interesting.
- I liked the idea of Stuff turning your thoughts into the real, that was neat.
- I liked the sheer variety of characters and their different personalities.
- the plot does come together pretty neatly
- I did actually like the twist of the narrator being Gonzo's imaginary friend/brother/opposite. It was a bit of a mind twist and I'm still not entirely clear on how it exactly fits in (did Gonzo do the anarchist stuff?), it was still pretty cool and made a lot of narrative sense.
- I liked the ending and that it was happy and not dismal, which i did start to fear when everyone seemed to forget the narrator
cons:
- I just can't rank it higher because for more than half of it, I was bored and wanted to DNF. Harkaway rambles all the time. Some of it is decent, and some of it is useless crap that is annoying and adds nothing. For me, almost the entirety of the childhood growing up bit, all 250 odd pages of it, felt pretty useless. Yes, the plot did loop back and neatly fitted it in and it worked somewhat in retrospect but while i was reading it, i hated it.
- i very much disliked the frequent, explicit and totally unnecessary sexualisation of women. We get it, he's a randy young man and so is every man around him apparently. It seemed coded into the narrative that men like sex, have a right to goggle at women (who won't mind), and that no woman escapes the narrator's sexualising eye.
- the presentation of queer people felt stereotypical at best or just plain offensive, as did that of POC. I would be interested to hear a POC's view on it.
- basically it needed a good solid edit, for Harkaway to stop showing off, and for it to be read by some feminists and sensitivity readers, imo.
overall, i don't know. there was much I liked and admired, and much that was annoying and/or gross.
(quotes i liked were located on pg.104, 334, 415, 541.