icarusandthesun's reviews
140 reviews

when i first watched the movie (without having read the book) i basically understood absolutely nada, and thus didn't enjoy it very much. i mean... it's a 2-hour long shot of endless dunes and desert. 

i re-watched the movie some months ago, but this time i used the little lexicon at the back of the book to guide me—and i loved it. i was (and still am) obsessed.
so i decided to finally read the book (i've owned it for like a year; the pages are starting to yellow).

with the movie as a background, i definitely found the book to be more comprehensible. i think if i hadn't watched the movie beforehand, i wouldn't have understood much. so i do recommend to watch at least the first movie before reading the book.
but the book is super important and makes the whole world really come to life. i've heard many people complain about the movie, saying it was boring and so on and so forth. which—yes, it probably is for many who've not read the book.

but the book is great and provides a lot of context & now i cannot cannot wait to finally watch dune 2.

a little unspectacular, but charming nonetheless.
as a reader, reading about someone discovering the magic of books was incredibly heartwarming and very relatable.
the plot was fine—not a lot happened (character-driven book), but I thought the family-dynamic and overall character situation was interesting enough. the characters were unique and likable.
nothing about this book was thrilling in any way, but it didn't bore me or anything, either.

so, just a good, quietly enjoyable read.

charming—i'm pleasantly surprised! i impulse-bought this book even though the synopsis didn't particularly speak to me, and i'm honestly really glad i did. 

- there was lots of talk about books and the act of writing and writing as a form of art (a given since both main characters are writers), which i, as a writer myself, throughly enjoyed, but i can definitely see how that's not a relatable topic for everyone. 

- the book's quite funny at times, and what i found especially entertaining was the upbeat writing style constantly being paired with incredibly grave topics. 

- the characters weren't lovable at all imo (except for the dog, ofc), but rather just plain interesting to observe. 

- the feminist commentary (if you can call it that?) was confusing as hell. like it was sort of feminist but then some lines weren't at all—quite the opposite. idk, it was confusing. 

- the plot... was basically non-existent. no plot, just vibes is all. i guess there was a plot twist, but that one was just really unnecessary. it wasn't impactful at all, because it didn't actually change anything. it wasn't some sort of great revelation that would make the reader feel betrayed, it didn't make the reader feel anything, really. 

another point of criticism i have is that most of the book's depth comes from quoting other authors. the narrator references other authors and works like every other page and i found that most of the lines i underlined/annotated were just said quotes. so i'm wondering a little bit—how much did nunez actually add to the depth and grade of profundity of her own book? 

something i also want to mention, even though a few other reviews have already done so, is that the book doesn't live up to its synopsis... so if you expect the things in the synopsis it's invariably going to be a little underwhelming, if not disappointing. 

but i personally really enjoyed it nevertheless—perhaps even *because* it was so different from what i had expected (since, as i've already said, the synopsis didn't really speak to me anyway.) 

addie larue was okay—honestly just okay.
i like schwab's writing style a lot; i think her ideas are smart, and so are many lines in the book.
however, the book still failed to captivate me in many ways.

the characters were nice and had their fair share of depth... like, objectively, they were good characters, but i still found myself unable to 1) fall in love with them, and 2) relate to them in any way or form. i still don't feel any special attachment to any of these characters, and that, of course, took away most of the impact of the story (since it is a very character-driven one).

the plot didn't especially excite me either, except for the few end-of-chapter cliffhangers and plot-twists. the rest was all just a little meh, you know.

my verdict: a highly readable, low-fantasy book you're surely going to enjoy if you like character-driven books and a slight 'no plot, just vibes' kinda feeling.
sadly, wasn't entirely for me, though.

'why i write' is an essay collection about the english language & politics. i was more interested in the language aspect of it, but unfortunately that was not the more prevalent part.
so, sadly, not for me. 

i'd love to write a complex and profound, thoughtful review for this book, and i've tried, i swear. but it's just not possible, because how does one even begin to review a little life?

i can only describe how i feel.

one can find two different types of people in the review section of this book:
- type A: "this book is completely mental and tragedy porn and you shouldn't ever read it", and
- type B: "this book is completely mental and tragedy porn and you should absolutely read it",
(and of course the impartial "i love it but would never ever recommend it to anyone").
so i was curious which type i'd end up being.

answer: type B. because i loved it.

of course it was tragic, and traumatic, and bloody, and cold and crazy. but it was also lovely, tender and warm.

maybe i'm just a whole other level of delulu and mental, but i found a little life strangely comforting. when i feel down, i feel this urge to pick it up, to drown in this world yanagihara has created. i want to read about the lives of all these people i've had the pleasure of meeting—jude and willem and harold and julia and malcolm and jb, and and and. 

one of the reviewers on the back of the cover said something along the lines of "i wish this book was longer" and at first i thought this person insane. but now, ... my god, this person's right. i find myself wishing i could just pick it up and continue reading. this feeling is especially strong when i'm feeling down—comfort book and all that.

720 pages, and i want to re-read it. actually, i just want to never stop reading it. 

originally, i didn't want to rate this book at all, because that would be like rating a sad, trauma-dumping (auto)biography; it feels wrong somehow. 

but i can't really stop thinking about it, and that's always THE sign that tells me that i really, really enjoyed a book. so i want to give it a good rating. 

so yeah. type B. 
do check out the trigger warnings (there's a lot of them), but if you're okay with all of them, i want you to read it. forget that "i would never recommend it to anyone because it's so sad"-stuff. i'm telling you to read it. because it's good.

it's a good book.

quick and effective.
kim jiyoung, born 1982 was informative, fiercely feminist and still managed to be greatly entertaining.

one learns quite a few things about korea and its past regarding misogynistic laws and the rather sexist society in general. 
the book talks about kim jiyoung's (and also some of the other women in her life) experience as a woman—getting victim-blamed for sexual harassment, being expected to do most, if not all, domestic and parental chores, being expected to give up her career for the "greater good" (i.e. family), and being overlooked at the workplace, to name a few.

great execution on the social commentary—the overall critique wasn't subtle, but kim jiyoung's rage and descent into madness and depression was. adequate.

now, the fact the feminist commentary was so on the nose and the writing style a little choppy (perhaps à cause de translation) made kim jiyoung and her story seem a little caricaturistic, which isn't a bad thing inherently, but it took away some of the realism and relatability—at least for me.

but other than that, great read. can't wait to re-read and properly annotate it some day.

adorable.
i'm usually not a huge fan of coming-of-age stories, mostly because i often find the teenage protagonists to be quite unrelatable (that's of course a personal issue), but finding phoebe was extremely refreshing. i loved phoebe's character and her way of thinking and communicating, thought her slight social ineptitude painfully relatable and just enjoyed reading and following her conversations with others.
i didn't know much about the book going into it, and i do have to admit that the story and where it went plot-wise wasn't at all what i expected—at times pretty grave and serious—, which is totally fine by me, just worth mentioning.
but since it is young adult and coming-of-age, it was, naturally, a little boring imo. especially the second half of the book felt super lenghty and though objectively it was a great book with a very sweet ending (and wholesome author's note!!), i simply didn't feel it, didn't love it as much as i know i can love certain books. 

a great and highly accessible introduction to feminism.
very readable, and the women's passion for the feminist movement and what they believe in is absolutely contagious. 
i really liked it.

of course some of it was repetitive, since it is just supposed to be a broad overview over feminism and their basic goals, values and history, but it was diverse nonetheless, which i loved—so many unique voices, so many unique stories.