ktrain3900's reviews
264 reviews

Dense, detailed, and absolutely necessary. It jumps right into the meat of things with little guidance or grounding (although not none) which made it tough going for me as someone who has little knowledge of the Middle East in the early 20th century. Once you get past that, though, it's very interesting and completely engrossing. One of my slowest reads in years, I never once thought of putting it down or not finishing.

A small, beautifully lyrical little bit of storytelling. Masterful use of repetition. I found the insertion of the author/narrator near the end a little distracting, although not entirely unexpected in a tale on telling. Atlas was thoughtful and sympathetic, counterpointed by a selfish, wild Heracles and a cool, cruel Hera. Delightfully weird in places, softly heartbreaking in other, and nearly but not quite perfect. 

This is not a book that's easy to rate in a "how much did you like this?" system, as I don't think you're supposed to "like" it, per se. A lot is hard to hear, especially if you're an American citizen (especially a white one), or you still hold the USA in some form of high esteem. The idea that a person can be illegal, in and of itself, is gross, and this book makes you sit with this reality, and how it affects so many people, and all of the different, difficult ways it does so. As hard as it was to read, this is a voice we need to hear, and one I want to read more of, much like Michelle Tea, who I was reminded of in the raw and unapologetic matter-of-factness I found in this book. 

I'm not going to get into the science here, except to admit that I did not understand everything, and that's ok. I don't think the point was necessarily to write a book in which every reader would "get" everything, so much as to provide a history of human understanding of the cell and how we're using this understanding to try to make lives better. I think there is something to take away from this book for a variety of readers, including lay readers like myself, even if you need to be patient with it.

The writing moves between academic and lyrical, with both nitty-gritty science and personal stories. I find this balance to largely work, even if I had re-read some more sciency passages, and (occasionally) come across something I had to accept I'd never fully "get". All in all, it's truly awe-inspiring how much we've discovered and have done with these discoveries. It's equally terrifying how much we still don't know. 

More interesting, I think, in concept than in execution. While there is a sparse beauty to the movement through a year (and through the years), I was more intrigued by what might have been left out and by who these people are, both the diarist and those she wrote about. Are any of them still living? How exactly are they all related? How do they know each other? Many images are lovely enough to evoke sketches in the mind, but ultimately I come away more invested in what's missing than in what's there. 

One thing that stuck in my head years ago (I think from the #OscarsSoWhite movement) was that it's about the stories we choose to tell. As more of a reader than a film aficionado, for me, it's about what I choose to read, and that's always been about literary fiction, about neglected history and current events, about voices who weren't (and often stil aren't) traditionally heard. It's part of why I generally avoid "easy" reads, "escapist" fiction. But this book managed to be both wonderfully escapist, and also incredibly important and relevant and beautiful. The writing is lovely, feels almost effortless although we all know good writing takes a lot of effort, wandering and detailed in a way that evokes oral storytelling. And while I find myself agreeing with the criticism I've seen--too many characters, too meandering--it just doesn't bother me. I don't care. These characters are perfectly flawed and delightful. Their stories should be told in minute, lyrical detail, and with love, and here, they have been.

 

 There's a fragile and blurry beauty to this book. As someone looking at ways to look at her own family history and ancestors, I have an interest in the archtecture and the structure of the book, of the pieces and sections of it, of its movement through time, the placement of words on pages and across them. There are bones and flesh here, muscles and tendon, and yet I'm still not sure entirely how it works, or if I like how it's working, yet it works. It is one thing, and many things, alive and ghost.

In parts I lose track of who is who and who is saying what, as people are mostly identified through relationship, not name, which is in keeping with the oral tradition of so much family storytelling. I also felt more distance in the third person sections in spite of them being about the author, while the first person sections reach across generations, yet feel more immediate. There's a discomfort generated by this, but one I could sit within. 

A dense collection of poems that layer across time and across the sea to tell of the imagined internal life of the author's Norwegian grandmother. The combination of family lore, folklore, and fact make for a charming combination. I found the strongest poems to be the ones tied to the grandmother's sisters and mother: the Marit poems that begin the collection; the later, shorter, more lively Ingeborg poems, especially "Eulogy for Ingeborg"; sister Gunnvor "In My Father's House" and her mother in "The Yule Chair". The only criticism I have is that perhaps the collection could have done with more editing, not so much within individual poems as more broadly across the collection. It might have made a tighter tale with a handful fewer poems, or with the poems divided into more sections it might have allowed for more breath and reflection. A worthy read for anyone contemplating their own roots. 

This is a slice of life novel, and a social commentary novel, and a feminist novel, meandering largely through hot, sticky summers in Tokyo and Osaka, while also meandering through the lives of a number of interesting and unspecial (in the best way) mostly female characters.

In the journal entries, long conversations, and hallucinatory dreams of the Part 1 (essentially the Breasts section) we meet Natsuko, her sister, and her niece, as the latter two visit Natsuko in Tokyo for sister Makiko's breast enlargement consultation, where Natsuko is ultimately a foil in the drama between Makiko and Makiko's tween daughter Midoriko, all while exploring aspects of her own childhood.

Part 2 (essentially the Eggs section) is more stream of conscientiousness, with the dreamy quality now more like a ghost haunting old neighborhoods, almost through time, the long conversations now with colleagues and friends, as Natsuko now contemplates having a child as a single mother by choice. She continues to explore her own past and life, as she emerges from a fog to forge a future she wants.

While I found the book a little hard to engage with when I first started, to the point I started reading other books for a break, I was able to breach the tidebreak and get into the ocean of the book and it's well thought out and considered debates between the mainly female characters. The ending did feel a little bit contrived, or at least convenient, but ultimately this is a novel that deserves a place along with classics like The Golden Notebook and The Women's Room addressing women's issues and creativity from a more contemporary lense. 

A very solid debut novel. It doesn't feel like a first book - the characters' development and introspection has real maturity and depth. It felt like the male characters were more strongly written, more nuanced, given more voice even though they don't get their own sections until Part 2. More balance there would have been nice; we somewhat lose the female characters we started with by the end. I also feel like perhaps I could have used slightly less introspection, despite how well it was done, as it slows the book down to the point where, when it ends, you're ready for it to end.