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The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop
Takuya Asakura
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The Sun Down Motel
Simone St. James
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White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
Carol Anderson
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The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton
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White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
Carol Anderson
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Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom
Grace Blakeley
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The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton
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The Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern
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Katabasis
R.F. Kuang
TamsynParker finished reading and wrote a review...
I went into this as usual for me knowing not a lot about it / reading blind. I hadnât seen any of the hype around it which is probably a good thing.
This book has me puzzled, itâs a completely character driven story, which is loosely wrapped into a plot. I think my main problem is that whilst the author did a huge job of making the characters real, messy, relatable and flawed, youâre still kept at a distance from them, and of really understanding their motivations. This, in turns makes the book feel disconnected, you feel like you SHOULD understand and make sense of the choices the characters are making because you know lots about them. But a the same time, feel like you donât have enough information about them to make that connection.
There is an attempt to deal with mental illness, and to show how community can support maintaining the difficult equilibrium of depression. It also attempts to show the impact of depression on those around the sufferer, and the different kinds of reactions/ responses those can bring. Again though, itâs almost like you read this through a plastic screen that smudged / cloudy, you never get to the bottom of what the author is trying to say / convey.
Itâs not a bad book by any measure, but the pacing does lack slightly, we seem to spend a huge amount of time at the front end of the story, and very little at the end where, arguably, the story really is. I donât have sisters and Iâm not close to my sibling so it make be that this just didnât connect fully with me because I didnât relate all that much to it.
I wouldnât rush to recommend it, but I wouldnât put people off reading it either if itâs already on their TBR.
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Katabasis
R.F. Kuang