the book description calls itself “thought provoking” and is supposed to explore ideas around womanhood and sexuality, but at the core of it all this is a book about two queer women who somehow fall into a relationship with a basic, married white man….. and that’s really it. unfortunately all the takes about nathan, and eve and olivia’s relationship with him, are basic and uninteresting, although the prose makes it seem like they’re supposed to be groundbreaking perspectives.

Ich denke, es ist mit Abstand das schlechteste Buch, was ich je gelesen habe. Ich muss zugeben, dass ich es nicht zu Ende gelesen konnte und das will schon etwas heißen!
Der Schreibstil ist grauenhaft. Man weiß nie, ob es sich gerade um eine Konversation oder nur um die Gedanken der Protagonistin handelt.
Zusätzlich ist die Story ein Witz. Eine Frau, die lesbisch ist und eine sexuelle Beziehung zu einem heterosexuellen Paar beginnt, den Typen allmählich vergöttert, der einfach nur gewaltvoll ist. Psychisch sowie physisch.
Ich dachte, dass ich nach 50 shades of Grey so etwas nicht mehr lesen müsste und solche Romane aus der Mode gekommen sind, aber scheinbar lag ich falsch.
Spart es euch! Es war eine Enttäuschung und ich verstehe bis heute nicht, was dieses Buch mir sagen wollte.

3.5 - really fascinating discussions but sometimes got a bit muddied by the writing style! Think it’s one that required slightly more focus to fully appreciate than I had

# acts of service

sometimes i like a book and can’t explain why.

i got it from the library because i didn’t think that i would like it because of my current distrust of the litfic genre (thanks to books I've recently read in the same genre), but i found myself needing to highlight it. so i bought the physical version.

it’s just so addictive and interesting. it starts with a bang and continues to pull on my intrigue throughout.

the characters and relationships are excellent. it explores a relationship that i typically don’t read about. this relationship explores sexuality and power in a way that is addictive yet intellectual.

the relationship also creates an interesting self-introspection by our main character, making the novel interesting on all three planes of a story: the literal, internal, and metaphorical.

i’m sure i’ll only fall in love with it more after a reread.

it was something

While reading this I was reminded of the works of Bret Easton Ellis and J.G. Ballard due to the horrific mundanity the characters experience throughout this book. Horrific mundanity, as in: “my life is so normal and easy yet impossible and I will have to carry on until I die or change how Terrible for me”. Which is great for a novel about a morally complicated twenty-something bisexual.

I loved this for its unlikability—not just unlikable characters, but an unlikable setting, unlikable actions, and an overall unlikable plot. It was hard to read at times (even through the lens of Eve’s privilege) yet difficult to put down. I especially enjoyed the tangents Eve would think herself into and the endless attempts at justifying sexuality and attraction, two things that rarely fall under easy labels. I love the gray area all people find themselves in one way or another, and I liked how Eve’s relationship with Nathan (and the question of whether Nathan is “good” or not) was handled. If there’s one thing I’m a sucker for it’s a book that allows me to become the most annoying person you know at a party.

fuck, marry, kill imposible edition: eve, olivia, nathan

(get it haha bc they are all insufferable and you want to kill them all hahahahahaha)

I usually don’t read books like this. But received this book from Goodreads and Random House. I thought it might be a good read, something different. The praise it got about it being thought provoking peaked my interest. However it wasn’t thought provoking. The characters weren’t very likable. They seemed to have issues with knowing who they were and let a very disturbed man tell them who they were. I thought about putting it down but hoped to find a redeeming end. I did not get one.