I don't love this but I didn't really hate it either, it just kind of exists? Maybe that's the vibe Hemingway was going for? It feels like the book is about the sort of futility of life, or how the world goes on turning regardless of what we do or don't do. So having read this book and it leaving no real impact on me feels appropriate, I guess. 

His writing style is kind of repetitive, overly detailed, and annoying at times, but I'll give it credit, it does set the atmosphere. Especially in the Pamplona section. I never need to read another word about bull fighting but I did feel like I'd spent a week in the dusty heat of a Spanish summer once that section ended. 

I guess I'm more interested in characters than in what they're doing and I found several times I wanted to know more about most of the ones in TSAR. Brett, for example, is responsible for what little action does happen here, but bar one line about her past, there's zero exploration or explanation for why she behaves that way, other than simply because she can. She's the kind of character you'd hope someone's done a modern retelling of from her POV. 

As a side, I can overlook questionable language and attitudes in books from certain times, but there are a lot of slurs in this book, there's a conversation that happens that uses the N word about 30 times. It's not even used in a malicious way, it's just dropped into the conversation very casually. There's several questionable references to Jews, there's some mild homophobia, again very casually thrown in, and there's a fair bit of sexism too. It's to be expected, I suppose, but there's enough of it here to make you wonder about the writer. (If you didn't already know about the writer, of course)