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A review by kassielovestoread
Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Do you know the feeling of standing by and watching a scene unfold (like a multi car pile up for example) and doing nothing at all to help, instead you stand there and gawk until it's resolved? That's probably the best scenario I can use to describe what I felt like reading this book. I wanted to crawl into the pages and rescue Eve and Olivia so damn badly. Alas, this is just a work of fiction so I could only read on to see if things got better.
This book was just so...weird. And not in a good way. The author unsuccessfully tries to be deep with these drawn out conversations about sexuality and none of it made any sense to me. At first I thought, maybe it's just me, I'm probably too dumb for this book. But now that I finished I can say with absolute certainty that I am not too dumb for this book, it's all fake deep nonsense. I kept asking myself: what is the point of this book? I cannot figure it out. It was also ridiculous how long each chapter was- at least 40 or so pages. And there were NO quotation marks in the dialogue, it drove me absolutely mad. I will never understand the significance of leaving out quotation marks!
What is advertised as a novel about a woman coming to terms with her sexual identity quickly spiraled into a disturbing (but can't look away either) sexual relationship between Eve, Nathan, and Olivia. I don't want to give too much away in this review considering that that is literally the entire plot of this novel, but I was not comfortable with their situation. I kept hoping for a different outcome and I was really disappointed by the ending. And yes, I really think Nathan did it (iykyk).
Still, there's something about a chaotic book like this that left me wanting to read it anyway. I could've dnf'ed it- however there was something about Acts of Service that compelled me to stay for the shit show anyway. I can't really say if I'm glad that I did though, LOL. I would not recommend this book nor will I ever re-read it (once was enough, thank you kindly). I think there's much better books out there to explore that can take what this author tried to do and execute it way better.
This book was just so...weird. And not in a good way. The author unsuccessfully tries to be deep with these drawn out conversations about sexuality and none of it made any sense to me. At first I thought, maybe it's just me, I'm probably too dumb for this book. But now that I finished I can say with absolute certainty that I am not too dumb for this book, it's all fake deep nonsense. I kept asking myself: what is the point of this book? I cannot figure it out. It was also ridiculous how long each chapter was- at least 40 or so pages. And there were NO quotation marks in the dialogue, it drove me absolutely mad. I will never understand the significance of leaving out quotation marks!
What is advertised as a novel about a woman coming to terms with her sexual identity quickly spiraled into a disturbing (but can't look away either) sexual relationship between Eve, Nathan, and Olivia. I don't want to give too much away in this review considering that that is literally the entire plot of this novel, but I was not comfortable with their situation. I kept hoping for a different outcome and I was really disappointed by the ending. And yes, I really think Nathan did it (iykyk).
Still, there's something about a chaotic book like this that left me wanting to read it anyway. I could've dnf'ed it- however there was something about Acts of Service that compelled me to stay for the shit show anyway. I can't really say if I'm glad that I did though, LOL. I would not recommend this book nor will I ever re-read it (once was enough, thank you kindly). I think there's much better books out there to explore that can take what this author tried to do and execute it way better.