_sofiia_'s reviews
92 reviews

i rarely want to re-read a book, and when i do, it must be something that changed me in some way. with this one, however, my desire to re-read is motivated by a mix of fomo, preparedness to interact with nouveau roman, and my recent plans to do a PhD, yoohoo!

now, from the first reading, i did not connect with the book - and i expected to in order to, you know, get ready for the academic vibes. yes, i thought this was going to be a gradual story of academic freak out, thesis samples scattered around the book, and explicit discussion of “intellectual integrity and denial” (quote from the cover annotation). instead, i ended up in the protagonist’s head, being no less confused than herself, and running on “high performance, low battery” mode to understand that aha, now this is not actually happening, it’s in her head! see, i was not ready for this. and then i read reviews of people complaining that this is not “history. a mess”, but just “a mess”, and, needless to say, i shallow-finished it somewhat disappointedly.

but! even with my facile approach, i managed to get amused - yes, amused - by some paragraphs. “so it’s not exactly a real conversation” (pp.39-42), where out protagonist hosts a gathering for her seven girlfriends, is an intensely observant little chapter that perfectly encapsulates how i feel during group discussions. the coming-together of different personalities, each of them trying to talk about their interests over the other, contriving a logical conversation chain only to have someone, excuse me, butt in, and off it rolls like a little trivial pencil that you put on the table and it rolls by itself, revealing the apparent inclination of the table and evoking no desire to intervene, only watch what happens. the author (and the translator) did such a good job in crafting the sentences that go on forever that i felt a little introvert anxiety rising up in me with a little smile of “wow, thank you for validating that this is not a real conversation”. for the observations like these, i am willing to re-read this book. also, people talk about the mother-daughter relationship as one of the focal subjects of this book, which i decided to ignore (because i was seeking an advice on postgraduate study from a fiction book on failing to do your research thoroughly, why are you bringing in her mom into this), but i think it’s vital to know this a priori. Peirene (the publishing house) certainly had me on the hook with their blurb, but let’s not say that the book is about cooking stews when it’s actually about the family dynamic in the kitchen and the depression that haunts you when you ran out of recipes but you want to be creative but your family wants to eat the same-old lamb stew, okay? this is not about the stew. you gotta prepare me for that - that’s not being spoiler-y, that’s communicating prerequisites for a fulfilling reading experience. agh.

okay, that’s enough of frustration. bottom line: i want to re-read this book, but i also reserve the right to rate it 3.0 for now and to be happy with the little things that kept me engaged.

***

new country revealed: Iceland

***

this reminds me i need to get one of those scratch world maps and travel the globe in books while i am too broke to get on an actual plane.

Not really into this story, may revisit sometime.