lydiature_'s reviews
295 reviews

essays feel kind of weak, but i might not be in the mood

boring, not interesting. 

my mind is...broken.

so confession- last year after reading "the secret history", i decided to give this a shot and i only made it a chapter in. like most negative reviews, i thought "if we were villains" was a poor copy cat of one of the greatest books i have ever read. i immediately judged the pretentious characters, the shakespearean dialogue every 5 seconds, the format.

and oddly enough, this time around (a year after i finished "the secret history"), i fell in love with "if we were villains." yes, it's very similar to TSH--almost identical at times. but it's also special in its own way. but for me to get that, i had to forget about the existence of TSH.

despite shakespeare getting quoted all the time (and me not understanding all the references), i found the writing to be very approachable. much more approachable than TSH (which again, i loved). the dialogue overall felt very realistic and not pretentious at all, in spite of some of the characters coming across as pretentious at times. and speaking of the characters--they all felt so REAL!!! i was able to imagine them all, their little mannerisms, ways of speaking, etc. i also didn't think that i would like oliver, but i ended up rooting for him. was he flawed and naive? yes, 100% but i still liked him. i liked how alive each of the characters felt.

to me, rio did a fantastic job with her characters. few writers can make their characters jump off the page like she did--giving flesh to paper. as far as the plot--hands down amazing. like tartt, the characters themselves were important. like bunny in TSH, we knew that someone in IFWV would die. understanding the characters would guide the story itself. that's why neither of the books work as your traditional thriller.

ugh, i absolutely loved this book. i didn't think i would. i understand why some people don't like it (because it seems too similar to TSH), but i found that the best way to really just enjoy this book was to put TSH out of my mind completely. this book deserves to stand on its own.

i need to talk about the ending with someone ASAP!!!!!! my dms are open

boy, i don't even know where to begin. this was so bad. i admit, the only reason why i even bothered to finish this foolishness is because i couldn't sleep last night & i didn't want to scroll on my phone. the only reason. let that sink in.

on every single level, this book is bad. don't believe me? let's begin. the characters. MY GOD they were so bland!! and it didn't help that all the characters literally had the most basic names --shay, BETH, daphne, JANE. and they all had two types of personalities: either they were dumb as a box of rocks (shay) or they were evil & conniving for no reason (jane). their personalities weren't even fleshed-out. they were all one-dimensional, flat, and static.

which brings me to shay. she is dumb, blind, and pathetic. i'm sorry. i refuse to believe that a 30-something GROWN woman can act like an idiot. she acted like her frontal lobe never got developed. there is no way that someone who supposedly loves statistics & psychology can be so stupid and not see that they're getting taken advantage of. and let's not act like the moore sisters were even that conniving. they weird nice girl act was so false and surface level. i think anyone with a brain would've seen through that behaviour.

i could write paragraphs on many instances where i wanted to slap shay for her stupidity, but i won't waste my time. the dumbest person of the year goes to shay!!

next, the plot. the plot was also dumb. surprise! i had to get through 92% of the book for things to get somewhat interesting. and it wasn't even interesting afterwards. the book just crumbled after that point, and ended on a disappointed note. i also feel like the moore sisters' motives were also weakly developed? like what.

this has to be one of the worst thrillers i have ever read--right next to "the maidens" which i despise more than any other book on this planet. it was illogical, unrealistic, slow without purpose, and written poorly.

normally these kinds of disappointing books put me into a reading slump, but i am all the more determined to keep reading other books--out of SPITE.

thank god i didn't buy this book. this review is an appreciation post for libby.

1st read (2021): This is also another book (besides “The Bell Jar”) that’s been on my TBR for YEARS. I can’t believe that I’ve waited this long to read it. Let this be a sign that you should read the books that have been on your TBR list (of course, after reading “The Color Purple” 😉). 

This book has me in a choke hold. Rarely do I finish a book and feel completely broken (in a good way). “Circe” by Madeline Miller and “Against the Loveless World” by Susan Abulhawa are two books I read that made me feel undone. And now, “The Color Purple” has joined this list. What I really loved about this novel is the writing style. Walker wrote in a way that drew you in so much that you could see and touch each and every character. You might think—“well, duh, that’s what a book is supposed to do.” That’s not entirely true. I’ve read so many books where the authors’ styles were stilted, and the characters felt static and flat. Not the case with “The Color Purple.” When I finished this novel, I wanted to know why Walker called her book this. Purple symbolizes hope and according enotes (don’t judge me, okay), the book’s main message is that anyone who lives through so much pain (like Celie) can find hope.

2nd read (2023): I can't explain it but a few days ago, I was drawn to re-read this. And I'm so happy that I did. I was a little concerned at first because re-reads can be so dangerous. But I immediately was hooked. The writing style was so engaging (both Celie and Nettie's POVs). And like before, I loved Celie. Her transformation was so beautiful to witness. She truly became her own person, and wasn't ashamed of herself. But she wasn't the only one that transformed--the other characters did. I really love that detail. The people around her evolved for the better, in their own authentic way. 

I highly recommend this one. It's powerful story about race, sexuality, and identity. Check for trigger warnings. They're kind of graphic.

 

Thank you, Netgalley, for the advanced copy! 

 

Going into it, I thought the plot would be straightforward—a girl wants to simply kill her mother’s ex-lover for revenge—but it turned out to be so much more than that. It became an exploration of race, fetishes, and complex love. If you liked “A Man Called Ove” or “White Teeth,” you will enjoy this book. The tone was melancholic, funny, and absurd. 

 

However, there are a few things that I didn’t fully care for. The first being the characters. They were all bad, but in different ways. Which is fine. But I didn’t like how they were written. They came across as caricatures, kind of stiff and stale. They didn’t feel real at all. The second thing is the relationship between Kyoko and her mom, Emi. The book didn’t really delve into their relationship. It was kinda like, “Oh, this dude basically caused my mom to kill herself. I’ll just kill him, I guess.” The book did not hint at a deep relationship between Kyoko and Emi. There weren’t really any flashbacks to even warrant Kyoko wanting to KILL Daniel. And the thing between Daniel, Alma, and Emi was kind of weak. I understand why a hopeless woman would commit suicide after getting ignored by her lover, but there was absolutely no evidence for Emi doing it. Based on the writing, there was nothing to suggest a deep emotional attachment between Omi and Daniel. I refuse to believe that a grown woman with a child and a husband would just commit suicide because one man (who she didn’t really love) tossed her. The author should have spent more time fleshing that out. 

 

I also didn’t like how the story was told. The timeline was all over the place, and not very effective. The style reminded me of “Less,” which I didn’t fully care for because of that. I personally found the first half of the book more interesting. The last half kind of crumbled a bit, and I was ready for it to end. 

 

All in all, I did like the book, but it isn’t something I feel passionate about. I do think it is worth trying. I think it appeals to very specific people. 

mm i thought i would like this but alas, i did not. i’ve read plays here and there and i liked them all. but this one, absolutely not. i didn’t like the writing style. it was very dispassionate and stiff. the dialogue was strange to me as well. i didn’t care for any of the characters, but we’re not supposed to anyway. my problem with this is the fact that the characters all lacked depth. they were just ~there~. they weren’t interesting. plot was decent, but not compelling.

honestly i could’ve lived my entire life not having read this & been fine. i already know that religion + state = recipe for disaster. i don’t need to read this book to come to that conclusion. 

as far as me recommending? idk, try it out. you might like it. it seems that i’m in the minority 🤷🏾‍♀️