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I must first admit, perhaps to my discredit, that I’m not a fan of Cormac McCarthy. I don’t care for his stylized prose, and I especially dislike his rejection of quotation marks. I shouldn’t have to read a passage multiple times to ascertain whether it’s narration or dialogue. I know he’s very well respected by art and literature people, but I just don’t care for it.

That being said, this is just a worse version of The Road. Just abominable choppy and senseless prose and no quotation marks around dialogue. A lot of nothing happens, one very sad scene, and then a girl gets horny for a guy for no reason. It’s actually really stupid, and maybe it’s just me, but the description of her was leering and adolescent and altogether just too pervy. Felt like I was reading a letter to Penthouse.

‘I never thought it would happen to me at the end of the world’

Okay, guy. It was actually jarring, coming up after endless pages of ‘meditative’ narration, suddenly talking about nipples seen through shirts and handjobs and bushy mounds.

And then the main character heroically kills some people while she dutifully cowers in fear.

I dunno, man, maybe I’m just being uncharitable. But I wouldn’t waste my time with this one. There’s no point, no message, nothing new done with the genre. Maybe the movie will be better.

I saw someone call this an extremely ‘online’ book, and, yeah, I’ve gotta agree. Dude knows his online spaces and even name-drops Something Awful. The first three stories are probably the strongest, and definitely centered around the most frustrating and realistic characters. I’m sure that any current or, especially, any ‘former’(is there such a thing) nerd would find echoes of themselves in some of the characters. I confess that I, myself, was walking down the Nice Guy Highway to Inceltown, so I found the first chapter particularly harrowing.

Throughout, there is a lot of the experience of a Thai-American person in America, and their frustration with white people. As I was reading it, I thought, wow, this is pretty interesting and DAMN with the callouts. Like, I’ve done the same thing that these white people have done, because in my mind, I’m really interested in languages and cultures. But, damn, is it actually shitty of me? That blows. Kind of a bummer, but so it goes.

But, then, reading the final(and in my mind weakest) section, I began to wonder, was it all just a wind-up? Then, I finally settled on, I suppose it’s best to just keep my mouth shut, even though I’d love to talk about my upbringing and the weird cultural idiosyncrasies and foods. But, then again, this book comes from a place of being ULTRA online, so who knows what the real solution is.

I guess, in the end, the best thing I can take from it is that people all over the world are messy and inconsistent and, at times, uncharitable. It’s one of the many commonalities that bind us. And rejection hurts.

Pretty dark and weird. I’m not sure I understood all of it, especially the ending, but I enjoyed it. And while I don’t love the title itself, it’s actually a really good dscriptor of what you get. It’s a perfect descriptor, to be honest, despite its generic-ness at first glance.. I’d say it’s firmly within the gothic genre and tradition. There are a lot of layers to it, like mental health, paternal fealty, gender roles, cultural identity, perception of reality, isolation, and the ways we face our own death.

There’s a lot to like in it, though my only complaint is that at some points, one character seems a bit too at ease with some of the circumstances(hard to generalize and not be spoilery.) It’s a minor issue, and didn’t detract from my enjoyment, though.

It’s not scary, but there is some horrific imagery and some of it might be upsetting to some readers, so just be warned there.

I enjoyed this a lot. It’s hard to give too much detail, because a lot of the book is unraveling a mystery, but it’s got a bit of Irish folklore, a bit of family drama, some body horror, and even a little smattering of romance(though, it’s definitely not a supernatural romance book). Fun read.

Not at all my usual tastes. No spaceships, dismemberment, or monsters. I believe this is what you’d call a slice of life. And, it’s very good. I haven’t read any of her other works, but if it’s as solid as this one, I just might. It’s a setting that I don’t know anything about, so I have no idea how accurate it is, but the writing was very confident.

Peony and Ezra are the best, though Naomi is a good character as well, she’s just hard to like. Kueilan is pretty great, too, even with the ‘brain of a kitten.’ The only boring character is David, but he’s inoffensive, just kinda dull. On the other hand, one can definitely empathize with his crisis of faith, and his ultimate conclusion makes sense.

Anyway, good book.