My Journey to Become Pretentiously Literate

DNF at 61% (Chapter 19)

I tried to like this book. I really did. In fact, throughout the first quarter of the book, I truly *did* enjoy it. Hosseini's not a bad writer, and his prose flourishes when describing the vibrance and culture of prewar Kabul. He captures childhood nostalgia so perfectly, and the relationship between young Amir and Hassan is heartbreaking and bittersweet.

But after the first time skip, this book failed to hold my attention. Amir is an absolutely miserable, deplorable character - not in an anti-hero way like Walter White, where I was just waiting for his inevitable downfall. I wanted Amir to shut up about how much he hates himself, go away forever, and stop letting bad things happen to good people. Unfortunately, he is *The Kite Runner*'s protagonist.

By the halfway mark, all the characters who brought charisma and interest to the story are dead (Hassan, Baba, Rahim Kahn) and I'm left with boring, useless, self-hating Amir. This is where I chose to quit the story. Also after the weird reveal that Amir and Hassan are half-brothers.

I understand why people like this book, but I can't bring myself to enjoy pointless torture porn like this. 2 stars for how much I enjoyed the first quarter of the book.

In the end, too similar to "The Handmaiden" to keep my interest. Wish I would have read it before watching the movie - they both seem fantastic.

Did not finish. Characters are all repulsive, not a single likable person in this book. Narrator is especially annoying.

Me, pages 1-385: this book is amazing! What an awesome, well written, thought provoking, female centric thriller!

Me, pages 386-400:

Donna Tartt’s latest Pulitzer-prize winning novel takes the reader on a rich, vivid journey through the life of an orphan in high-society New York. We follow young Theo Decker, survivor of an attack which claimed his mother’s life, through immaculate Park Avenue penthouses, warm and dusty antique shops, the arid Nevada desert – his life changes rapidly, yet the one constant keeping him anchored is The Goldfinch, a prized 17th century painting which falls into his hands.

At almost 800 pages long, this novel is incredibly dense - and a feast for the senses. Tartt wastes no opportunity to describe, vividly, the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of the occasion. The descriptions paint a picture just as captivating as the 17th century Dutch paintings featured in the story. It’s this richly packed detail that makes The Goldfinch so enjoyable and endears it to its readers. Theo’s story is by no means boring, but his coming-of-age tale is made all the more meaningful by Tartt’s prose, which helps plant the reader in Theo’s shoes.

Tartt uses the great breadth of this novel to craft subtlety into her characters and relationships. She masters the art of showing, not telling, the minute ways that the death of his mother has traumatized Theo, made him feel unwelcomed and unloved by those who try to help him. Through Theo’s unreliable first-person narration, the secondary characters are complex and enigmatic, and the reader can make their own inferences about their true personalities. Of all the characters, Theo’s careless and reckless friend Boris shines the brightest, and serves as his foil in many instances.

In The Goldfinch, Tartt tells a meaningful and nuanced story, but it falls short of excellence with a muddled ending. In truth, the novel could have ended with 150 pages trimmed off and come out even better. Instead, Tartt wraps up the book with a long, long, long monologue that breaks the fourth wall and tries to tell the readers what they’re supposed to get out of the novel. It comes across as pretentious and fake; it ends on a bad note, which is a shame for a novel which captivated for 600 pages.

Despite its flaws, The Goldfinch is a meaningful journey into art and the human connection; trauma and depression and abuse; finding oneself and growing up, despite all the challenges.

This book was - sorry for the awful pun - painstakingly dull. The kind of book that I found myself reading but not understanding.

This is the only David Mitchell book I've actively disliked. In "Ghostwritten," his trademark successes become flaws: fantasy blurs with reality, but the lines are utterly indistinguishable; long descriptive passages are showy instead of mood-setting; a unique method of storytelling detracts from the plot rather than complimenting it. Mitchell's trying to be Murakami - he should stick to being David Mitchell.

The premise of this book is better than the novel itself - in the end, a quirky writing style, unsympathetic characters, and a lack of payoff sabotage what could have been an intense and emotional storyline.

Above all, this book convinces me that Egan is best suited short stories, where her typically troubled characters don't have time to get on your nerves.

Ishiguro's prize-winning schtick is the unreliable narrator, but this novel's protagonist strays from "unreliable" to "unbelievably dimwitted" far too often. It seems that the entire story could be unwritten had the main character possessed any sort of grasp on reality, his own emotions, or human social interaction.

Mitchell hits a home-run again: a clever and meaningful coming-of-age novel told through thirteen months in a thirteen year old boy's life. Each story starts and ends abruptly, leaving you yearning for more, but eventually ties together in a fitting, if bittersweet, finale. Whether or not you've experienced speech impediments, bullying, or family troubles, Jason Taylor's story is relatable to all who have been through the confusing tunnel of adolescence.

The first 80% of this book is a heartfelt family drama, coming of age story, and a tale of human-animal companionship blended into one.

The ending is like something out of a bad dream you'd have the night before you're about to finish the book; you'd wake up in the morning thinking "gee, that's awful," and look forward to reading the real ending. It's surreally, comically bad, and it left me with a sour taste in my mouth, brushing aside all the praises I had in store for the book beforehand.

In this story, a cast of insufferable characters aids a young and ignorant and equally insufferable heroine on an emotional and physical journey across Europe that accomplishes absolutely nothing. The plot is the literary equivalent of zero displacement.

This was the book that convinced me that Murakami is a one-trick pony. And for now, I've had my fill of melancholic, everyman protagonists and their awkward quests for spiritual and sexual fulfillment.

It's a fun read, but it pales in comparison to Rowling's own work. One might say that the "magic" of the original series is missing....I'll show myself out.

2.5 stars. Very interesting, but too repetitive.

"Norwegian Wood" is a curious book. The story follows an unconventionally stable plotline, with few twists, turns, rises, falls, or denouements. This book is a journey, a linear insight into the life and growth of our melancholic main character, Toru Watanabe. Some readers will tell you that this book has no plot; if you hype yourself up for a conventional read, you may find yourself thinking the same thing. "Norwegian Wood" focuses not on plot or setting or even characterization, but on emotion.

There were things that I liked and disliked about this book, and the distinction between the two parallels a shift in the story between two arcs. The first arc centers around Watanabe's relationship with Naoko, the former girlfriend of his dead childhood friend, Kizuki. Murakami puts a great deal of emphasis on depression and mental illness all throughout the book, and in particular, in this first half. We see Naoko struggle very openly with Kizuki's death, while Watanabe internalizes his feelings and fails to realize how much the loss has changed him. My favorite aspect of the book was this focus on depression and loss, particularly in Watanabe; though he doesn't realize it, he struggles just as much as Naoko does, though in vastly different ways.

Midway through the book, the story shifts the spotlight onto Midori, an outgoing and eccentric student in Watanabe's theater class. This is where the book takes a strange and repetitive turn. Many of Watanabe's interactions with Midori don't make complete sense - possibly due to a cultural gap between reader and book - and are oddly, explicitly sexual. Watanabe struggles in "choosing" between Midori and Naoko for the rest of the book, a plot point which was drawn out for far too long and became boring quickly. The theme of mental illness continues, though, as readers come to realize that even Midori has a tragic background.

To expand on what I said earlier, there are some things about this book that don't translate well at all. There are several uncomfortable and seemingly unnecessary sex scenes in the book (including a 13-year-old girl seducing a middle-aged housewife) which are written in painful anatomically correct prose, like reading out of a medical journal. Some of the cultural norms of Japan in the 60's are hard to understand as well, but interesting nonetheless.

All in all, this book alternated between enjoyable, weird, and heartbreaking. "Norwegian Wood" is somewhat ruthless to its characters, so don't expect a happy ending. If you're interested in a slow, emotionally-driven journey, give this book a shot.