I always feel upset when I’ve read a book I didn’t like, because no one wants to come away from an experience feeling unfulfilled and frustrated. I looked on Goodreads to check if I wasn’t alone in my feelings and I saw that this book has created quite a polarised crowd: you either love it, or loathe it. I want to say that this book was lost in translation and that the French is better, but somehow I don’t think it is a matter of funky translation, but rather a problem at the very core of the writing. She oscillates between being the most stuck-up brat known to mankind and the well, the most stuck-up brat known to mankind. The story is written from the perspective of Rene for the most part, and yet, I had the impression that I hardly knew who she was, not to mention that she was annoying. I’m not sure if the author was trying to be haughty on purpose, but a lot of the observations and ‘profound’ thoughts came off as racist, uneducated, and bland.Īnd the weird romance with the Rene and Kakuro… It was like a weird interracial “Pretty Woman”. The characters were mechanical, flat, completely uninspiring, and boring. It was like the author went through a “Literary Theory for Dummies” book and picked out a theme from each chapter and wrote it into the book. This book felt like it was narrated by a first year philosophy major who is just bursting at the seems with metaphysical learnin’. I don’t want to say this book was bad… but it also was not good.
And this book review makes me sad, because I don’t want my friend to think that I don’t love her gift or the kindness and thoughtfulness she used to pick it out for me. The hardest thing is, is that I didn’t like the book that much. I mean, I write a blog about books… it should not be a surprise. Giving me a book as a present is the easiest way to make me happy. I was even happier when the book was picked by my book club to read. When a dear dear friend of mine sent this to me for my birthday this year, I was beyond happy. It had touched a lot of the people I spoke with, and this made me want to read it even more. It seemed to be a book that had really changed people’s perceptions of life and reading. After discovering the book, I thought that the title sounded intriguing and I had lots of people recommend the book to me, French and English speakers alike.
I feel that I should start this review by saying that I have wanted to read this book for such a long time.
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