So I’m buggin’.
Like very surprised.
I did not think I was going to like this book, simply because the very first page has a typo on it. Without getting too much into the plot, it’s basically the story of a woman, Grace, who goes back into a burning building to save her child, Jenny, and the whole book is about what happens afterwards and how the fire started.
The first thing that I need to mention is the way that it is written is very odd. It almost feels like it’s a letter to someone for 432 pages. That threw me off a little bit. especially because I didn’t know who was talking to whom at the beginning of the book. but once I figured that out, this book gets very good. It delves into the complexities of motherhood and appearances and fatherhood in a very nuanced way.
At first, I was very annoyed with the mother because she kept going on these random asides to talk about fashion and superficial presumptions and it didn’t really seem relevant to the plot so it kind of felt like padding. Some of the interactions between the mother and daughter were really confusing just because of the way that they were laid out in the book but if it was an audiobook, I really don’t think that would be an issue.
This book threw me for a loop like I didn’t know who set the fire or what happened with the fire, or the teacher. I thought it was one thing and then it was another thing and it was just very back and forth but in an elegant way. I felt myself starting to get frustrated because certain characters didn’t know certain things that we, the audience, knew. And that’s when I knew I found a great book because it’s supposed to invoke my anger, my tears, all of my emotions.
And it did.
I’ve literally never done this much annotation in a book before. I had over 65 notes and 73 highlights.
Before the last 15 chapters, I was fully ready to have this be a rant review about how much this book made me angry. And then out of nowhere, I was like what??? Like over and over again.
So with that in mind, I need to give this a solid 4 stars. The concept and plot were spot on, the writing style was very weird and confusing so it’s not a 5 star for me, but if you can get over that, I highly recommend it.
2019 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge – A book with a plant in the title or on the cover
Reading Reckless : Rants and Raves 