AlexandraShttp://booklikes.com/photo/crop/50/50/upload/avatar/user.jpgAlexandraShttp://AlexandraS.booklikes.com2024-03-28T18:03:15+00:00http://AlexandraS.booklikes.com/rssreview: Pădurea norvegiană2013-03-27T00:00:00+00:002013-03-27T00:00:00+00:00http://AlexandraS.booklikes.com/post/611668/p-durea-norvegianAlexandraShttp://AlexandraS.booklikes.com
As any writing exercise you sometimes come across an epiphany that actually makes sense and this is what kept me going but, overall, I was very disappointed with the simplicity of this book. Everything was about death and about sex in ways incestuously connected. It seemed like the meditation of a teenager faced with tragedy but still raging with hormones. The pieces concerning death were (obviously) better written and more carefully prepared whereas the subject of sex was very trivially portrayed and it ruined the atmosphere of the book, frankly. The book gives you the impression of a heavy dream, touching all of those painful experiences that you don't want to think about mixed with the even sadder experience of unfulfilled sex (unfulfilled for the girls; Toru was always having fun). Now, I do have a problem with the obvious masculine view of things (which Murakami never fails to deliver) but that's just the reality, we can't expect all male writers to be capable of assuming a valid feminine point of view and some writers, even when they're sexist, can deliver a perspective that is of importance in a book. There are countless Toru Watanabes in the world and this is how they think, we still need to know that even if it's uncomfortable.
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review2012-10-23T00:00:00+01:002012-10-23T00:00:00+01:00http://AlexandraS.booklikes.com/post/611679/postAlexandraShttp://AlexandraS.booklikes.com
It reminded me of Eugenide's Calliope, but only because of the subject, they don't have much else in common. I guess I wanted more from Wayne's point of view, and this book centers more on how Wayne's story is not only his, it also changes all the other lives from the community.
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review2012-10-18T00:00:00+01:002012-10-18T00:00:00+01:00http://AlexandraS.booklikes.com/post/611680/postAlexandraShttp://AlexandraS.booklikes.com
The writing is bad, it's actually very, very bad. Just what you'd expect from fan fiction. It's weird, though, that there are actually parts when the book is entertaining - those would be the linguistic quarrels between the two - but they don't last for long. The problem with the book is that it's so simple, it's so clearly just an unrealistic fantasy of the author, that it's embarrassing, really. It's more embarrassing that a 22 year old girl thinks, speaks and acts like she's from another time period, and I'm not talking about her assuming the language of classic damsels from the books she reads. I'm talking about saying the "Oh sh*t!" and "Oh f**k!" all the time, like she's a twelve year old suddenly finding the power of forbidden words. Really, is this how people believe we 20-somethings talk? Also, everybody has respiratory problems in this book. They gasp and they gape, and frankly it's just unhealthy for one to stay with their mouth open all the time.
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review2012-09-25T00:00:00+01:002012-09-25T00:00:00+01:00http://AlexandraS.booklikes.com/post/611678/postAlexandraShttp://AlexandraS.booklikes.com
The author is a psychotherapist, and it shows through the realistic exposee of the characters and their motivations, presented like they would be part of an anthropological study. The fact that she can create diverse personalities in only a few pages (because each character gets only a few pages to explain themselves and how they contributed to "the event") is pretty remarkable. This was an interesting read, but it loses points because the characters have too much drama going on. The book wants to explain why such events happen, which is not something that a study would do, a study only presents facts without drawing conclusions, but the book clearly wants to draw on the psychoanalysis view of the parent-child relationship and its effects, and I don't care much for the "Parents are always to blame" idea, perpetuated by most of this book's characters.
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review: The History of Love: A Novel (12 Copy Display)2012-04-17T00:00:00+01:002012-04-17T00:00:00+01:00http://AlexandraS.booklikes.com/post/611673/the-history-of-love-a-novel-12-copy-displayAlexandraShttp://AlexandraS.booklikes.comreview2012-02-17T00:00:00+00:002012-02-17T00:00:00+00:00http://AlexandraS.booklikes.com/post/611681/postAlexandraShttp://AlexandraS.booklikes.com
The plot was interesting, but not very hard for anyone with some basic Psychology knowledge and some intolerance to spirituality. What baffles me is the choice to make Urfe a central character: he annoyed the hell out of me. It's rarely that i find such an immature character, insecure, hedonistic and plainly childish. ALL of the other characters were more interesting than him (well, except for Mitford). I agreed completely with the psychological evaluation that they made for him at the trial. All in all, it has been an interesting experience, but not one worth the fuss that everybody creates around this novel. It might have been spectacular at it's release, but a few decades and some "Eyes wide shut"-type movies later, it ain't that interesting anymore.
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review: Intriga matrimonială2012-02-12T00:00:00+00:002012-02-12T00:00:00+00:00http://AlexandraS.booklikes.com/post/611671/intriga-matrimonialAlexandraShttp://AlexandraS.booklikes.com
On the other hand, most people won't like the part that ressembles a college lecture because they're just not interested in semiotics. But it's a shame, because it kind of comes with the teritory, when you love books you ought to get yourself mixed into some theory, critique and what not.
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review: Monştri invizibili2012-02-05T00:00:00+00:002012-02-05T00:00:00+00:00http://AlexandraS.booklikes.com/post/611672/mon-tri-invizibiliAlexandraShttp://AlexandraS.booklikes.com
What i liked were the cliches that made so much sense within the story. You are what you eat, and when you eat mashed food it means you're pulverised. When you eat junk food or some of those pre-cooked meals you find in supermarkets...you're a joke. We are all jokes but it helps to be shaken once in a while, even if via words and not real, honest-to-God slaps.
Give me a slap to reality. Flash! Give me stupid, empty, first world problems like ooo, i'm too pretty to be interesting. Flash! Give the whole, uncensored definition of felching. Flash! I think that pretty much says it all. I put it in the Recommendable, it's actually highly recommendable even if the shocking violence of words that characterises Palahniuk isn't for everybody.
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review: Ce mică-i lumea!2012-01-04T00:00:00+00:002012-01-04T00:00:00+00:00http://AlexandraS.booklikes.com/post/611670/ce-mic-i-lumeaAlexandraShttp://AlexandraS.booklikes.com
A small dissapointment from one of my favorites. Or maybe i'm just not that impressionable anymore.
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