Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Real Life

this was really not my fav, but i also kind of couldn’t put it down (in a not so enjoyable can’t-look-away way). i can’t decide if the characters felt well developed or not — the absolutely excessive over thinking sort of tricked me into thinking yes, but on reflection i don’t feel like i have a grasp on the characters at all — but even that feels intentional, like the main character expends so so so much energy on overthinking himself and others and yet all he has to show for it in the end is these bits and pieces of understanding.

it was a really tragic story but not without a tinge of optimism (or maybe i just imposed that on it so i could finish the book without feeling like absolute shit?). i wasn’t sure what to make of the interpersonal violence or what the intention was or what i was supposed to think of it. i guess all i can say was it made me wildly uncomfortable, which clearly was part of the point but definitely not the whole point. definitely feel like i was missing something.

biggest pet peeve with this book was it’s very important to me to be able to track where people/things are in space, and it was so difficult for me to do that throughout. i just felt like the descriptions of scene/setting/movement were extremely confusing and i very often could not follow, and it didn’t particularly strike me as intentional, so that really didn’t work for me.

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cadystanton's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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jennaclarek's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

okay so either i am bad at reading summaries (likely) or nobody had the foresight to tell me this is apart of the "toxic friendgroups who are all a little in love with each other but also hate each other" universe (less likely)...because holy cow i wasn't expecting this powerhouse. immediately from the get go i was compelled by the writing, the characters, and the overall tone of this book. it's so well written, the prose is just breathtaking, and i really will need to pick it up again to underline all the fantastic passages in here. it touches on so many of my favorite things - academia, the complexities of queer friendship, grief...

this is a very dark book - it touches on some heavy topics, and overall there aren't a lot of positive scenes. it has flickers of light throughout, but a lot of it is unfair and a little hopeless and incredibly frustrating. but i think it's such a fantastic book because brandon taylor does not shy away from the darkness. the whole point of the book IS the darkness. that real life is like this. it's messy and chaotic and white people do ruin everything and sometimes "i'm sorry" isn't good enough, it's never good enough, but we all just walk around lying to each other saying we're fine and that's fine.

i don't have anything innovative to say! it's just a damn good book! and i will be revisiting in the future because it has so much incredible prose and the Point is Poignant. i could not put it down. i will be thinking about it for a long time.

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looneytunes's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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loureadsthem's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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aehmyers's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

If you have sat across from a group of people and realized, with a widening abyss in your chest, that your fullness will never be welcomed and understood in that space, then you will resonate with this book. It is heartbreakingly lonely. It punched me in the gut and I thanked it for the time. Don’t expect resolution. The tenuous space between being known and being unknowable, the pain of being knowable but having no one that will put in the effort, of seeking to be known and both getting hurt and hurting others in the process… all this exists indefinitely.

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