Peaces

What a mess.This book tries SO hard to be surreal and avant garde… it is simply an arrogant mess. I want my time back.

Reading this book for a book club - it is different than the others we have been reading, more like a weird fantasy mystery that is left unresolved, with subtle dream-like sequences that leave you still wondering. The characters are interesting and confusing… I feel like I am left with a handful of questions, but I think that is the point?The narrator does great job at keeping the story going in a „linear“ fashion, but still going back and forth, giving a bit more history and nuance to each character with little flashbacks.

I don't not finish many books, but this one beat me. I didn't find the characters or plot interesting. My experience was not helped by the narrative voice, which appeared to be as bored as I was.It is possible that it's just too clever for me.

Ms. Oyeyemi could, potentially, if she worked on her craft become a decent writer of Young Adult fiction. But a literary novel? No. I recognize this is a bit harsh, but with a writer who has been conferred with the accolades and rave reviews Ms. Oyeyemi has, since she was 18, I don't feel any guilt for being honest. Ms. Oyeyemi is a terrible writer, plain and simple. Her prose is littered with trite metaphors, stylistic cliches and distracting non-sequiturs. She writes in a disjointed style, with sentences and paragraphs flitting from one topic to another with rarely anything to unify them, thematically or otherwise. It resembles, almost, stream of consciousness. By itself, there is nothing wrong with this style, it can be quite effective in the hands of the right writer. But it takes a writer of enormous intellect and exceptional talent to pull it off. Ms. Oyeyemi possesses neither of those faculties. Looking at the rave reviews, wondering what I might be missing, many of the critics acknowledge these deficiencies but promise it all coalesces at the end into something magical and transcendent. It doesn't. I think Ms. Oyeyemi is emblematic of something I have noticed in book reviews in recent years, which is very frustrating for a reader. Book critics don't review books anymore, they review authors. If an author has the right pedigree, background, identity, publisher, connections, politics or subject matter, or some combination of all the above, they can build quite a career. But for a reader, all that matters is on the page. We have to take the time to read and process the actual words, and the page is the ultimate equalizer. If you don't got it, we know, and we see the Emperor with no clothes. I can't help but think how many good writers don't have a career and whose spot Ms. Oyeyemi might have taken and now we are stuck reading her nonsense instead of someone with actual talent and intellect. But, hey, there is a funny mongoose in this book to distract you from all the bad writing, maybe you'll be charmed by it.

Weird fiction is not for everyone. But, if you are not averse to the the slippery edges of allegorical concepts, you'll enjoy this story. Boiled down to its absolute essence, this entire fuzzy-edged narrative is about feeling seen versus feeling invisible. As often noted with Oyeyemi's work, the ending is not the point, and may feel downright anticlimactic. Everything the author wants to say is concentrated in the center of the story.The writing is what earns this four star rating. The style is a fluid kind of delirium, but one with intelligence and witticisms, that quite frankly, I can't get enough of