carlin

Reading this book was inspired by two things: A desire to read challenging literature and wanting to get ahead of the discourse tsunami that will be emerald fennel's wuthering heights in January 2026

One the former front this definitely is a challenging read. Not only is the vast majority of the book narrated 👵 to the main character👨‍🦱, but also the narrator 👵 relates stories told to her and letters that she's read so there's a lot of nested framing. Also there is a pretty decent chunk of this in northen dialect which is less comprehensibly scribed than in Trainspotting. Finally we also have the naming conventions of the era (mister vs master) and a strong reliance on pronouns where keeping track is demanding in itself.

On the latter front, the movie looks like it will be bad. However it also is easy for this story to come across as racist, narratively, so I think it was doomed from the get go.

I thought the writing was of a high quailty, but mostly enjoyed it the less baggage there was about the framing (i.e. before the narration starts at the beginning and the monologues that the characters fall into throughout).

In terms of the story, I eventually realised that its mostly just an exercise in elaborating on the crazy family tree that develops by the end of the story. We know already the births and deaths, but how they manifest is interesting enough to keep you reading

I think overall it was a decent read, but I think there's other classics you should get to first before this one

PS every summer solstice, since 2021, I have devoted the day to reading and I finished this book as part of my tradition this year :)

--- spoilers ---

There is a non-racist reading of this story — particularly in it being a ghost story — but as it stands, the story is a morality tale about how you shouldn't let foreigners into your family as they will seize it from you. (in this case it's also anti-adoption)

Finally, this must've been huge for the enemies-to-lovers girlies

finished reading this today so that I didn't have to bring an almost finished book on holiday. Probably not the correct choice, I should've just bought a book if I needed to on holiday ahah

Absolutely love her writing style, everyone I've recommended this to I've described it as a weird person in a weird world. Now I've read it I wish I was a bit more tentative about my recommendation ahaha

definitely literary fiction and definitely a comedy. Lots of this will stick in my mind and can see myself re-reading eventually

I don't think the epilogue was needed. Half off for the ending and its pacing, but also maybe it was how I ended up reading it today

pretty good! I thought this was well structured and found myself interested in both strands of the story

the book is largely about the experience of immigration and being an immigrant and felt this was fairly well developed if a bit trite. I think generally the authorial voice was a bit basic and so this kinda applies to all areas

I found the symbolism regarding cats and snakes compelling, if a bit unclear. This is the first book for my new LGBT reading group so I'm glad we'll have lots to talk about :)

PS as this was for the reading group, I was a lot more consistent about getting through this than I otherwise would be

i really loved all three of our main characters and the story we're told

for me it was only after 100+ pages that i was really engaged with the story, but once i was i really enjoyed it. Also Ive been having to read a lot of another book at the same time, which gave me the rare feeling of wanting to read more of this but not being able to

I found the concept quite compelling and definitely one which would be fun to tease out with a friend or a reading group - both the ethics and the mechanics. Personally i found my opinion changing as the story went on.

Really interesting to me that they made a movie about this. Feels very soft and pensive and not exactly dramatic. I wonder if it plays out the same or if it's like insipired by this setting

-- spoilers--

kazuo ishiguro recorded some tiktoks re his books and I really want to watch the one i saw where he answers the question "why don't they run" which seems unrelated to this story to me

a book club read and so not something I would've picked nor read this quickly. But I'm glad to have had the urgency of reading it as it's been nice to do so instead of reading social media

I have mixed feelings. I think the chief word that comes to mind is "indulgent". This book is mining something pretty simple — in Part 3 Ch V Jonny summarises the whole story in a sentence — for a long time and for me I didn't really get much out of this particular story.

I think for me I find it hard to give the narrator (JJ) much grace as this is a story mourning a self-professed racist (among other fascist tendencies). And sure, these things can happen, you can love people who hold upsetting views, but for me I can only really understand it in a family context. When it's romance or friendship, I do have to question your character if you can look past that, and 10x moreso if that person becomes someone who is this important to you.

I also struggle to find much I can connect with otherwise: JJ lives to party and I am not a party girl. The story isn't concerned with family, health, hobbies, etc, and I find it curious how much reference there is to classic films when this doesn't seem to be an interest of hers during the parts of her life documented. Also personally I find her desire for living in the US a bit perverse, like it's just not something I can relate to at all.

I found the quality of the prose fairly decent, if a bit overly defensive, and I can see how this could mean a lot to people who resonate more with this experience.

On a side note, I'm trying to improve my vocabulary and this book was great for that effort; I gained about 50 words.

Regardless, I am interested to hear what people have to say at the book club and I don't think it was a waste of time or anything. I'm very glad I didn't read this over 2-3 months like I would've pre this reading era