I mean. Fuck.
It's mostly a character-driven piece, which is fine, infact it's very good, but the characters themselves are boring as hell, and there's only 4, and it focuses mostly on 1. It's just dull and repetitive. Such lifeless characters. The plot doesn't exist much, and is bad. The prose seems alright at first, but it so grey and dull, that it bored me a lot by the end of the book. The book is meant to be an emotional rollercoaster ride, very emotional, etc. but did nothing for me, really at all. It didn't move me. Disturbingly, the whole book is set in late 20th century NYC, but really is a void. The presidents aren't mentioned, or culture, or TV or radio shows, and no specific years are mentioned. It's so abstract or vague, it's worrying and boring. The book is also 700 pages long.
This book is dreadful. And yet, I've heard and read several people say it's great.
>reading women writers that don't have vagina in their first name
you brought this on your Self
>>7798747
I get the feeling it's aimed at women more than men. There's very little content, it's mostly emotional bits. This is the shit that girl likes, like Norwegian Wood.
>>7798732
I bet you think this is so fucking brilliant.
Honestly. What banal swill. Read more, please.
>>7798752
What are you on about? I don't understand.
>>7798732
Have to agree with you there, OP. I've heard tons of people praise it so I decided to give it a shot. Gave up about 100 pages in.
I did hear her first book is actually better, so I think I'll give it a go.
>Readers of exciting, challenging and visionary literary fiction--including admirers of Norman Rush's Mating, Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, and Peter Matthiessen's At Play in the Fields of the Lord--will be drawn to this astonishingly gripping and accomplished first novel. A decade in the writing, this is an anthropological adventure story that combines the visceral allure of a thriller with a profound and tragic vision of what happens when cultures collide. It is a book that instantly catapults Hanya Yanagihara into the company of young novelists who really, really matter. In 1950, a young doctor called Norton Perina signs on with the anthropologist Paul Tallent for an expedition to the remote Micronesian island of Ivu'ivu in search of a rumored lost tribe. They succeed, finding not only that tribe but also a group of forest dwellers they dub "The Dreamers," who turn out to be fantastically long-lived but progressively more senile. Perina suspects the source of their longevity is a hard-to-find turtle; unable to resist the possibility of eternal life, he kills one and smuggles some meat back to the States. He scientifically proves his thesis, earning worldwide fame and the Nobel Prize, but he soon discovers that its miraculous property comes at a terrible price. As things quickly spiral out of his control, his own demons take hold, with devastating personal consequences
Sharing with you guys:
>The People in the Trees_ A Nove - Hanya Yanagihara.mobi
https://u.pomf.is/rhbpnw.mobi
>>7798732
I read it.
Having lived in NYC for a few years I thought the beginning of the book was pretty good, but by the end the author torturing Jude for hundreds of pages reminds me of what Marquez does to his protagonists.
Also I feel the authors portrayal of male relationships was completely off, and setting up Judes love interest onlyto kill himwas unrelentingly sentimentalist swill.
Frankly, it got pretty ridiculous and monotonous, and while I appreciate some of the feels it did give me as well as the conflict between Jude and JB, and some of the games that she plays with homosexual identity, I cant give it more than 3/5 and probably closer to 2.
Good review:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/12/03/striptease-among-pals/
>>7798732
read she's come undone instead
>>7798732
>The presidents aren't mentioned, or culture, or TV or radio shows, and no specific years are mentioned
i mostly agree with your assessment but why do you feel this to be necessary in context to the good/bad of the book?
How do you get swindled into a shitty book? Can't you tell by the first few pages that the author is talentless? Learn to read
>>7800214
not OP but I guess that's the sort of thing that normally doesn't matter or could even contribute to the qualities of a book but easily finds its way into the list of things that seem amateurish about a bad one, among other more significant displays of the author's incompetence and lack of thoroughness
