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The Blondes
A breakout novel for a young writer whose last book was shortlisted for the Trillium Prize alongside Anne Michaels and Margaret Atwood, and whom the Toronto Star called a "force of nature."
Hazel Hayes is a grad student living in New York City. As the novel opens, she learns she is pregnant (from an affair with her married professor) at an apocalyptically bad random but deadly attacks on passers-by, all by blonde women, are terrorizing New Yorkers. Soon it becomes clear that the attacks are symptoms of a strange illness that is transforming blondes--whether CEOs, flight attendants, skateboarders or accountants--into rabid killers.
Hazel, vulnerable because of her pregnancy, decides to flee the city--but finds that the epidemic has spread and that the world outside New York is even stranger than she imagined. She sets out on a trip across a paralyzed America to find the one woman--perhaps blonde, perhaps not--who might be able to help her. Emily Schultz's beautifully realized novel is a mix of satire, thriller, and serious literary work. With echoes of Blindness and The Handmaid's Tale amplified by a biting satiric wit, The Blondes is at once an examination of the complex relationships between women, and a merciless but giddily enjoyable portrait of what happens in a world where beauty is--literally--deadly.
Hazel Hayes is a grad student living in New York City. As the novel opens, she learns she is pregnant (from an affair with her married professor) at an apocalyptically bad random but deadly attacks on passers-by, all by blonde women, are terrorizing New Yorkers. Soon it becomes clear that the attacks are symptoms of a strange illness that is transforming blondes--whether CEOs, flight attendants, skateboarders or accountants--into rabid killers.
Hazel, vulnerable because of her pregnancy, decides to flee the city--but finds that the epidemic has spread and that the world outside New York is even stranger than she imagined. She sets out on a trip across a paralyzed America to find the one woman--perhaps blonde, perhaps not--who might be able to help her. Emily Schultz's beautifully realized novel is a mix of satire, thriller, and serious literary work. With echoes of Blindness and The Handmaid's Tale amplified by a biting satiric wit, The Blondes is at once an examination of the complex relationships between women, and a merciless but giddily enjoyable portrait of what happens in a world where beauty is--literally--deadly.
386 pages, Hardcover
First published April 24, 2012
82 people are currently reading
4126 people want to read
About the author
Emily Schultz
28 books260 followersEmily Schultz is the co-founder of Joyland Magazine. Her newest novel, Little Threats, is forthcoming from GP Putnam's Sons for November 2020. Her novel, The Blondes, released in the U.S. with St. Martin’s Press and Picador, in France with Editions Asphalte, and in Canada with Doubleday. It was named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR and Kirkus. The Blondes was produced as a scripted podcast starring Madeline Zima, which has also been translated into French.
Schultz's writing has appeared in Elle, Slate, Evergreen Review, Vice, Today's Parent, Hazlitt, Minola Review, Black Warrior Review, and Prairie Schooner. She lives in Brooklyn where she is a producer with the indie media company Heroic Collective.
Schultz's writing has appeared in Elle, Slate, Evergreen Review, Vice, Today's Parent, Hazlitt, Minola Review, Black Warrior Review, and Prairie Schooner. She lives in Brooklyn where she is a producer with the indie media company Heroic Collective.
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August 18, 2018
here- enjoy one of the few pictures of me as a blonde that exist, and know that if i were a character in this book, i would totally attack you...
this is one of those books whose reality you just have to accept. otherwise, you are going to hate it and your brain is not going to be able to get over the "that's not how science works!!" elements.
because to a biologist, spec. a geneticist, this book is cuckoo-bananas. a "plague" descends on the world, but it only affects blonde women and girls. there is a brief high-school-bio-class-refresher explanation about alleles and chromosomes and calico cats and why this could be a possibility. fine. but then - it also affects women who have dyed their hair blonde. women of any race with bleached or highlighted hair. oookay, now i am more skeptical. but THEN - women who shave off their naturally-blonde hair are less likely to get the plague, which causes intense rage and biting-attacks upon others. as though the decoration of hair can change the genetic markers that produce that hair. and to stave off the disease, women shave their legs and their heads and their ladybits, but what about the tiny hairs on the back of the neck? and the earlobes? shaving the head is a good start, but blonde hair is blonde hair whether it is flowing tresses or a tiny hair on the back of the elbow. eating junk food with your eyes closed doesn't fool your diabetes.
if you are the kind of reader who can't get past this in a book and enjoy yourselves, then you should stay away. me, i'm just along for the ride, and i have this adaptability that allows me to sorta compartmentalize the things that don't work for me as a reader, and enjoy the rest.
and the rest is grand.
our heroine is named hazel hayes, and she is a natural redhead, which puts her in the "maybe" category for getting the "blonde fury," or the "california rabies" or any number of names the disease adopts before it is eventually and blandly called SHV. she is a canadian on academic leave in new york who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after an affair with her married adviser. the situation unfolds while she is in new york, and because of the attacks and the panic, communications are compromised, and she ends up getting detained at the border and stuck in a quarantine center where armed guards monitor blondes (and one lone redhead) for signs of contagion.
when she is finally free to go, she finds herself virtually alone, the plague having ravaged everything and everyone to whom she could turn. the story is told through her narration to her growing fetus, while she is holed up in a cabin in ontario with the wife of her former lover, and she finally takes the time to reflect on her life's choices and regret her lack of perception and carelessness with the people in her life, and faces her uncertain future.
in a lot of ways, it is a lightweight story. it skims the surface of academia, gender and media studies, pop culture and advertising, but it never commits enough to being a true critical satire - these glints remain glints only.
where it is more successful is in her individual story - the complicated relationship with her mother that she only truly understands by dealing with her own single pregnancy and the shallowness of her personal connections, and all the people she has left behind.
despite how sad that all sounds, this book is also very funny. i mean, mobs of blonde airline stewardesses running through the airport, attacking TSA agents and passengers? a blonde baby attacking a tourist in the fountain at washington square park.yeah, that's worth a giggle in all the darkness.
so, a funny and sad story about women and their dealings with each other, and image, and hindsight, and vanity, and a sprinkling of academia that for once i wish went deeper. (LGM)
come to my blog!
this is one of those books whose reality you just have to accept. otherwise, you are going to hate it and your brain is not going to be able to get over the "that's not how science works!!" elements.
because to a biologist, spec. a geneticist, this book is cuckoo-bananas. a "plague" descends on the world, but it only affects blonde women and girls. there is a brief high-school-bio-class-refresher explanation about alleles and chromosomes and calico cats and why this could be a possibility. fine. but then - it also affects women who have dyed their hair blonde. women of any race with bleached or highlighted hair. oookay, now i am more skeptical. but THEN - women who shave off their naturally-blonde hair are less likely to get the plague, which causes intense rage and biting-attacks upon others. as though the decoration of hair can change the genetic markers that produce that hair. and to stave off the disease, women shave their legs and their heads and their ladybits, but what about the tiny hairs on the back of the neck? and the earlobes? shaving the head is a good start, but blonde hair is blonde hair whether it is flowing tresses or a tiny hair on the back of the elbow. eating junk food with your eyes closed doesn't fool your diabetes.
if you are the kind of reader who can't get past this in a book and enjoy yourselves, then you should stay away. me, i'm just along for the ride, and i have this adaptability that allows me to sorta compartmentalize the things that don't work for me as a reader, and enjoy the rest.
and the rest is grand.
our heroine is named hazel hayes, and she is a natural redhead, which puts her in the "maybe" category for getting the "blonde fury," or the "california rabies" or any number of names the disease adopts before it is eventually and blandly called SHV. she is a canadian on academic leave in new york who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after an affair with her married adviser. the situation unfolds while she is in new york, and because of the attacks and the panic, communications are compromised, and she ends up getting detained at the border and stuck in a quarantine center where armed guards monitor blondes (and one lone redhead) for signs of contagion.
when she is finally free to go, she finds herself virtually alone, the plague having ravaged everything and everyone to whom she could turn. the story is told through her narration to her growing fetus, while she is holed up in a cabin in ontario with the wife of her former lover, and she finally takes the time to reflect on her life's choices and regret her lack of perception and carelessness with the people in her life, and faces her uncertain future.
in a lot of ways, it is a lightweight story. it skims the surface of academia, gender and media studies, pop culture and advertising, but it never commits enough to being a true critical satire - these glints remain glints only.
where it is more successful is in her individual story - the complicated relationship with her mother that she only truly understands by dealing with her own single pregnancy and the shallowness of her personal connections, and all the people she has left behind.
despite how sad that all sounds, this book is also very funny. i mean, mobs of blonde airline stewardesses running through the airport, attacking TSA agents and passengers? a blonde baby attacking a tourist in the fountain at washington square park.yeah, that's worth a giggle in all the darkness.
so, a funny and sad story about women and their dealings with each other, and image, and hindsight, and vanity, and a sprinkling of academia that for once i wish went deeper. (LGM)
come to my blog!
December 17, 2020
“I don't believe there is a bond between all women. I don't believe that sisterhood is powerful. I believe just the opposite. I believe these women were just in the right position to be kind. There was nothing to prevent them from it.”
― Emily Schultz, The Blondes
This is one of the more unusual books I've read and is also very good.
I had never heard of this book. But then I saw a review of it in a magazine. And being a blonde, I could not resist . I knew I had to get my hands on a copy so I did.
Hazel is a blonde. Well, she is actually a redhead but with some blonde. But bad bad things are happening to blondes these days. Very bad things. They are coming down with a horrible, often deadly disease. This disease, which causes many bizarre symptoms such as becoming homicidal, is infesting women everywhere....natural blondes, bleached blondes, all blondes. It's a sea of Blonde mania.
The surviving blondes..all of them.need to be quarentined......right away. Before the disease kills them...or they kill others which has already started.
The government is now taking control of their lives. All blondes must....surrender.
I went into this book knowing little more than that. I was hoping it would be another book like "The Handmaid's tale". While it was not that I did enjoy this book very much although the way the story was told was a bit strange.
In some reviews, I have seen people say they simply could not warm to the odd format. I had issues with it but eventually did get used to it. And I really enjoyed t his unique story.
My one complaint..and the reason I did not give it the full five stars..is because I felt to much time was devoted to things that I was not invested in..like Hazel's romance gone wrong.
My favorite scenes in this book were how our government responds to this crisis. There were moments in this book that were actually pretty creepy. I feel that if the focus had stayed on that aspect, this book would not only have been good, it would have been a masterpiece.
I still think this was a very good book, well worth reading. It's dark but also bitingly funny in some parts and very unusual. I am glad I read it.
PS: I also loved reading how the author came to write this!
― Emily Schultz, The Blondes
This is one of the more unusual books I've read and is also very good.
I had never heard of this book. But then I saw a review of it in a magazine. And being a blonde, I could not resist . I knew I had to get my hands on a copy so I did.
Hazel is a blonde. Well, she is actually a redhead but with some blonde. But bad bad things are happening to blondes these days. Very bad things. They are coming down with a horrible, often deadly disease. This disease, which causes many bizarre symptoms such as becoming homicidal, is infesting women everywhere....natural blondes, bleached blondes, all blondes. It's a sea of Blonde mania.
The surviving blondes..all of them.need to be quarentined......right away. Before the disease kills them...or they kill others which has already started.
The government is now taking control of their lives. All blondes must....surrender.
I went into this book knowing little more than that. I was hoping it would be another book like "The Handmaid's tale". While it was not that I did enjoy this book very much although the way the story was told was a bit strange.
In some reviews, I have seen people say they simply could not warm to the odd format. I had issues with it but eventually did get used to it. And I really enjoyed t his unique story.
My one complaint..and the reason I did not give it the full five stars..is because I felt to much time was devoted to things that I was not invested in..like Hazel's romance gone wrong.
My favorite scenes in this book were how our government responds to this crisis. There were moments in this book that were actually pretty creepy. I feel that if the focus had stayed on that aspect, this book would not only have been good, it would have been a masterpiece.
I still think this was a very good book, well worth reading. It's dark but also bitingly funny in some parts and very unusual. I am glad I read it.
PS: I also loved reading how the author came to write this!
February 12, 2013
This book was advertised with far too much hype. The "next Margaret Atwood" - I wish!
The biggest problem with The Blondes is the heroine. She did not engage me in any way - no, that's actually not true, she irritated me on numerous occasions. What drives her through the events, is her desire to abort an unwanted pregnancy; one wonders if she knew how babies are made in the first place. She did not give any thought to a possibility of becoming pregnant when she started an affair with a married man. She's not really attracted to him, she doesn't particularly like him, she does not enjoy sex with him very much either. Why she seduced him in the first place is totally unclear; I guess, because he (like the mountains in the question why people climb them) "was here". She hates his wife, who knows why - because the "other woman" is supposed to? The wife is, actually, much more interesting, engaging, and better written character than the unmemorable Hazel.
Another major irritant - the really bizarre premise that even fake, peroxided blondes are affected by the "blonde rabies". Not only it does not make any "scientific" sense - it does not contribute to the plot and story either.
The heroine is supposed to work on her doctoral thesis in "aesthetology" - "a study of looking". What women look like and what we think they look like, in conjunction with the myth of a blonde in Western culture, could be an interesting subject, worth exploring, but is not developed in any way, except a few paragraphs here and there - IMO a missed opportunity.
I gave the book two stars, because Emily Schultz writes well, and because I liked the idea (not the fake blonde part though!). The book did not deliver, but I'm willing to try her next one.
The biggest problem with The Blondes is the heroine. She did not engage me in any way - no, that's actually not true, she irritated me on numerous occasions. What drives her through the events, is her desire to abort an unwanted pregnancy; one wonders if she knew how babies are made in the first place. She did not give any thought to a possibility of becoming pregnant when she started an affair with a married man. She's not really attracted to him, she doesn't particularly like him, she does not enjoy sex with him very much either. Why she seduced him in the first place is totally unclear; I guess, because he (like the mountains in the question why people climb them) "was here". She hates his wife, who knows why - because the "other woman" is supposed to? The wife is, actually, much more interesting, engaging, and better written character than the unmemorable Hazel.
Another major irritant - the really bizarre premise that even fake, peroxided blondes are affected by the "blonde rabies". Not only it does not make any "scientific" sense - it does not contribute to the plot and story either.
The heroine is supposed to work on her doctoral thesis in "aesthetology" - "a study of looking". What women look like and what we think they look like, in conjunction with the myth of a blonde in Western culture, could be an interesting subject, worth exploring, but is not developed in any way, except a few paragraphs here and there - IMO a missed opportunity.
I gave the book two stars, because Emily Schultz writes well, and because I liked the idea (not the fake blonde part though!). The book did not deliver, but I'm willing to try her next one.
June 27, 2015
The Blondes is one of those books that draws you in by the cover and the book blurb. You dive in with high expectations and soon find yourself a little disappointed and then you just want it to be over. You start skimming a little while thinking of those other books on your To Be Read list that you've been so pumped to read.
The Blondes was hard to enjoy because I could not connect or like the main character. Now,please understand... I don't HAVE to connect and agree with characters in a book but I cannot feel distaste and annoyance when I am supposed to liking her/him.
The premise is so far fetched and combined with being a little bored, I just wouldn't recommend it.
Thank You Netgalley and St. Martin's press for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
The Blondes was hard to enjoy because I could not connect or like the main character. Now,please understand... I don't HAVE to connect and agree with characters in a book but I cannot feel distaste and annoyance when I am supposed to liking her/him.
The premise is so far fetched and combined with being a little bored, I just wouldn't recommend it.
Thank You Netgalley and St. Martin's press for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
October 23, 2012
The Blondes by Emily Schultz
This is a story about a virus which suddenly befalls women with blonde hair. It doesn’t matter if the hair is naturally blonde, dyed, highlighted or if the female is young or old. The illness causes those afflicted to become violent with rage, attacking everyone in their path. The military is called in to control and quarantine those suspected with the Blonde Rage. Although the plot is quite farfetched, the atmosphere and feeling of panic and suspicion which builds in society is not all that unrealistic. I could relate to the feeling of being afraid of something that you can’t see, concerned about becoming ill and not knowing much about a growing disease.
Several years ago, when the SARS outbreak occurred in Toronto, a similar sense of fear and suspicion permeated society. I read about it daily in the newspaper, heard about it on the news and, working in a hospital, was subjected to a rigorous screening procedure each time I entered the building. I really appreciate how the author has captured that atmosphere in her story.
This is the first novel I have read by Emily Schultz. I really enjoyed it, the best part being all the Canadian references which made the story, eerily, more believable.
This is a story about a virus which suddenly befalls women with blonde hair. It doesn’t matter if the hair is naturally blonde, dyed, highlighted or if the female is young or old. The illness causes those afflicted to become violent with rage, attacking everyone in their path. The military is called in to control and quarantine those suspected with the Blonde Rage. Although the plot is quite farfetched, the atmosphere and feeling of panic and suspicion which builds in society is not all that unrealistic. I could relate to the feeling of being afraid of something that you can’t see, concerned about becoming ill and not knowing much about a growing disease.
Several years ago, when the SARS outbreak occurred in Toronto, a similar sense of fear and suspicion permeated society. I read about it daily in the newspaper, heard about it on the news and, working in a hospital, was subjected to a rigorous screening procedure each time I entered the building. I really appreciate how the author has captured that atmosphere in her story.
This is the first novel I have read by Emily Schultz. I really enjoyed it, the best part being all the Canadian references which made the story, eerily, more believable.
April 23, 2015
Emily Schultz’s new novel sports a platinum B-movie premise: All the blonde women on Earth are suddenly at risk of contracting a rabies-like disease that turns them into raving killers.
Don’t laugh. We’ve suffered meteors, the Rapture, nuclear war and the zombie apocalypse. The time seems right for a really bad hair day.
But of course, the hapless characters in “The Blondes” don’t know that. The first time the fur flies, New Yorkers are waiting for their subway when a businesswoman with Barbie hair comes lumbering along the platform and throws a schoolgirl onto the tracks. Frantic bystanders try to help. “Then there was a light in the tunnel. . . .”
When that bloodied train pulls away, you can tell by the roots: It’s a cheap die job.
And yet what sounds like George Romero with a bottle of peroxide. . . .
To rest the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
Don’t laugh. We’ve suffered meteors, the Rapture, nuclear war and the zombie apocalypse. The time seems right for a really bad hair day.
But of course, the hapless characters in “The Blondes” don’t know that. The first time the fur flies, New Yorkers are waiting for their subway when a businesswoman with Barbie hair comes lumbering along the platform and throws a schoolgirl onto the tracks. Frantic bystanders try to help. “Then there was a light in the tunnel. . . .”
When that bloodied train pulls away, you can tell by the roots: It’s a cheap die job.
And yet what sounds like George Romero with a bottle of peroxide. . . .
To rest the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
September 23, 2012
Broken into three parts, the narrative moves forward and backwards in time as the main character, Hazel, speaks to her pregnant belly, relating the events of what brought her to be where she is. The world is in chaos as a strange epidemic has taken over women, targeting blonde women in particular. It causes a rabid-like effect, where the victim's mind is effectively "bleached", and what ensues are random attacks on innocent bystanders. Sounds like an action-packed novel, but to be honest, I really felt bored with the narrative, as it meandered over useless details until the next exciting peak in action. I didn't feel particularly connected to the main character, and was more often irritated by her rather non-committal attitude towards life in general. I didn't understand the attraction to her professor, either - the interactions suggest an apathetic liking, yet she continues to be emotionally affected when memories of him arise. She's confused, I'm confused... She lumbered along the story as more of a witness than a participant, and the only spunk came from the wife of the professor she slept with... which brings me to the question of why there would be any relationship between these two women at all, even in light of their doomed existence? Gave me nightmares of crazed, lunatic women taking over the world, which I think, was sort of the point.
August 7, 2015
With a premise about a plague that affects blonde women, you would think there would be plenty of excitement. Eh, not so much. I actually spent the majority of the book in a state of boredom. Then something exciting would happen . . . and ten pages later, I was bored again. When the book opens, Hazel is already pregnant (it appears that she is quite late in her pregnancy) and she is alone in a cottage owned by the wife of her baby's father (Grace). The world is being ravaged by the plague and she is doing everything she can to remain isolated so she won't catch it. The narration alternates been Hazel being alone in the cabin and Hazel recounting to her unborn child all of the events that led to her isolation.
Reading this book, the first thing you have to do is suspend all disbelief with the "Science" that is talked about in this book. I have no clue about Science and even I knew that what was happening was beyond the realm of possibility, as was the explanation. First, it is reported that the disease affects all blonde girls and women (not males, JUST females). Then they state that blonde women just dye their hair so they won't catch it. This makes no sense to me. Then they say women who aren't natural blondes, but who dye their hair blonde, have a chance of catching it. Then they say that even if you dye your hair or shave your head, it doesn't matter. You can catch it. Hazel is a redhead. This should put her in the "safe" category, but not really. From what I understood, the only way for women to be completely safe was to have natural hair as dark as possible. When women are attempting to cross borders, inspectors even have the women drop their pants so they can see if "the carpets match the drapes." This was one of the few times in the book where I was genuinely horrified. Hazel dyes her hair a darker color, but because the inspector asks her to do this, she is put under quarantine. All of this hysteria does strike me as somewhat realistic. There is a disease no one is familiar with so all of these theories get thrown out as quickly as possible by reporters just so they can have a story. This further incites mass hysteria. With women all over the country supposedly being affected by this disease, it would be easy to be scared. I did wonder how many cases were real and how many were just diagnosed because of mass hysteria. At one point, reporters were telling people to be on the lookout for "emotional" or "upset" women. Sorry, but if there is a plague turning blonde women into killers, I'm going to be a bit "emotional."
I think the reason why I was bored throughout most of this book was that the main character seemed bored with everything too. She showed almost no emotion throughout the entire book and in fact, seemed almost apathetic to what was happening. Even when she was describing her affair with her married professor, there was no emotion there. I didn't even know why she continued with the affair. It didn't seem like she loved him or even knew him very well. The ending of this book was as anticlimactic as everything else. I kept waiting for something to happen. The resolution did not sit well with me. All in all, there was probably one chapter's worth of exciting events in this very boring book.
Reading this book, the first thing you have to do is suspend all disbelief with the "Science" that is talked about in this book. I have no clue about Science and even I knew that what was happening was beyond the realm of possibility, as was the explanation. First, it is reported that the disease affects all blonde girls and women (not males, JUST females). Then they state that blonde women just dye their hair so they won't catch it. This makes no sense to me. Then they say women who aren't natural blondes, but who dye their hair blonde, have a chance of catching it. Then they say that even if you dye your hair or shave your head, it doesn't matter. You can catch it. Hazel is a redhead. This should put her in the "safe" category, but not really. From what I understood, the only way for women to be completely safe was to have natural hair as dark as possible. When women are attempting to cross borders, inspectors even have the women drop their pants so they can see if "the carpets match the drapes." This was one of the few times in the book where I was genuinely horrified. Hazel dyes her hair a darker color, but because the inspector asks her to do this, she is put under quarantine. All of this hysteria does strike me as somewhat realistic. There is a disease no one is familiar with so all of these theories get thrown out as quickly as possible by reporters just so they can have a story. This further incites mass hysteria. With women all over the country supposedly being affected by this disease, it would be easy to be scared. I did wonder how many cases were real and how many were just diagnosed because of mass hysteria. At one point, reporters were telling people to be on the lookout for "emotional" or "upset" women. Sorry, but if there is a plague turning blonde women into killers, I'm going to be a bit "emotional."
I think the reason why I was bored throughout most of this book was that the main character seemed bored with everything too. She showed almost no emotion throughout the entire book and in fact, seemed almost apathetic to what was happening. Even when she was describing her affair with her married professor, there was no emotion there. I didn't even know why she continued with the affair. It didn't seem like she loved him or even knew him very well. The ending of this book was as anticlimactic as everything else. I kept waiting for something to happen. The resolution did not sit well with me. All in all, there was probably one chapter's worth of exciting events in this very boring book.
April 21, 2015
I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
I was quite excited to read this book, as well, being a blonde myself (most of the time anyway), I thought the premise sounded interested. Blondes go crazy and rabid and start attacking people, hey why not! From the blurb this book sounded like a zombie-ish post-apocalyptic type book that I might enjoy. However, this was not to be…
Unfortunately I just could not engage with this book, and I could not bring myself to finish it either. It used to be that I would force myself to read to the end, but these days I just don’t have the time or energy to do that, I enjoy reading, and I want to enjoy my downtime, so now if I don’t like a book I will give it a fair chance, but if it is still not gripping me after a few chapters I’ll move on to the next book. I gave it a fair go though and managed about 40% of the way through, yet I was still not gripped and the story wasn’t evolving fast enough for me to want continue or know what happened in the end.
I believe this is partially as it feels as though the story is going to end back at the beginning of the book, and the beginning didn’t draw me in. Hazel (the main character of the book) starts of telling the story in first person to her un-born child of how she, Hazel came to be in a cabin in the middle of nowhere pregnant, re-counting the memories of before blondes went rabid. For almost the first quarter of the book Hazel is re-counting the memories of her ex-lover, whom from what I can tell she didn’t think was very attractive, didn’t particular enjoy in bed, and didn’t necessarily like… also, he was married! She is also coming to terms with the fact she has just fallen pregnant to a married man. All of this is explained well before you even get the hint of the beginnings of the blonde plague. This was largely my issue with the book, I didn’t really like Hazel very much, I couldn’t understand her, and couldn’t comprehend why on earth she would want to be with this man in the first place.
Then the beginnings of the plague started to be introduced, the part I was most excited to read about, but unfortunately I was lost by then, and the rabid blondes were... well, they were just boring. By starting off the story in the future and re-counting the past back to the present; that beginning needs to be really exciting and engaging to want you to get to the end of the book, to go through the middle to know how it all started and built up, and to finally know what happens in the end/beginning. That beginning wasn’t exciting enough for me to come back to, she possibly has her baby alone in this cabin in the woods and Grace doesn’t come back? I don’t know, and I probably won’t find out. Would I recommend this book… probably not. Having said that, I can see the possibilities, and I can see that some could really enjoy it, it just wasn’t for me.
I was quite excited to read this book, as well, being a blonde myself (most of the time anyway), I thought the premise sounded interested. Blondes go crazy and rabid and start attacking people, hey why not! From the blurb this book sounded like a zombie-ish post-apocalyptic type book that I might enjoy. However, this was not to be…
Unfortunately I just could not engage with this book, and I could not bring myself to finish it either. It used to be that I would force myself to read to the end, but these days I just don’t have the time or energy to do that, I enjoy reading, and I want to enjoy my downtime, so now if I don’t like a book I will give it a fair chance, but if it is still not gripping me after a few chapters I’ll move on to the next book. I gave it a fair go though and managed about 40% of the way through, yet I was still not gripped and the story wasn’t evolving fast enough for me to want continue or know what happened in the end.
I believe this is partially as it feels as though the story is going to end back at the beginning of the book, and the beginning didn’t draw me in. Hazel (the main character of the book) starts of telling the story in first person to her un-born child of how she, Hazel came to be in a cabin in the middle of nowhere pregnant, re-counting the memories of before blondes went rabid. For almost the first quarter of the book Hazel is re-counting the memories of her ex-lover, whom from what I can tell she didn’t think was very attractive, didn’t particular enjoy in bed, and didn’t necessarily like… also, he was married! She is also coming to terms with the fact she has just fallen pregnant to a married man. All of this is explained well before you even get the hint of the beginnings of the blonde plague. This was largely my issue with the book, I didn’t really like Hazel very much, I couldn’t understand her, and couldn’t comprehend why on earth she would want to be with this man in the first place.
Then the beginnings of the plague started to be introduced, the part I was most excited to read about, but unfortunately I was lost by then, and the rabid blondes were... well, they were just boring. By starting off the story in the future and re-counting the past back to the present; that beginning needs to be really exciting and engaging to want you to get to the end of the book, to go through the middle to know how it all started and built up, and to finally know what happens in the end/beginning. That beginning wasn’t exciting enough for me to come back to, she possibly has her baby alone in this cabin in the woods and Grace doesn’t come back? I don’t know, and I probably won’t find out. Would I recommend this book… probably not. Having said that, I can see the possibilities, and I can see that some could really enjoy it, it just wasn’t for me.
June 25, 2015
You guys, this book. Never has a book had so much potential in my mind that it utterly failed to reach. The premise is fascinating - a plague/virus that only affects women with blonde hair (even those with dyed blonde hair). A main character suffering from personal troubles caught in the midst of this outbreak. You'd think there would be so much potential for character development with a background of chaos.
But then.... there's not. There are literally maybe 4 kinda-exciting points in the book. And the character development? NONE. She spends the book wanting to get to Canada and deal with her personal problem somehow. She gets to Canada. Personal problem continues. She learns basically nothing. Besides her (spoiler) growing pregnant belly, the character stays exactly the same.
Also infuriating, there is no building or explanation on the plague itself! Besides a very lazy sentence or two about why it attacks blonde women regardless of their genes, nottttthing further is given. This was a great opportunity to give into society's perceptions of beauty, women's role in society, even the impact a medical disaster can have on society, but this book gave us none.
For a book eons better than this one in every department, read Station Eleven. This was a dud to me.
But then.... there's not. There are literally maybe 4 kinda-exciting points in the book. And the character development? NONE. She spends the book wanting to get to Canada and deal with her personal problem somehow. She gets to Canada. Personal problem continues. She learns basically nothing. Besides her (spoiler) growing pregnant belly, the character stays exactly the same.
Also infuriating, there is no building or explanation on the plague itself! Besides a very lazy sentence or two about why it attacks blonde women regardless of their genes, nottttthing further is given. This was a great opportunity to give into society's perceptions of beauty, women's role in society, even the impact a medical disaster can have on society, but this book gave us none.
For a book eons better than this one in every department, read Station Eleven. This was a dud to me.
December 13, 2017
Before reading this book you should know that the author employs an odd narrative style which involves the protagonist telling her story to her unborn fetus. It is uncomfortable to watch Schultz try to come up with new and interesting nicknames for unborn babies for almost 400 pages. I did not carry this story to term, and aborted the mission 300 pages in.
December 10, 2018
I enjoyed this book... I was a little hesitant to read it given it's reviews, but I'm glad I did.
Hazel, the main character, isn't very likeable or sympathetic, but at the end of the day, I cared what happened to her. This story was mostly about her, her life before and during the epidemic, and her pregnancy. The "Blonde Fury" was a minor part of the book. I would have much rather had more of that than Hazel. I wish we had more of an explanation about the disease and an epilogue. I might not have particularly liked Hazel, but I still want to know what happened to her and the baby.
I also feel like this book was 100 pages longer than it needed to be. A lot of unnecessary explanations and stories.
Overall, it was a good book with an interesting take.
Hazel, the main character, isn't very likeable or sympathetic, but at the end of the day, I cared what happened to her. This story was mostly about her, her life before and during the epidemic, and her pregnancy. The "Blonde Fury" was a minor part of the book. I would have much rather had more of that than Hazel. I wish we had more of an explanation about the disease and an epilogue. I might not have particularly liked Hazel, but I still want to know what happened to her and the baby.
I also feel like this book was 100 pages longer than it needed to be. A lot of unnecessary explanations and stories.
Overall, it was a good book with an interesting take.
July 7, 2015
It's an odd little book, The Blondes. I think I was more amused at the reason why this book was conceived, the murderous looking blondes in a Gucci ad, than I was by the book itself. That's not to say that Emily Schultz cannot write, she can. There are a few very effective scenes. But, the main character we're asked to follow and care about, that she's having a baby is basically all there is to her.
She is, conveniently, a red-head. Red is an in-between color for this blonde virus, there haven't been many attacks by red-heads but murder and mayhem cannot be ruled out. This means, for the book, Hazel can be privy to the quarantine procedures and the rest, but isn't in any real danger. She isn't such a shining personality either. Her claim to fame is to have slept with her married professor, without even enjoying it very much, and getting pregnant. She doesn't seem to love him, doesn't seem to have ever loved him. There's no sense of it having been a conquest, nothing really.
Her closest friend is Larissa, who she treats rather abominably. I'm not sure what was going on with Larissa, and honestly, I would have rather known that than a lot of the things that we are told. Moira, what happened to her? Grace. I would have loved more Grace. Even Hazel's mother. Anyone but Hazel, really. The science of this book is really hokey, but I think I could have easily gotten past that if I had found Hazel the least bit interesting. I didn't.
Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book for review.
She is, conveniently, a red-head. Red is an in-between color for this blonde virus, there haven't been many attacks by red-heads but murder and mayhem cannot be ruled out. This means, for the book, Hazel can be privy to the quarantine procedures and the rest, but isn't in any real danger. She isn't such a shining personality either. Her claim to fame is to have slept with her married professor, without even enjoying it very much, and getting pregnant. She doesn't seem to love him, doesn't seem to have ever loved him. There's no sense of it having been a conquest, nothing really.
Her closest friend is Larissa, who she treats rather abominably. I'm not sure what was going on with Larissa, and honestly, I would have rather known that than a lot of the things that we are told. Moira, what happened to her? Grace. I would have loved more Grace. Even Hazel's mother. Anyone but Hazel, really. The science of this book is really hokey, but I think I could have easily gotten past that if I had found Hazel the least bit interesting. I didn't.
Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book for review.
September 2, 2015
I'd read about this book on a blog and was really fascinated by the plot. New York blondes go cray-cray? I'm in! I ordered the hard cover edition because I love to read horror novels on paper verse my Kindle. Don't ask me why. This novel started slow, which worked, because the heroine is pregnant. I'd never read a book before where the narrative voice is talking directly to the baby growing inside her. I liked The Blondes a lot. It had a level of sarcasm and humorous tone that I hadn't expected. It didn't take itself too seriously.
June 17, 2013
Hazel Hayes has a complicated life. She has just arrived in New York from Toronto to complete her graduate studies. On the same day that she finds out she is pregnant by her married advisor, a crazed blonde woman pushes a young girl on to the subway tracks. The next day another act of violence caused by another crazed blonde woman occurs. Then another. Then another. The Blonde fury has arrived and the first world is up in arms.
Well, more than usual.
The plague, which only affects blonde women (natural and dyed in one of Schultz’s more acrobatic attempts to suspend disbelief) is really the background of the story. At the center is Hazel’s precarious position- a Canadian living in the U.S. during an international epidemic, her pregnancy and her relationship with Karl, her professor and later on in the book his wife.
It is written in the first person, addressed to her unborn baby, when she is in her final trimester and sequestered in a lonely cabin in the woods. How she got there is eventually revealed through her dialogue with her baby.
I started out loving this book. Something about the premise and Hazel’s sardonic yet vulnerable voice, her very believable weaknesses and insecurities as well as the nature of her graduate thesis in “Aesthetology” hooked me from the start. And I loved the middle of it too- Hazel’s thwarted attempts to escape from New York back to Canada, her final grueling success after a weeks-long stint in quarantine and her anti-climactic return home. The complicated relationships in this book are between the various females and are drawn with a bit of irony, humanity and satire.
Yet I have a few quibbles. Schultz leaves us hanging about when it comes to Hazel’s best friend, who has clearly undergone some traumatic event. Yet the reader never finds out what has happened to her to make her behavior shift so radically from the person Hazel used to know to the erratic, nervous person she encounters later in the book.
And the conclusion hits like an anvil without much preparation for the reader. One minute we are reading right along with poor Hazel and the next minute it is the acknowledgements page. After such a rich and satisfying ride, being pushed out of the novel so abruptly felt like being pushed off a cliff.
Well, more than usual.
The plague, which only affects blonde women (natural and dyed in one of Schultz’s more acrobatic attempts to suspend disbelief) is really the background of the story. At the center is Hazel’s precarious position- a Canadian living in the U.S. during an international epidemic, her pregnancy and her relationship with Karl, her professor and later on in the book his wife.
It is written in the first person, addressed to her unborn baby, when she is in her final trimester and sequestered in a lonely cabin in the woods. How she got there is eventually revealed through her dialogue with her baby.
I started out loving this book. Something about the premise and Hazel’s sardonic yet vulnerable voice, her very believable weaknesses and insecurities as well as the nature of her graduate thesis in “Aesthetology” hooked me from the start. And I loved the middle of it too- Hazel’s thwarted attempts to escape from New York back to Canada, her final grueling success after a weeks-long stint in quarantine and her anti-climactic return home. The complicated relationships in this book are between the various females and are drawn with a bit of irony, humanity and satire.
Yet I have a few quibbles. Schultz leaves us hanging about when it comes to Hazel’s best friend, who has clearly undergone some traumatic event. Yet the reader never finds out what has happened to her to make her behavior shift so radically from the person Hazel used to know to the erratic, nervous person she encounters later in the book.
And the conclusion hits like an anvil without much preparation for the reader. One minute we are reading right along with poor Hazel and the next minute it is the acknowledgements page. After such a rich and satisfying ride, being pushed out of the novel so abruptly felt like being pushed off a cliff.
April 15, 2015
This book was provided to me in exchange for an honest review by NetGalley.com and St. Martin's Press.
I was excited to read this one, as the premise sounds interesting. A new virus appears and only affects blondes, who become impaired and exhibit violent behaviors to those around them. There doesn't seem to be a cure, although some women dye their hair and/or shave it off. The main character, at one stage, is in a drugstore shopping for hair dye, and the girl working there points out the "Sable and ebony" are all gone, but there is still "Ash brown."
The main character, however, is a bit hard to connect with. Given, she's fresh out of an affair, has just learned she's pregnant, and is far from home. I could understand her scattered thoughts, her struggles to understand all of this, the shock. But Emily Schultz is almost too good at putting us into the character's head, because it left me feeling disconnected as well. Schultz has quite a way with wordsmithing, and there were times I highlighted fragments, thinking how well she wrote. But overall the story just couldn't draw me in enough.
You have to suspend your disbelief with some powerful suspenders, as well - even women with dyed blonde hair are affected.
I was excited to read this one, as the premise sounds interesting. A new virus appears and only affects blondes, who become impaired and exhibit violent behaviors to those around them. There doesn't seem to be a cure, although some women dye their hair and/or shave it off. The main character, at one stage, is in a drugstore shopping for hair dye, and the girl working there points out the "Sable and ebony" are all gone, but there is still "Ash brown."
The main character, however, is a bit hard to connect with. Given, she's fresh out of an affair, has just learned she's pregnant, and is far from home. I could understand her scattered thoughts, her struggles to understand all of this, the shock. But Emily Schultz is almost too good at putting us into the character's head, because it left me feeling disconnected as well. Schultz has quite a way with wordsmithing, and there were times I highlighted fragments, thinking how well she wrote. But overall the story just couldn't draw me in enough.
You have to suspend your disbelief with some powerful suspenders, as well - even women with dyed blonde hair are affected.
July 19, 2012
*Disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book as a Goodreads Giveaways winner.
The synopsis alone got me. A world gone mad? Check. An examination of gendered assumptions about beauty and relationships? Check. Plucky academic female protagonist? Check.
I can't express how hard it was to put this book down once I started reading it. Schultz's examinations of the paranoia surrounding disease (think Swine Flu, only worse), reproductive rights (Hayes doesn't tell the father of her child that she's pregnant; she's ultimately unable to get an abortion in Conservative-government-run, post-apocalyptic Canada), and relationships between people when the world goes to heck is a combination of poignant, timely, and darkly humourous.
On top of all of this, Schultz manages to make a book both breezy and entertaining while also addressing complex political and gendered issues. At one point she writes that "people are kinder to the unborn than they are to women themselves," and Hayes' experiences prove that claim true again and again in her interactions.
This book has made me a Schultz fan, and now I have to go track down the rest of her writing.
The synopsis alone got me. A world gone mad? Check. An examination of gendered assumptions about beauty and relationships? Check. Plucky academic female protagonist? Check.
I can't express how hard it was to put this book down once I started reading it. Schultz's examinations of the paranoia surrounding disease (think Swine Flu, only worse), reproductive rights (Hayes doesn't tell the father of her child that she's pregnant; she's ultimately unable to get an abortion in Conservative-government-run, post-apocalyptic Canada), and relationships between people when the world goes to heck is a combination of poignant, timely, and darkly humourous.
On top of all of this, Schultz manages to make a book both breezy and entertaining while also addressing complex political and gendered issues. At one point she writes that "people are kinder to the unborn than they are to women themselves," and Hayes' experiences prove that claim true again and again in her interactions.
This book has made me a Schultz fan, and now I have to go track down the rest of her writing.
September 14, 2012
Because Blondes is every fashionista's worst nightmare come true. A mysterious virus begins infecting women with blonde hair (even those who've gained blondedom through dyeing), turning them into violent mindless people who attack at random, and kill without a second thought. Kind of like a zombie novel with split ends. Ba-zing!
Schultz being Schultz, however — which means, being the author of Joyland: A Novel and Heaven Is Small, that she is a damned talented individual — there is far greater depth to The Blondes than the surface would indicate (see what I did there?). As much a satire of society's obsession with looks as it is a Outbreak-like contagion thriller, Schultz expertly entwines a speculative fiction premise with social commentary, making Blondes akin to Dawn of the Dreadfully Good Looking. Ka-pow!
I'll stop punning now.
Read the full review here.
Schultz being Schultz, however — which means, being the author of Joyland: A Novel and Heaven Is Small, that she is a damned talented individual — there is far greater depth to The Blondes than the surface would indicate (see what I did there?). As much a satire of society's obsession with looks as it is a Outbreak-like contagion thriller, Schultz expertly entwines a speculative fiction premise with social commentary, making Blondes akin to Dawn of the Dreadfully Good Looking. Ka-pow!
I'll stop punning now.
Read the full review here.
August 14, 2015
This is a book that I was really hyped to read. So when it arrived I picked it up right away. Just knowing I would be in for a fun ride with this book. Yet I got to chapter six which is 123 pages into the book. I put the book down and have not come back to it for a few months. As I picked the book up again to attempt to read it further, I was left wondering just how I made it to chapter six in the first place. The only explanation I could come up with is that I kept hoping that the story would pick up and I would feel something for the main character. This did not happen and therefore I lost interest in the story as a whole. No regrets.
August 31, 2015
This book was utterly dreadful. I'm not super scientifically inclined and I'm willing to be open minded about things in novels that are unrealistic. But in order to buy into the premise of this book, I would need to be so open minded that my brains fell out on the sidewalk. The whole idea of "blonde rabies" is so absurd and so ridiculously presented it was just embarrassing.
Add to that the fact that our main character is so disinterested and dispassionate about everything it's hard to care about what is happening at all, and you have a book that needs to be washed down the drain and bleached out of my head.
Add to that the fact that our main character is so disinterested and dispassionate about everything it's hard to care about what is happening at all, and you have a book that needs to be washed down the drain and bleached out of my head.
September 12, 2012
Originally reviewed at Novel Escapes
I loved this novel. With a unique premise – blondes becoming rapid killers (think zombies, but exchange the ugly for beautiful blondes) - and fabulous social commentary (think The Handmaid’s Tale), The Blondes is an absorbing read.
Hazel Hayes is an ordinary girl who moves from Toronto to New York City to finish her thesis on women and vanity when she finds herself pregnant just as the world becomes consumed with hysterical, raging blondes wreaking havoc and attacking people. Anyone living in Toronto during SARS or the Bird Flu scare or anywhere during a potential pandemic will understand the fear, the unknown and the desperation portrayed in this novel. The Blondes takes it a step further by exploring an illness that affects only women, particularly blondes, both natural and bleached, and how the rest of the world, from brunettes to men, react to them, their vanity at having to shave their heads, and the discrimination, the persecution, and the indignities they are treated to.
Told from the point of view of Hazel Hayes, whose pregnancy was unplanned, she gradually tells her unborn baby about how the events unfolded to get them to the cabin they were hunkered down in. Hazel starts her story at the cabin and then would skip back to various points in time from how the infections began, to how she met the baby’s father and moved to New York and other times in her past. However, at no time was I confused or thought this detracted from the story. It was masterfully done. I zipped through pages to see whether she would make it out of the cabin and was equally fascinated by how the infection started, spread and the reaction to it as well as the dysfunctional relationship she had with the baby’s father.
I loved that I learned things with this novel, from Mayer of MGM studio’s hometown in Canada to the genetic facts of how a calico cat is created. And that this novel made me think, from our vanity to the niceties people show pregnant women they would never otherwise glance twice at and the irrationality or compassion people show in the face of the unknown.
I visited New York City recently and with Manhattan firmly imprinted in my mind now, I loved that half of this novel takes place in the streets I recently roamed, and the other half was unabashedly Canadian and depicted areas of the city I live in as well as other Canadian-isms (Tim Horton’s anyone?) that I absolutely loved.
There were pages of the Blondes that I whipped through as well as sections I reread to digest the meaning and subtext. Emily Schultz is definitely one to watch. I can’t wait to read more of her work!
Thank you to DoubleDay Canada for our review copy! All opinions are our own.
I loved this novel. With a unique premise – blondes becoming rapid killers (think zombies, but exchange the ugly for beautiful blondes) - and fabulous social commentary (think The Handmaid’s Tale), The Blondes is an absorbing read.
Hazel Hayes is an ordinary girl who moves from Toronto to New York City to finish her thesis on women and vanity when she finds herself pregnant just as the world becomes consumed with hysterical, raging blondes wreaking havoc and attacking people. Anyone living in Toronto during SARS or the Bird Flu scare or anywhere during a potential pandemic will understand the fear, the unknown and the desperation portrayed in this novel. The Blondes takes it a step further by exploring an illness that affects only women, particularly blondes, both natural and bleached, and how the rest of the world, from brunettes to men, react to them, their vanity at having to shave their heads, and the discrimination, the persecution, and the indignities they are treated to.
Told from the point of view of Hazel Hayes, whose pregnancy was unplanned, she gradually tells her unborn baby about how the events unfolded to get them to the cabin they were hunkered down in. Hazel starts her story at the cabin and then would skip back to various points in time from how the infections began, to how she met the baby’s father and moved to New York and other times in her past. However, at no time was I confused or thought this detracted from the story. It was masterfully done. I zipped through pages to see whether she would make it out of the cabin and was equally fascinated by how the infection started, spread and the reaction to it as well as the dysfunctional relationship she had with the baby’s father.
I loved that I learned things with this novel, from Mayer of MGM studio’s hometown in Canada to the genetic facts of how a calico cat is created. And that this novel made me think, from our vanity to the niceties people show pregnant women they would never otherwise glance twice at and the irrationality or compassion people show in the face of the unknown.
I visited New York City recently and with Manhattan firmly imprinted in my mind now, I loved that half of this novel takes place in the streets I recently roamed, and the other half was unabashedly Canadian and depicted areas of the city I live in as well as other Canadian-isms (Tim Horton’s anyone?) that I absolutely loved.
There were pages of the Blondes that I whipped through as well as sections I reread to digest the meaning and subtext. Emily Schultz is definitely one to watch. I can’t wait to read more of her work!
Thank you to DoubleDay Canada for our review copy! All opinions are our own.
September 19, 2015
Wow, I was really disappointed with this one.
I think I went into this expecting one thing and got something completely different, which sometimes can end up being alright in the end. That is not the case with The Blondes. I thought it would focus on the “disease” more than it did, but we really didn’t get much of that. It was mostly our main character Hazel telling her unborn child how she ended up in a cabin in the middle of the woods during a pandemic. There were a few mentions of the disease, of course, and Hazel did come close to it a few times, but not as much as I expected from the description.
Also, I’m unsure of how I feel about Hazel. On one hand I liked her and felt empathy for her, she said some smart things and I was like “Alright, I like her.” But then sometimes I found myself not caring much about parts of her story… perhaps that’s because from the very beginning we know she’s safe and okay, aside from being alone, so there’s no worry and tension in the story she’s telling. To be honest, parts of it were her just complaining about her pregnancy and wanting to be rid of it. The end picked up a bit more, but not enough to save the story from a two star rating.
The “virus” wasn’t explained well, either. I put that in quotations because I’m not really sure if that’s what it was and how it worked. Somehow it effects blondes, even FAKE blondes, and it has something to do with melanin levels and being a woman? I don’t completely understand it and I disliked not really understanding it. Maybe the author wanted me to feel the way the public felt because THEY didn’t really know either, but it didn’t work well for me.
Despite disliking how the story progressed, I really liked the writing style. I wouldn’t be afraid to pick up another book of Schultz’s to give it a chance simply because I DO like the way she writes. The way she wrote some dialogue was great and I felt like I was in Hazel’s head, which worked well for this story. Honestly, the potential for this story and how she writes is what saved this from being a one star.
Overall, I don’t think I’d even recommend this to anyone. I don’t really know how to explain it and my mixed feelings on the character just leave me feeling “meh” about the whole thing. I’m hoping, though, that Schultz’s other works pan out better than this when I do get around to reading them.
I think I went into this expecting one thing and got something completely different, which sometimes can end up being alright in the end. That is not the case with The Blondes. I thought it would focus on the “disease” more than it did, but we really didn’t get much of that. It was mostly our main character Hazel telling her unborn child how she ended up in a cabin in the middle of the woods during a pandemic. There were a few mentions of the disease, of course, and Hazel did come close to it a few times, but not as much as I expected from the description.
Also, I’m unsure of how I feel about Hazel. On one hand I liked her and felt empathy for her, she said some smart things and I was like “Alright, I like her.” But then sometimes I found myself not caring much about parts of her story… perhaps that’s because from the very beginning we know she’s safe and okay, aside from being alone, so there’s no worry and tension in the story she’s telling. To be honest, parts of it were her just complaining about her pregnancy and wanting to be rid of it. The end picked up a bit more, but not enough to save the story from a two star rating.
The “virus” wasn’t explained well, either. I put that in quotations because I’m not really sure if that’s what it was and how it worked. Somehow it effects blondes, even FAKE blondes, and it has something to do with melanin levels and being a woman? I don’t completely understand it and I disliked not really understanding it. Maybe the author wanted me to feel the way the public felt because THEY didn’t really know either, but it didn’t work well for me.
Despite disliking how the story progressed, I really liked the writing style. I wouldn’t be afraid to pick up another book of Schultz’s to give it a chance simply because I DO like the way she writes. The way she wrote some dialogue was great and I felt like I was in Hazel’s head, which worked well for this story. Honestly, the potential for this story and how she writes is what saved this from being a one star.
Overall, I don’t think I’d even recommend this to anyone. I don’t really know how to explain it and my mixed feelings on the character just leave me feeling “meh” about the whole thing. I’m hoping, though, that Schultz’s other works pan out better than this when I do get around to reading them.
September 3, 2015
Is this book super action-packed? Not really. Super-original? Meh. Scientifically accurate? Not in the slightest. BUT BUT BUT. I still really enjoyed it. It's more the story of one woman in a weird time than the story of an outbreak. There weren't that many scenes throughout of attacks, and it's very very introspective. But the overall themes... about beauty and women and how we treat each other... were interesting and all I needed to keep going. Hazel is a very realistic character, at times strong, at times weak, a bit overweight, very unsure about what she wants to do. And I was ok with that.
So it's basically a really realistic (minus the science, obvy) look at what would happen in a situation like that. The paranoia seemed spot on, causing some discrimination but not complete annihilation of all blondes. There was quarantine with some horrific stuff, but she also got through it with some kindness. There are no outlandish zombie-like everyone attacking everyone moments. It's more subtle than that. The writing is really good. The only exception to that is the words "I remember" being in there a few too many times.
But yeah, good. :)
So it's basically a really realistic (minus the science, obvy) look at what would happen in a situation like that. The paranoia seemed spot on, causing some discrimination but not complete annihilation of all blondes. There was quarantine with some horrific stuff, but she also got through it with some kindness. There are no outlandish zombie-like everyone attacking everyone moments. It's more subtle than that. The writing is really good. The only exception to that is the words "I remember" being in there a few too many times.
But yeah, good. :)
September 3, 2012
While I was reading this book, I was thinking how reminiscent of "The Handmaid's Tale" it was. Then, when I went to enter it on my books list, I read the blurb about it and it said the same thing!
This by no means takes away from the creativity, the cleverness or the readability of Schultz's book. Her story focuses on a young woman caught up in the terrorizing throes of a world-wide pandemic that seems to infect only blondes (think SARS multiplied many, many times). She has the misfortune to have become pregnant just before the plague begins and she narrates the story to her unborn child.
Despite this setting, Schultz still manages to tell her story in a way that is both universal and timeless. She touches on themes of loneliness, love and friendship in ways that take the novel far beyond its specific context. In particular, she portrays the relationships between women very perceptively and sometimes rather humorously.
I found this book difficult to put down - a really good read.
This by no means takes away from the creativity, the cleverness or the readability of Schultz's book. Her story focuses on a young woman caught up in the terrorizing throes of a world-wide pandemic that seems to infect only blondes (think SARS multiplied many, many times). She has the misfortune to have become pregnant just before the plague begins and she narrates the story to her unborn child.
Despite this setting, Schultz still manages to tell her story in a way that is both universal and timeless. She touches on themes of loneliness, love and friendship in ways that take the novel far beyond its specific context. In particular, she portrays the relationships between women very perceptively and sometimes rather humorously.
I found this book difficult to put down - a really good read.
January 19, 2019
Zzzzzz, uh! Wha... oh, I must have dozed off again just thinking about this book. Makes sense, because only insomniacs could find value here.
Take one standard seduced-by-professor plot, add a "science fiction" premise that doesn't stand up to even a moment of analysis, stir in a bland, dull schlub of a protagonist, and have her talking to a fetus as your big opener.
Then go on and on with nothing much happening, and when there finally is a moment of action, make it dull and unclear.
Big nope. Couldn't finish. I have some really good books in the queue.
Take one standard seduced-by-professor plot, add a "science fiction" premise that doesn't stand up to even a moment of analysis, stir in a bland, dull schlub of a protagonist, and have her talking to a fetus as your big opener.
Then go on and on with nothing much happening, and when there finally is a moment of action, make it dull and unclear.
Big nope. Couldn't finish. I have some really good books in the queue.
February 29, 2016
Ok--so here is a great plot idea. Blonde women around the world suddenly are afflicted by a virus which causes them to violently attack at random. Could be a wonderful scary sci-fi thriller or bitingly funny satire on our fascination with beauty . BUT THAT IS NOT THIS BOOK. This book is a dull mismash of ideas and a collection of poorly drawn but really unappealing characters. Don't waste your time.
February 9, 2017
This was terrible. I wanted to love the premise of blondes causing a pandemic, but the plot never really launched...i kept reading, and kept being disappointed.
July 2, 2017
Read two positive promo blurbs for this book: one by Steven King (mostly don't like his novels) and one by Margaret Atwood (like many of her novels). So decided to read the book, and I was straight down the middle.
Liked the premise -- some kind of virus or disease hits only blondes, be they natural or dyed. It turns them into violent maniacs. They kill themselves, generally taking others with them.
Didn't like the execution -- focuses on a pregnant university student (a married prof with whom she was having an affair is the father). The student travels from Toronto to New York to work on her Phd... the virus starts to spread while she is in New York. She discovers that she is pregnant and travels back to Toronto to meet up with the prof, or so she hopes...
The book tackles a huge issue, a worldwide pandemic, but focuses on a small life. I liked how the book jumps around in time and space and the writing, at the sentence level, is solid -- well developed main character. But I would expect more, considering the issue. Also, there are a number of tangents that basically lead nowhere; the characters we meet during the tangents disappear and don't seem to have any impact on the plot. If they weren't there they wouldn't have been missed. So basically this book, as well written as it is, feels like an opportunity lost, potential unfulfilled.
But hey, you are free to not listen to me and to listen to King and Atwood and read the book and decide for yourself!
Liked the premise -- some kind of virus or disease hits only blondes, be they natural or dyed. It turns them into violent maniacs. They kill themselves, generally taking others with them.
Didn't like the execution -- focuses on a pregnant university student (a married prof with whom she was having an affair is the father). The student travels from Toronto to New York to work on her Phd... the virus starts to spread while she is in New York. She discovers that she is pregnant and travels back to Toronto to meet up with the prof, or so she hopes...
The book tackles a huge issue, a worldwide pandemic, but focuses on a small life. I liked how the book jumps around in time and space and the writing, at the sentence level, is solid -- well developed main character. But I would expect more, considering the issue. Also, there are a number of tangents that basically lead nowhere; the characters we meet during the tangents disappear and don't seem to have any impact on the plot. If they weren't there they wouldn't have been missed. So basically this book, as well written as it is, feels like an opportunity lost, potential unfulfilled.
But hey, you are free to not listen to me and to listen to King and Atwood and read the book and decide for yourself!
February 9, 2017
This must be my month for reading books about murderous, psychotic women that are sadly slow-paced and a little boring. I will tell you that I liked this better than The Girls, which I now regard as the most boring book about a murderous cult ever. But, the pacing of this book was weird and choppy, and the “spoiler alert!” aspect of starting out by telling us that our narrator ends up third trimester pregnant and hanging out alone with her baby-daddy’s wife in Canada kills almost all of the potential suspense in this book. Why are we starting out at this point? If the “big mystery” is supposed to be “where is Karl?” then, well, “who cares?” is my response. The current status and location of Karl is the least interesting thing in this book. Yawn.
Let’s start with the Blonde Rage virus. I thought that this was an interesting premise. This is what drew me in, suckered me into reading this book. What if blondes really had more murder? And that they were all potential time-bombs, walking around, doing things in their regular life, and then just BAM, they are killing everyone in sight. This was the same premise as Hater but with a gender and hair color related element that lead towards the possibility of exploring misogyny, sexism, and our attitudes about vanity and beauty and hair color. It had possibilities. I did not have the same hang-up that other reviewers had that this Blonde Rage virus didn’t make any sense because it could affect both natural blondes and women who dye their hair. Meh, whatever, doesn’t seem to be biologically valid, but this isn’t really a science treatise. I saw that “blonde by whatever means” as more of a sociological statement that a sci-fi premise, and as a sociological statement, it worked fine.
And then there is our protagonist Hazel’s studies, as she is getting a masters in some obscure topic about beauty in art and the role of blondes in supplanting other women in film, yada yada. More could have been done about this. But no, after Hazel leaves New York and really starts her journey back to Canada, a journey which we know will be successful as she starts the novel in Canada, she seems to completely forget her field of study. She just goes through the motions of being around Blonde Rage attacks, various states of quarantine and suppression of her civil liberties, witnessing devastation all around her, and she doesn’t seem to have any THOUGHTS about this. She is just a mindless witness, making it through it somehow, and chronicling the journey. This struck me as a huge missed opportunity. Yes, maybe Hazel was supposed to be in shock. But at some point in the many weeks of her journey from New York to Canada, this shock should have worn off and she could have resumed thinking. Or maybe she just isn’t very sharp, or capable of multitasking. I dunno. It did not endear me to Hazel, who seemed rather weak and wishy-washy.
You know who else I wasn’t drawn to? That’s right, Professor Karl Mann, whose original last name was Diclicker or something else very terrible which made me think that the author actually Googled “most awful last names” to pick that out. But, it does allow me to write: “That Mann is a really a Diclicker.” Thanks for that book-length set up for this terrible statement. We are given no reason to understand how Hazel was drawn to Karl, why she had any interest in having an affair with him, no actual feelings of affection for him. Their magical time at his remote cabin sounds like the worst sort of business retreat, actually. And I love remote cabins. But not with creepy professors who sleep with their students and run around their cabin hiding pictures of their wife even though their students know that they are married. Barf. And slight spoiler This whole sordid affair is very yucky. There is nothing appealing. Why should we care where Karl is, and not all just be hopeful that Karma has caught up with him?
More interesting characters and side plots are shoved aside as we follow Hazel’s inexplicable pursuit of Karl (and Grace) at their rural Canadian cabin. What was happening to Hazel’s best friend for life? We see her briefly, but that was a much more interesting area to explore. Or the fate of Hazel’s own mother – she seems to really not care at all. It just seemed like so many wasted opportunities for a more interesting story were all sacrificed on the altar of wanting this to be about Hazel talking to her unborn child while at Grace and Karl’s cabin. Really? Oh well.
So, here's my one sentence review - Hey, fans of insane murders, The Blondes is more interesting than The Girls and not as terribly awful and sleep destroying as Hater. That is a glowing endorsement for sure.
Let’s start with the Blonde Rage virus. I thought that this was an interesting premise. This is what drew me in, suckered me into reading this book. What if blondes really had more murder? And that they were all potential time-bombs, walking around, doing things in their regular life, and then just BAM, they are killing everyone in sight. This was the same premise as Hater but with a gender and hair color related element that lead towards the possibility of exploring misogyny, sexism, and our attitudes about vanity and beauty and hair color. It had possibilities. I did not have the same hang-up that other reviewers had that this Blonde Rage virus didn’t make any sense because it could affect both natural blondes and women who dye their hair. Meh, whatever, doesn’t seem to be biologically valid, but this isn’t really a science treatise. I saw that “blonde by whatever means” as more of a sociological statement that a sci-fi premise, and as a sociological statement, it worked fine.
And then there is our protagonist Hazel’s studies, as she is getting a masters in some obscure topic about beauty in art and the role of blondes in supplanting other women in film, yada yada. More could have been done about this. But no, after Hazel leaves New York and really starts her journey back to Canada, a journey which we know will be successful as she starts the novel in Canada, she seems to completely forget her field of study. She just goes through the motions of being around Blonde Rage attacks, various states of quarantine and suppression of her civil liberties, witnessing devastation all around her, and she doesn’t seem to have any THOUGHTS about this. She is just a mindless witness, making it through it somehow, and chronicling the journey. This struck me as a huge missed opportunity. Yes, maybe Hazel was supposed to be in shock. But at some point in the many weeks of her journey from New York to Canada, this shock should have worn off and she could have resumed thinking. Or maybe she just isn’t very sharp, or capable of multitasking. I dunno. It did not endear me to Hazel, who seemed rather weak and wishy-washy.
You know who else I wasn’t drawn to? That’s right, Professor Karl Mann, whose original last name was Diclicker or something else very terrible which made me think that the author actually Googled “most awful last names” to pick that out. But, it does allow me to write: “That Mann is a really a Diclicker.” Thanks for that book-length set up for this terrible statement. We are given no reason to understand how Hazel was drawn to Karl, why she had any interest in having an affair with him, no actual feelings of affection for him. Their magical time at his remote cabin sounds like the worst sort of business retreat, actually. And I love remote cabins. But not with creepy professors who sleep with their students and run around their cabin hiding pictures of their wife even though their students know that they are married. Barf. And slight spoiler This whole sordid affair is very yucky. There is nothing appealing. Why should we care where Karl is, and not all just be hopeful that Karma has caught up with him?
More interesting characters and side plots are shoved aside as we follow Hazel’s inexplicable pursuit of Karl (and Grace) at their rural Canadian cabin. What was happening to Hazel’s best friend for life? We see her briefly, but that was a much more interesting area to explore. Or the fate of Hazel’s own mother – she seems to really not care at all. It just seemed like so many wasted opportunities for a more interesting story were all sacrificed on the altar of wanting this to be about Hazel talking to her unborn child while at Grace and Karl’s cabin. Really? Oh well.
So, here's my one sentence review - Hey, fans of insane murders, The Blondes is more interesting than The Girls and not as terribly awful and sleep destroying as Hater. That is a glowing endorsement for sure.
August 5, 2024
Got halfway through but stopped. The story is told as this lady speaking to her unborn baby during a pandemic and it felt weird. Also overly wordy, like she was trying to meet a word difficulty level or use a certain amount of AP English words for no reason. Interesting premise though.
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