Core: A Romance

by Kassten Alonso

THIS INTENSE AND COMPACT NOVEL crackles with obsession, betrayal, and madness, and was an Oregon Book Award Finalist for fiction 2005. As the narrator becomes fixated on his best friend's girlfriend, his precarious hold on sanity rapidly deteriorates into delusion and violence. This story can be read as the classic myth of Hades and Persephone (Core) rewritten for a twenty-first century audience as well as a dark, foreboding tale of unrequited love and loneliness. Alonso skillfully uses language to imitate memory and psychosis, putting the reader squarely inside the narrator's head. In addition, deliberate misuse of standard punctuation blurs the distinction between the narrator's internal and external worlds. A sense of alienation and Faulknerian grotesquerie permeate this landscape where desire is borne in the bloom of a daffodil and sanity lies toppled like an applecart in the mud.

204 pages, ebook

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[Billie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I'll start by saying while this book started a bit confusingly and slowly, it got majorly INTENSE by the end - I absolutely flew through it. This is NOT your typical read. It isn't written in whatever you would call a "normal" style - sentences run together, there is very little punctuation, etc. This, however, completes our main character's fall into insanity. He is never named, which I find amazing, as well. The chapters are so oddly numerated and it actually took me a couple to catch on because the story jumps from different times in our man character's life (they actually run 4, 27, 17, 28, 5, 27, 17 27, etc.). Awesomely different. And intense.

There are absolutely beautiful lines in this story that I read and reread just for the beauty of them and I feel the need to share a few here: "he shook the rain from his hair and the hair from his eyes." - simple, yet so pretty. "Ultimately, all art means taking a chance." "Her throat caught in his hands."

And this one - an absolute favorite: "You can need a person or you can love them. But if you need the one you love it can only mean you don't really have them. And you'll go insane. And if you go insane to have that person then you'll never have that person. Because you've lost yourself."

This doesn't end well - don't look for the silver lining - but it is totally worth the read. I wish all books gripped me by the heart like this one did.

[Irus]

Still trying to decide

[Lindsay Underwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so different from anything I've read in a while. It's told from the perspective of the unnamed main character over the course of different periods of his life. The story follows his decent into insanity as he falls in love with his best friend's girlfriend. Cool and terrifying!

[Jennifer Hanford · Rating 4 out of 5]

The style's a bit affected sometimes, but it's pretty good so far.

[Jasmine]

pause

[Charles White · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to like this book more than I did. Seemed to really lose its direction in the last third. The style is very reminiscent of Faulkner in SOUND AND THE FURY.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creepy and dark story about a boys descent into madness and murder. Did I mention it was dark?

[Jaseena AL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating : 3 stars