doo78 > Recent Status Updates

The best part is the descriptive writing. Really gorgeous imagery. Except, I'd say it's excessive. Imagery should be there to emphasise and flavour a scene. So when there's nothing happening, it's pretty useless. Once again, I just think more should be happening. I mean, everything before the party could have been cut out completely, except the tiny scene of seeing Gatsby for the first time.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Nothing's happening!!

The first few paragraphs were so hard to understand they made my head spin. But after that, the writing became MUCH easier to read. So that's good.

Pretty good so far. Natural dialogue and friendships, and very readable prose. I just wish the pacing was faster. I can't help being bored because nothing significant is really happening. I'm already forty percent in and it feels like we've gotten nowhere. But we'll see.

The author's great at turning mundane things into stories. However, right now it lacks direction. Not that it's going nowhere, but I can't see AT ALL where it's going. I can't picture the rest of the novel or get excited because it's so free-form and almost aimless. I don't have a reason to keep reading other than the natural curiosity of reading any book. But what HAS unfolded has been interesting. So we'll see.

I've given up with this book. They just had a massive fight because Park didn't tell Eleanor his ex is a girl she doesn't like. Then Richie smashed a plate of food against the wall because he wanted pumpkin pie for christmas . . . I mean, this dude is comically evil. Not even a person, just a shallow character for conflict. I'm gonna speed-read the rest because I can't drop it this far in, but I'm not interested.

It's pretty corny . . . I mean, "I don't want to cheat myself out of a single syllable" is why you won't give her a nickname? "Leave... my... girlfriend... alone" after fighting a guy for making fun of her? Just real cheesy. Definitely feels like the fantasy of a 14-year old girl. And I mean, that's fine. It's my fault for picking a pick like this. I just didn't think it would be THIS corny.

Had a slow start with the long exposition of their family circumstances, but it paid of well with the mature development of their relationship. And the family circumstances themselves are well-written. Eleanor's, at least. I still think Park is a boring and shallow character at the moment, despite the title implying equal depth between them. And he does read like a dreamy, idealistic boyfriend . . . But we'll see.

Zzzzzzzzzzz

There's definitely some good stuff in here, and it's slowly figuring out its direction. But there's just so much that's pointless and uninteresting. It needs to trim about half of what's written. Maybe you'd be into it if you had curiosity for small and mundane things or just like reading as opposed to stories. But as an experience, it's so dull and slow and bloated. I hope it'll pick up the pace soon.

It's getting better since more things are happening. But I still don't see the point. I mean, there's no goal or conflict or purpose at all. I suspect it might be about consent and relations back then, but that's only a guess since nothing so far has been substantial.

Finally, something happened. I had a suspicion he was gay. Pretty sure that's what happened, right? I hope so because that'd be some well needed spice for this book.

So far, nothing has happened, there have been about ten completely meaningless tangents, and a million 'goddamn', 'and all', and 'sort of''s. Struggling to see why this is such a classic, but I'll wait and see.

I want to say it's overly dramatic and even edgy, but knowing how his life went, I can't. Maybe it's just that his thoughts are exaggerated because it's a novel. In any case, I don't think it's very interesting as a story, and my mild curiosity mostly comes from reading it as a suicide note instead.