Bella Sk > Recent Status Updates

This book seriously wants me to believe a man who earns $250k a year is NOT rich. I know money can't buy love or happiness, but we can at least agree that a man earning $250k a year isn't living in abject poverty. I like the writing, but it mostly seems like rich people having a whinge so far.

Look, as a long term Darwin resident I'm pretty convinced that Trent Dalton hasn't ever spent much time here. Dry season in October? Nope, that's the build up. Summer? Not a phrase we use, it's dry season, build up, and wet season.

Am I enjoying it all the same? Yes.

Every single character in this book is absolutely insufferable.

I'm listening to the audiobook and keep wondering how Rocky's speech is represented in text - can anyone confirm for me?

"Grief doesnt vanish when we try to lock it up in a sealed drawer, yet that's the way many of us are encouraged to cope: don't talk about the pain, and it'll go away. Anyone who's tried that approach knows what a superficial exercise it can be. Ultimately, the thing that makes you crazy isn't that your mother died, but that you can't talk about it, and you can't let yourself think about it."

Obviously very poignant and important subject matter, but I'm struggling with the writing quality. There's lots of clunky, subtle-as-a-sledgehammer metaphors. (Eg when someone hears the news that they must give up their family home, they stumble and knock a family portrait crooked.)

Also lots of "she let out a sigh she didn't know she was holding" type phrases which I blame the editor for not immediately deleting.

A quote from pages 425-6 that's a pretty apt description of what it's like to read this book:

"The book is so good, so enchanting, that while you're reading it, you completely forget where you are. Your body is sitting in your living room, you have a to-do list a mile long, you need to call the plumber and the dog needs to be walked, but none of that touches you in the moment, because your mind is some place else."

Thoroughly enjoying this one! Art forgery investigation traipsing all over Europe; a real page turner.

Another one I'd probably have put down already were it not for book club.
I'm not enjoying this florid, overwrought writing about terrible people. Also don't think the structure serves the stories.

Unintentionally hilarious.

What a hard slog. I really have to force myself to stick with this, but I'm too close to the end to give up now.