Ramya > Recent Status Updates

It took me a while to get stuck in and get used to the writing style, but now I'm hooked.

DNF

I think the plot and characters are quite interesting but I really, really couldn't get behind the writing style, which is a very close third person where the characters' internal thoughts are all spelled out for you. I just wasn't enjoying reading it and I couldn't get past all the telling. I might revisit it when I'm in a different reading mood.

Gentle build. Relatable protag. Idiosyncratic syntax, felt a bit unnatural at first but suggests an unique voice. The longer I read it, the more I get used to it. Lots of explaining of internal thoughts.

God, my heart is just aching. The desperate hope Yu describes of immigrants trying to reach the American Dream and how they're stopped in their tracks by a racial equivalent of a glass ceiling - it's actually making me ache inside.

Still not enjoying the prose. The plot is ok but the prose zips along too quickly and too obtusely. Feel like I'm reading it for the sake of reading it.

This book isn't making much sense. Feels like every third sentence has been deleted.

Not really enjoying it so far too be honest. It's brutal, almost too dramatic. I know this was real life for someone, not a sensationalised narrative, but the way it's written feels overdone. Like it's overfilling my cup with brutality, so much so it doesn't feel real. I'm also not massively enjoying the writing. Very short sentences, the rhythm becoming monotonous.

Read for an hour without even realising.

My god, Coates has a way with dialogue, a way with rhythm, a way with words.

Definitely picking the pace up again. The repeated theme of family and the destruction of family ties that come with slavery is starting to feel a bit heavy handed now. Started off like a light drizzle, now it's a heavy rainfall and it's losing its power. The movement to a new state has brought up new ideas though, so the repetition from before feels particularly unnecessary.

Loved the first few chapters, really did. But now it feels like the pace is slowing down right when it should be speeding up.

Powerful, personal, political - rigourously metered, so honest in its emotions. Made me well up. Never thought I would see a queer Chinese woman's poetry in the Faber blue cover of the TS Eliot poetry I learnt as I teenager and could not relate to, only marvel at from afar. I never thought poetry within Faber covers would echo my own upbringing

Reading ARC copy.
Already feel like the book is breaking lots of BAME in fiction tropes; we have a rich Indian family who are normal people, not just characters added in for extra colour or whose story is just about their race. Also was so thrilled by the cover.
Didn't realise it was the third in a series though.
YA which I'm normally happy to read but a bit annoyed already with super informal 'hip' language.