bailedIt's not often that I bail on a book that I've read the majority of - but the second half was unreadable for me. What began as a strong and interesting premise became a slog to read. Trudging through a fever dream just isn't my cup of tea, I guess - so this one is a bail at 75% completion.
pickThis was good! 4.5⭐
Cristoff spends time in small towns in the Patagonian meseta (plateau lands), getting to know the rhythms of life and the locals, staying long enough to become a recognisable, if temporary, community feature to whom people open up about their lives.
Cristoff augments testimony with some historical research and, probably, a degree of literary licence, which coheres into a picture of brittle lives dwarfed by a vast landscape, ⬇️
"Haikus of horror":
An evocative phrase, but -
children are dying.
#HaikuHive
With apologies that my first entry is rather grim.
pickIn a dystopian world where a virus has made animal meat inedible, humans are now bred as game and “special meat.” Marcos works at a processing facility, and as his personal life seems to be falling apart, he begins to question the society he exists in.
Spent 90% of the book, feeling sick to my stomach with the same creepy uneasy I get whenever I read Lord of the Flies. But the ending was perfectly done, and I‘m not sure what that says about me.
Is being trapped under a cat sufficient reason for calling emergency services? #CatsOfLitsy #Caturday
Luckily, Skye has trapped me with the tagged book, which I'm really enjoying. Cristoff merges travelog with her literary perspective on the lives of the ordinary people she meets, with vignettes of Patagonian history, relating these to the books she's reading.
Hearing of the mass murders of immigrant Arab traders in the 1900s by bandits who ⬇️
"My father was born in the middle of Patagonia, but everybody around him spoke Bulgarian."
#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
Next up, "False Calm" by María Sonia Cristoff, the title of which has me on edge! ? It's suggestive of emotional undertow and brittle tension.
It's a travelogue \ reportage \ revisiting of her Patagonian homeland, specifically seeking out the less populous, less thriving, more isolated and ailing towns.
Adjectives from the blurbs included: magical, intimate, humane, bold, beautiful, artful, atmospheric. I hope it lives up to expectations ?
so-soUmmmm…this one was rough! Not only is the subject matter unsettling but the audiobook narrator‘s lack of inflection or feeling in his voice was particularly disturbing and sometimes monotonous. I also really didn‘t like the ending either and there is a part dealing with puppies that I especially hated (which might sound weird given everything else going on). The overall theme though of the worth of humanity was intriguing. 🌟🌟🌟
