4.5 rounded up! and this marks the end of a long, tumultuous saga of girlhood, rivalry, codependency, and the violent reactions that emerge from citie4.5 rounded up! and this marks the end of a long, tumultuous saga of girlhood, rivalry, codependency, and the violent reactions that emerge from cities and families stretched too thin. ferrante has this uncanny ability to peel back all pretenses and lay bare the deepest desires and sins that plague not just lenu and lila, but in some form, all of us. ...more
i admit i did not go into this book with very high expectations. i borrowed this from kaitlan senior year, skimmed the opening pages, declared it "wayi admit i did not go into this book with very high expectations. i borrowed this from kaitlan senior year, skimmed the opening pages, declared it "way too artsy", and let it rot on my desk for a few months. years later, i'm very glad to have given it another shot!
zhang has a fluid, almost melodic way of writing. her sentences seem to whisper with an intense ferocity, never quite aggressive, but certainly self-possessed and deliberate. i know some readers criticized her ubiquitous pinyin, but i found that it actually added to the fierce back-and-forth about culture and language. the inserts are thoughtful; you notice who wields it, and who abandons it. the language feels like a currency, given away to buy some sense of assimilation and reclaimed at an expense.
what struck me the most about this book, however, was the subtle exploration of sisterhood and identity. i told jeremy that the story felt both "decidedly chinese and not chinese at all" because many explicit details are omitted, and you're left to weave together a fragmented family and regional history yourself. there's also a lot of mystery surrounding lucy and sam's relationship and individual identities. as you snake through the book, you learn who they are alongside them. that kind of intimacy is powerful, and as a reader, it drew me closer to them as characters. i wanted to learn more about their hidden softness (sam), their well-worn edges (lucy), and everything in between.
okay, now i will end because i will write myself into oblivion otherwise. would highly recommend! it seems that 2024 is off to a good start, reading-wise. ...more
read during the roughest series of flights in between poor attempts to nap, so i was very glad to have this as a traveling companion! to begin with thread during the roughest series of flights in between poor attempts to nap, so i was very glad to have this as a traveling companion! to begin with the setting, i loved how the story snaked through the intimate jewish and syrian neighborhoods of early 1900s new york, sometimes venturing across miles and centuries to call back to ancient bedouin routes. the historical backdrop seemed well-researched, and i very much savored the window into the sprawling lives of these cultures, whose heritage and customs i was quite unfamiliar with.
and now for the characters, or why i chopped off the fifth star. don't get me wrong, i was very fond of chava! i found her dutiful, no-nonsense approach to life endearing, and her simple way of viewing the world lent a refreshing contrast to ahmed's brashness. i also grew to appreciate the rabbi's awkward but gentle mannerisms, arbeely's gruff passes at affection, and maybe even ahmed's biting rationality. what i didn't really understand were some of the side characters' motivations, namely anna and sophia's. without going into too many details because i'm too lazy to include a spoiler tag, their behavior and decisions seemed to oscillate in strange, undeserved ways. i doubted the authenticity of certain choices and would perhaps.... call.... .. deus ex machina, but i also can't tell if that's just me being unreasonably cynical.
still, it wasn't enough to detract from the whirlwind of warmth and sense of adventure the overall story brought me. i haven't sped-read through something like this in a long time, and for that i am grateful....more
what! i liked this so much better than i expected. the warmth it brought me was reminiscent of the first times i read traveling cat chronicles and thewhat! i liked this so much better than i expected. the warmth it brought me was reminiscent of the first times i read traveling cat chronicles and the namiya general store. something about watching the intertwining of lives and stories in real time appeals to me so much, the feeling of things falling into place. having the library (and komachi, of course) as the connective gossamer thread was a nice touch, paired with the emphasis on "ordinary magic". indeed, was it the library's spell-casting that set all these lives on refreshed paths, or their own internal epiphanies? ...more
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