I really should stop re-reading books solely out of curiosity if my opinion of them has changed. It has, thus far, been a mostly fruitless effort.

I never understood all the fuss about this book. So perhaps that's why I gave it another go, to see if I'd missed something the first time around.

I didn't. It is a book that has its merit but involves a set of gimmicks that are only amusing for the first couple of chapters and then become increasingly grating. Really grating. It is saved by its larger ambitions, but not redeemed.

Really, though, why did everyone go so wild over this book?

what the hell? this was one of the most hyped books of the last few years. i picked it up in hardback, dying to plunge into it. i kept waiting for some semblance of a narrative to take hold. instead i got a very annoying narrator (who i can't help but think is a thinly veiled pessl) who made it very difficult for me to continue reading. it may have just been me (apparently others feel the same way, however), but life is too short to force yourself through books this annoying to feel in touch with the literary trends of the day. i feel too many young novelists are way too concerned with style and wit and setting off fireworks than they are in telling a compelling story.

This book has its faults, sure, but here's the thing: I began reading it after dinner and didn't stop until I'd finished at three a.m. I don't think I can expect much more of a book than that! Pessl's style and quirkiness appeal to me and I really did not know what was going on in this story until the end. Fun fun fun.

I found the first several pages of this book completely fucking unreadable.

Maybe it gets better after that.... it must, I guess, because a lot of people really seem to like it.

But I will never really know.

ON SALE FOR $1.99 as of 8/10

FINALLY

Struck by a severe attack of the cutes, an over-worked bag of metaphors, and flimsy characterization. The dialogue is unnatural and in most cases unfitting for the characters (Dee and Dum's conversations in particular strike me as unreal for high schoolers). Most of these things are stylistic and, while annoying to read, can be groomed out with some forethought and good editing. The book, as has been acknowledged by other people, could easily be a hundred pages shorter than it is.

Blue I found sympathetic as a teenager who related more easily with books and films than actual people. It's natural, and forgiveable, for a girl as sheltered as she to fall under the spell of the Bluebloods, the beautiful people you find at any high school. Eventually she learns that they are not worth knowing--a fact of growing up and graduating from teenagerhood.

So if the Bluebloods are fascinating only due to their looks (which exert a gravitational pull on the eyes of everyone else, thereby inflating their fascination even for people like Blue who, as her dad might say, should know better), what about Hannah? The entire novel is predicated on the premise that Hannah is worth writing/talking/freakishly obessing over. The Bluebloods do it. Blue does it. Her dad does it, if Blue's suppositions about Gareth and Hannah's ongoing affair are correct. But what blows the whole novel for me is not the excessive hyperbole and verbal diarhea, but Hannah. She's not worth it. I can't buy into the obsession because Pessl can't make her worth the interest.

We're supposed to find her incredibly fascinating because Blue tells us she is fascinating, insists ad nauseum that Hannah is a Movie Star, a walking Tragic Past slash Freaking Rubiks Cube (see Redundant and Overused Gimmicks of Modern Literature, Pessl 2006). Yet there's nothing about Hannah herself that lives up to the hype. Agreed, she's a bit strange, melodramatic, and probably depressed. She's gorgeous in a classic, 1940s femme fatale kind of way, and she likes to samba with her wineglass in the living room. She dies in a freakish way (suicide or murder, pick your brand of mustard). But what about her warrants the Bluebloods' adoration? Or Blue's intense fascination? If Blue is so perceptive, why can't she see that this woman is nothing more than a veiled plot device (woman murdered in woods = oooh, a whodunit)?

What we mostly get of Hannah is description, for Pessl is unable to make Hannah interesting through Hannah herself. She very rarely speaks in conversation, and when she does, it's hardly enlightening. Very early in the novel--I think it's the second time Blue meets her--Blue describes Hannah as this glowing personality whose words you just had to pay attention to, the assumption being that even if they are not particularly weighty, profound, or radiating wisdom like a nuclear reactor (ha! see, it's catching), that they are at least clever or novel enough to be worth hearing. But Hannah's side of the ensuing conversation is nothing more than the standard chit-chat Hi-how-are-yous When-did-you-moves How-do-you-like-Stocktons that any neighborly grandmother could come up with. Hannah is nothing more than a manequin that Pessl dresses up like the mysterious leading lady, but ultimately she's vapor. Synopsis: this novel is mostly fluff. At times amusing fluff, but pretty gratuitous.

Não foi por falta de ALERTA LITERATURA DE AEROPORTO PARA GAROTADA IMPRESSIONÁVEL que tive esta má experiência. Foi porque quis.
Acho que nunca li um bildungsroman tão misógino e conservador sob as vestes de personagem feminina forte e exercícios narrativos «fora da caixa». Nisso será mesmo um feito.
De resto é uma salganhada de referências-de-encher-chouriço e armar-ao-pingarelho para disfarçar a flagrante falta de ideias que quer por tudo, tudo!, parecer exactamente o contrário.

Um minuto de silêncio ao génio criativo de Marisha Pessl.

several people I know and like loved this book. I'm about halfway through and I hate it so far. it's sooo wes andersonish, a tale of WASPS who think they're clever (and are, too clever by half!) it's filled with nice words, and some of them are put together well, but I really don't see the big deal. except, oh right-the author is young, and goodlooking. the cover is eye-catching. Did I mention I hate it? I might even have to stop reading (if I could, I'd italicize that.) I almost never give up on a book. it's making me feel like Confederacy of Dunces did-which is a terrible feeling for me. tho it is fun to click the one star every once in awhile. can I give it a black star? or a pile of poo? if there were a pile of poo option, I might even give it 3!

If Gilmore Girls were a book and also a whodunnit, this would be it. It was playful but sharp. The witty similes and metaphors and the abundance of cultural references were overkill at times, but for the most part, I enjoyed them and felt they added to the story. Much of the writing was smart and quite beautiful so I was able to let it slide when it felt like little bits here and there could have been edited out.

Enorm geestig boek! De literatuurverwijzingen worden op den duur zo manisch en over the top, dat je bijna het boek tegen de muur wilt smijten. Maar dan komt er toch een redelijk normaal einde aan het verhaal, dat een hoop duidelijk maakt. Een veelbelovend eerste boek. Ben benieuwd naar volgende boeken.

This is an excerpt of what is apparently Blue's father speaking:

"Always have everything you say exquisitely annotated, and, where possible, provide staggering Visual Aids, because, trust me, there will always be some clown sitting in the back—somewhere by the radiator—who will raise his fat, flipperlike hand and complain, 'No, no, you've got it all wrong."

This is taken at random, but Pessl's every sentence, even her father's words, have the exact same tint to them; the cutesy word choices and excess adjectives, falling from the mouth of an ostensibly wizened figure. Not to mention that the advice itself is patently obtuse. Really, nothing besides "Cross your t's and dot your i's"? Notice, that's what he said, but fewer words.

Later on:

While Dad and I learned that Mississippi had one of the best deer management programs in the country with a population of 1.75 million whitetailed deer (surpassed only by Texas), rescue crews were trying to extricate my mother's body from the totaled car with the Jaws of Life.

Cute. Some people enjoy this, and I don't hate it, but it sounds like a voice-over from Forest Gump.

Eventuellt kommer ingen orka läsa den här recensionen, för det finns så mycket att säga om den här boken. Nåväl. Tydligen har den nämnts i många sammanhang tillsammans med Den hemliga historien, vilket också var hur jag blev tipsad om den, vilket jag verk-lig-en förstår. Jag tror säkert att många med mig tycker om båda böckerna, men Den hemliga historien är (förstås) en mycket bättre bok. Likheterna är så slående: college/high school, den hala men fängslande läraren, den sektliknande vänskapen, kärleksdramat, det mystiska mordet.

Språket: Så proppfullt av referenser att det är helt sjukt. Ibland är det lite roligt, när man förstår och kan relatera, men det är waayyy too much. Utöver referenserna så är språket lite för utsvävande. Marisha Pessl har helt klart missat det här med kill your darlings, vilket gäller både språk och en hel del passager.

Berättelsen: Den är intressant, stundtals väldigt spännande, men alldeles för långsam. Jag tycker om boken rakt igenom, men det tar alldeles för lång tid innan den kommer igång. Visserligen är det mycket man måste förstå för att greppa upplösningen i slutet, men jag förstår om många läsare ger upp halvvägs (eller tidigare). Angående upplösningen så är den alldeles för abrupt. Jag blev ganska förvånad, men också besviken. Jag tyckte så mycket om Gareth, jag är ledsen att även hans karaktär behövdes vändas uppochned på slutet. Dessutom är jag ledsen att det inte blev någon försoning med Aristokraterna.

Karaktärerna: Generellt tycker jag om dem, men det är inte alls samma känsla av att vilja vara en i gänget som jag kände med Den hemliga historien, och jag känner inte riktigt att jag får lära känna dem tillräckligt, allt är bara skrap på ytan. Hannah ger direkt den obehagliga känsla som jag gissar att Pessl ämnat befästa, så jag vet inte vad jag ska tycka om henne. Gareth tycker jag om, han är visserligen fruktansvärt pretentiös (inte mig emot), men han verkar också vara en väldigt fin och sympatisk pappa. Huvudkaraktären, Blue, är generellt ganska korkad, hon är den sortens karaktär som går ner i en mörk källare utan att vända sig om, utan ficklampa (ja ni fattar).

Det här blev en väldigt negativ recension, men sammanfattningsvis tycker jag ändå om den. Den är minst 100 sidor för lång, men jag gillar berättelsen och hur den flyter på, och jag kommer absolut att minnas den.