Crudo

Rating: 3.0/5.0Genre:Contemporary + Literary FictionThis book hardly had any plot, it depends mainly on a stream of consciousness. So if you dislike that you should stay away from it. The story is told from the main character's (Kathy) perspective. The narration keeps changing from a first-person to a third person. Kathy who is in her 40s is getting married for the third time in a few days and we get to follow her life in those few days (the present) but through a huge stream of consciousness, we get to know her past as well.You can categorize this book as one like those which offer a slice of life. I liked that the short story mentioned some of the current challenges and problems that our world is facing like Trump's presidency, North Korea's crisis, Brexit, sexuality, and other subjects, but to be honest I'd rather have a story that mentions one particular subject and goes deep into it. Except for Trump's subject, the rest were hardly elaborated. I'm not sure how Trump will be relevant in say ten years from now. I feel this book will face the same fate as well.Can't say I am a fan of Olivia Laing' storytelling in this book. Even for a short book, it felt tiresome to go into different subjects from a paragraph to another. It felt like when you receive a call from a salesperson who tries to sell you something without pausing for one moment so you can think about what he is saying. All in all, this was just a fast average read for me. I am giving Crudo 3.0 stars out of 5.0.

Really.

Self-indulgent, boring and ultimately unreadable; the sign that autofiction has reached a tipping point

Like some other reviewers I'm at a loss to understand the praise heaped on this dreadful book. I can see that it's a product of Twitter and therefore of its time, but it's narcissistic drivel - and dishonest at that. The author relates her own privileged activities with a kind of disavowal, as if by distancing herself from her enjoyment of them, they are somehow rendered progressive, or at least meaningful.The disconnect between life in Western capitals and what is going on in the world politically is a meaningful subject, but the breathless manner trivialises everything touched by it.I personally do not buy the mapping of Kathy Acker on to the author, but perhaps the meaning of that has escaped me.To me it seems very sad that if it is the case that 'women' have 'found a voice' as never before what should be spoken is a diary of knowing consumerism. This book is not a critique nor even an exploration of consumerism, just an endorsement - on a par with flipping through the pages of Vogue. Perhaps readers who enjoy it do so because it valorises their frivolity.

I didn't enjoy this at all. I can recognize that it is well written but there is nothing in it that grabbed me. the summer of last year feels too soon to be written about. There is no power in a wedding scene when someone shouts out 'Steve Bannons been fired!" when we all remember reading about it at the time.I heard an interview where the author said she wrote it over a matter of weeks and there was a rush to get it published and I remain unsure as to why.

Forget everything good you’ve heard about this book; it is self-indulgent, self-absorbed, self-important crap from beginning to end. It is also infuriatingly punctuated. Christ alone knows how it’s achieved such a stellar reputation.

This is simply one of the most astonishing books I've ever read. The best stream of consciousness novel since Joyce. Some of the lines will stay with me forever and were so powerful they made me draw breath.“When she was anorexic in the aughts like everyone she was conducting an assault on gravity, she was the apple that would go upwards, that simple. How nice to astonish the philosophers, go off like a firecracker in all their faces. She wishes her history would go away, leaving holes. There is no story, she writes, I'm going crazy. It's a cry. ”This is not a clear, linear novel with structure and character development. It's a meditation of consciousness. Incredible.

Very powerful at times, I ultimately found this book quite confusing. Perhaps it makes more sense if you get all the references that pepper its pages. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was very well written, and left me feeling anxious yet enthralled or uncomfortable in all the right places. And some quotes really hit home about the political climate, even if some of these were not Laing's herself (as she later references). It was just a little too smug and pretentious for me.