I wish to discuss a book. Normally I would say exactly what I wanted to say (within the realm of normal human consideration), on the principle that authors who want to be happy should not seek out strangers talking smack about their babies. However, in this case, I know that the author’s wife reads here, and she knows I know, and that gives me an extra responsibility to be careful with my words. My original intention, before reading the book, was to get around that issue by Just Not Talking About the Book Here—but it turns out the book reached near-obsession levels for me, and I want you to read it too. And yet I am not willing to strongly recommend a book by telling you ONLY the good things. So here we are. I am going to tell you what I liked and didn’t like about the book, while KNOWING the author’s wife is STANDING RIGHT THERE.
(image from Target.com)
The Revisionaries, by A. R. Moxon (Target) (Amazon)
I will begin by telling you how I went into this book, because expectations matter. I follow the author on Twitter; he’s funny and he does a lot of political tweeting I agree with. When he wrote a book, I put it on my wish list, even though I am not really reading books by men right now. When I got the book, I was surprised by what a giant book it was (600 pages, with narrower-than-usual margins), and found it intimidating; combined with the male-author issue, it drifted to the bottom of the To Read pile. Over Christmas break I decided to just TACKLE it and find out one way or the other if I liked it, so that if I DIDN’T like it I could add it to the Read-Once Book Giveaway I’m planning to do sometime this month or next.
It took me awhile to get into it. It’s the kind of book where a lot is happening that isn’t supposed to make sense yet, and that is not my usual style of book, and it kept starting NEW plotlines where it’s not supposed to make sense yet, so then you have to put a mental bookmark in one thing you don’t understand and start a new thing you don’t understand, and also there were some long visual descriptions which I tend to skim; and so I was slogging a bit, and kept realizing I’d been skimming over something important and would need to go back and re-read. But the writing was good, and the characters seemed promising, and the plot seemed compelling, and I liked it enough to keep reading but not enough to think I would necessarily finish it. At some point, though, it Caught. There were two days when I spent virtually all my free time reading it: I would get up stiffly out of my chair, thinking I ought to do something else for awhile, but soon I would be back in the chair reading it again. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. Paul kept asking me nervously if I was upset about something, but I was NOT upset, I was VERY THINKING. I finished it yesterday, and my tentative plan is to just start reading it over again, because I don’t really want to read anything else; the ONLY reason I might not do this plan is that I think it’s the rare sort of book Paul might like TOO (our tastes overlap almost zero), and so I might want to have HIM read it instead. But maybe I’ll read it again and THEN let Paul read it.
Now I am going to say the things I didn’t like, things you might not like either—or, in two-and-a-half of the three cases, things that might make you MORE interested in reading it. The first is purely subjective: I don’t like it when a book leaves me guessing, or when a book leaves me feeling like I didn’t in the end understand everything that happened. Paul, on the other hand, LOVES that kind of book, and refers to the kind of book I like as “spoon-fed,” which makes me want to think of mean words to describe the kind of book HE likes. One of the reasons I want to re-read it is because it was the style of book where What Is Going On is only gradually revealed, so I want to go back to the beginning and see if my finished-book knowledge helps me better understand what happened. But if after a second reading, and further contemplation, I end up feeling like (1) I was too stupid to understand the book and/or (2) the author did not effectively communicate the plot so that it could be understood and/or (3) the author didn’t really know what happened, either, and covered that up by making it SEEM like the reader is just too stupid to understand (the second and third things are the kind of accusations I would make about some of the books Paul likes), I will like the book less overall.
The second thing I didn’t like is another subjective thing: I don’t generally like when books try to be clever, or when I feel as if the author is saying “DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE???” (Paul DOES like that kind of book). This book was 10-15% too clever for my usual tastes: a tolerable level, but a level worth bracing for if you feel the way I do about it. On the other hand, I will say there were at least two moments when something clever happened and I had to stare into space for a few minutes, fully appreciating the moment (YES I DID SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE), which gives me a little insight into why other people might like clever books. (For one thing, it makes them feel clever for catching the cleverness. But that is annoying to me, too: Paul already believes himself cleverer than I think he ought to, so it feels like the author of a Clever Book is feeding Paul’s ego while also feeding his own ((LOOK HOW CLEVER WE BOTH ARE!!)), and that the two of them ought to knock it off.)
The third thing I want to discuss is the female characters. Speaking of effective communication (end of the paragraph before last), I am not sure I can successfully achieve that here, and may need more time to think it over / re-read before I can even figure out what I want to say, but I will give it a shot. There are good, strong, well-developed female characters in this book, and some of the book is written from their perspective, and I found their perspective reasonable and even very good, and I did not think my usual thought that male authors should not try to write from a female point of view, and in fact I thought more highly of the author for these portrayals. And you will not have to read about their breasts, or their firm thighs, or their endless thoughts on shoes, or whatever. But all of them are Eves: they are there because an Adam needed a helpmeet or a confidante or a girlfriend/wife or a motivation or a conflict in his relationship with a male God. They are Delilahs: strong women who have strong roles, but they are characters in a man’s life story, not the other way around. This book is about a man who, and a man who, and the man who, and the man who; then the women are added in. It does just barely pass the Bechdel Test, but just barely. Even the women’s THOUGHTS are almost entirely about the men in their lives. On the other hand, as I said, a lot of their thoughts are GOOD: the women are in many cases smarter, better, more aware, and more self-aware than the men; they see the men’s flaws, and they see the story more clearly than the men do, and there is some feeling that the reason they are Eves/Delilahs is that THAT IS THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS FOR WOMEN RIGHT NOW, AND THAT IS WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO THEM BY MEN, AND THAT THE AUTHOR SEES THAT AND IS CONSCIOUSLY PORTRAYING AND SPECIFICALLY COMMENTING ON THAT VERY IDEA. And it’s clear he IS doing some of that (the female characters have some of those thoughts), but that’s not the whole thing: it still feels like a story where the men were put in first, and the women take the supporting roles. The supporting roles are VERY VERY VERY GOOD ROLES! We’re talking 99th percentile of good supporting roles! But they’re not the leads. The leads are Adam, and a male God, and Samson.
Anyway, none of that is stopping me from thinking about the book all the time, and wanting to start it over again at the beginning, and thinking you should read it too, EVEN THOUGH THE AUTHOR IS MALE. I thought it was remarkable. I have WOKEN UP HAPPY IN THE MORNINGS, THINKING OF HAVING THIS BOOK TO READ/RE-READ. I hope there are more books by this author, and I would pre-order any such books, and I only have maybe five or six authors total that I’d pre-order, and all the others are women, and two of them don’t write books anymore.
I will send one commenter a copy of the book (U.S. addresses only, but if you have friend/family in the U.S., you can have me ship it as a gift to them). To enter, leave any comment at all (if that kind of freedom freezes you with indecision, as it does me, you can comment with a recent book you liked, or some general/specific thing you like/dislike in books, or a treat you’re looking forward to eating later), and I’ll draw a name on…let’s see, today is Saturday, how about Monday? Mondays don’t have much else to recommend them. January 4th, “sometime during the day.”
Update: Choosing the winner. I use Random.org when I need a random number, and for contests I usually generate a little LIST of numbers: it’s typical to count through to find the 77th comment and find it’s from a commenter who doesn’t want to be entered, and then to go to go to the second pick, which is #58 and turns out to be my own reply to another comment, and so on. So what I do is, I generate, say, 5-10 numbers, and….okay, this is getting dull, I see that now. HERE IS MY POINT: My point is that as I was generating numbers and writing them down, I thought of the story of Jonah, which relates to this book and is not a spoiler, and how the people on the ship draw lots to see who God is mad at. And I don’t know precisely what drawing lots means in this story (I’m imagining straws, with one straw shorter), but I get the gist. Meanwhile I was still jotting my list, and I thought, “What would be neat is if the same number occurred multiple times in this random draw—AS IF I were looking for The Divine Answer to Who Should Get This Book, rather than looking for a random number.” And in my list of ten numbers, the same number appeared twice. And then this will sound like it is not true BUT IT IS: I drew an eleventh time, and got that same number a third time—as if it were saying “I SAID WHAT I SAID.” So it is commenter Angela of the 1:14 p.m. comment on January 2nd! I will email you, Angela!
This is exactly the kind of review I like, and I am Deeply Impressed that you were able to make me DESPERATE to read this book without talking about the plot or even overall idea AT ALL.
The whole parenthetical about Paul/cleverness was amazing.
Same. And I like long books with multiple plot points that end up being related, so it sounds like it might be my kind of book.
I love a book that leaves me very thinky but slsoni have to be in precisely the right mood to accept duch a book. I am a librarian and will make sure this one is on our shelves but cannot promise to read it until that rare, thinky mood hits.
“But also i” and “such.” Jeez. Never type comments on the phone in the middle of the night!
Bravo for this review, most especially because of the author’s wife in the corner! You’ve intrigued me.
I would be very interested in reading this book, based on your review.
I’ve been reading suspense/mystery/crime novels recently and like them more than I expected.
Not so much suspense, but mystery/crime/fascinating are the Flavia DeLuce books by Alan Bradley (for a dude, he writes a very fun 11 year old girl) and the Maisie Dobbs books by Jacquelyn Winspear are a couple of faves of mine. One of my children’s names was inspired by a character name common to both books. It’s sufficiently unique that if I said it, one could easily track me down. I LOVE IT though. (also, I’m an audiobook person, so I listened to both)
I love the narrator for the Flavia De Luce books! Definitely second this recommendation, either in audio book or written format
It’s Jayne Entwistle! And we have gotten books simply because she’s the reader. (she does the War that Saved My Life, which is also excellent, there are 2 or 3)
pro-tip. If you use overdrive (or libby, I guess, I’m over-apped and refuse to get yet another one) and you like a reader, you can search their name and find the books they read.
We also like: Bronson Pinchot, Will Patton, and Rosalyn Landor among others.
I hear it’s a whole new way to search for audiobooks!
I search by audiobook reader on Librivox and love it. (Karen Savage is amazing.) Audiobooks just bring this whole new range of ways for a book to be a bad fit, and a reader who doesn’t make you want to throw something is… well, a good start, we’ll say.
I love a good you should read this book review/recommendation.
I wonder if you had Paul read it and then talked it through with him if that would make you like the book (or Paul I suppose) MORE or LESS. It could go either way for me.
AGREE
I just finished “Born to Run” (not the Springsteen book, the actual running book about the Raramuri in Mexico and endurance athletes in not Mexico) and I have never in my life wanted to run, and I still do not want to run, but, I am now deeply appreciative (in a way I was NOT prior) of those who do this sort of thing. I live near enough to Mt. Katahdin (the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail – which I totally would do, at a walk ) to remember when Scott Jurek flew through it to be the fastest for like 1/2 a minute until the next person did it (or maybe he still is? I can’t remember). Anyway, I remember having a “swell, dude, you’re great but seem like a jerk” thought for some reason now lost to me. And this book (he appears, mostly briefly) made him cool and humble and just a fool for running and I was fascinated. I listened to the audiobook if that matters.
I think you did a great job of reviewing the Moxon book – even with his wife right there! I feel like when that happens, as long as you’re not mean, your feelings about the book are your feelings about the book and that’s normal. I am not the wife of an author nor am I an author, though, so.
I’ve hiked Katahdin, as well as Mt. Washington in NH (the latter multiple times), and there are always one or two people who breeze by me on every hike, running past my slow and steady plod like the incline was nothing.
I have read almost zero fiction this year (I felt like I could not concentrate on reading), but I did just finish The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, which my daughter recommended (and even let me borrow it before she finished it). It’s about Black twin sisters who take two very different paths in life, and how that plays out for their families. I liked it very much. And now I want to read more fiction again.
I just finished The Vanishing Half, and also liked it a lot. A friend says it was her favorite book of 2020.
Oooh, this review makes me desperate to read this book, even though I am also someone who gets intimidated by giant books & often ends up allowing them to languish in the “to be read” pile for months & months.
Hi! I am The Wife and I’d like to confess that I am only on chapter 13 and that’s because it’s a HUGE OVERWHELMING SIZE (that’s what she said) and the only reason I’m reading it at all is because of guilt and the existence of books on tape. So I listen to 20 minutes on the way to work and 20 minutes on the way home and am slowly making my way through.
That said, everything Swistle said/didn’t say is valid and one of the best things about my husband is that he takes criticism obnoxiously well and would probably agree with all of Swistle’s observations. He’s probably the most mentally healthy person that ever existed and let me tell you, that can be super annoying. So feel free to say what you’d like! It’s a pretty divisive type of book and I think Andrew actually enjoys THAT and the dialogue that comes from that more than someone just raving.
Also, he LOVES ambiguous endings/ideas so I’m not surprised to hear that those are involved. If it’s not too much of a burden, I WOULD read it again (or listen) if you enjoyed it because only knowing the small bits I know (I never read any beta versions), I’m still picking up on stuff during the initial listen.
The guy who is doing the audible version is very good and I’m enjoying him once I got past the horrible mid-Atlantic 1940s voice in the beginning. He’s excellent at character voices so that’s helped me. I didn’t even tell Andrew that I was listening to his book at first because I thought, “I CAN NEVER LISTEN TO THAT MAN FOR 600 PAGES.”
And he’s working on another book already, so we’ll let you know when that’s available to pre-order! Pre-ordering is super helpful to authors and while the big name places are good (and feel free to leave a review), ordering from your local bookstore or requesting it from the library are just as helpful.
Thanks, Swistle!
I love that you replied, and love your reply. :-)
(and yes, dialogue is better than raving. It’s like with gifts: you could, say, be given a $500 piece of jewelry that you do not want, and yes, it is $500, and sure, it was nice of them to want to spend that much on you, but if they spend $1 in such a way that they show that they have heard you and engaged with what you want instead of just skittering into the Store You Go For When Gifts Are Socially Obligatory, grabbing the first thing, and skittering out again… well, that $1 goes a long way. Although if they specifically gave it to a charity that you Specifically Loathe then that would be annoying, but at least they engaged rather than spitting out the perfunctory automatic response thing?)
(also, I assume comment replies to other comments are not “entries” but if they are, do not pick me, which feels terrible in reply to the Author’s Wife, and apologies! But we have an excellent public library, and also I have sworn off Everything Optional With Any Tension until after various national and personal tensions have resolved, because while I cannot do anything about our local hospital numbers and apparently cannot stop my aunt [my AUNT] from believing very strange things about the nature of reality, I can at least stick to re-reads or to extremely placid books that will not raise my heart rate unduly. BUT lots of people are finding that reading immersive books is a relief from their tension, and so all of *them* should win it!)
This sounds intriguing! I requested it from the library.
I just finished The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett and liked it Very Much. Definitely recommend.
Ooh! I love that the Wife chimed in!! So fun.
I am reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and it is SO GOOD!! I am so near the end, I need to finish it this afternoon or else if I start at night I will have to stay up way too late to get through it. Its the kind of fiction where I just can’t believe how someone is so creative to have thought it all up. I can’t wait to find out how it ends.
I have read the ‘Shades of Magic’ series by V. E. Schwab and really enjoyed it, so I will definitely order this one!
I live in Canada and immediately looked it up on my library e-book app and it was available! I’m going into it blind, not knowing what it’s about at all. Anyways, it’ll be a good distraction from my Alexander Hamilton biography which is very lengthy.
I’d read it! I am in full hibernation mode and ready for an absorbing book.
Oh my god this review is intriguing AND the wife commented AND I have no idea what this book is about and I kind of want to read it without even reading a synopsis and THAT is a selling point. WHEW.
A Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult. Loved the book but had to imagine my own ending.
Well done Swistle, and Linda.
I just read “Everything Sad is Untrue” -which is a middle school book (I’m a teacher) but it was amazing and I would recommend it to anyone (I’m late to the party, I think, with this title, but there it is).
I love late to the party recommendations! The books are much easier to get from the library, no wait list.
I don’t normally enjoy reading reviews for books I haven’t read yet, but I really liked this review. I think the fact that it didn’t talk about plot or anything actually made me like it more.
I used to be a big reader, but I just haven’t had the energy to read anything lately – even my tried and true favorites, where I already know what happened. The only books I’ve been able to muster the energy to read are kids books that I’m trying to get my son to enjoy – Artemis Fowl, and I reread the first Harry Potter book. (I won’t get into the JK Rowling debate, but since we already owned the books, its not like I spent any more money supporting her.)
Not sure if I would like this book, but your review has me intrigued and had me laughing!
Oh! I would like to try this! I just finished Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and am on to The Warmth of Other Suns by the same author. Great books, but also— well, they are A Lot, for very good reasons!
Oh – I just started Caste! It is beautifully written and has already given me a new frame for thinking about important issues. There are 31 short chapters, so I am reading one every day in January. This pace gives me time to process, and I find myself thinking about the book throughout the day. I’m reading it in parallel with fiction.
Oooooooh, now I really want to read this! I love the sort of books where things don’t quite make sense at first and you have to piece things together as you go along, so this sounds like exactly my thing.
Also, I know the giveaway is random and this won’t affect the outcome, but I feel like it wouldn’t HURT to point out that my birthday is tomorrow.
Haha, well Swistle consider this my entry AND if I win please send it to RubyTheBee for her birthday.
You are too kind!
I’d love to read it based on your review!
It’s been a rough year for fiction for me and I have really gravitated towards the cozy mysteries if I read it at all – not very hip, I’m afraid. I will say, if you are looking for something light and fun Anthony Horowitz’s books (Magpie Murders, Sentence is Death, The Word is Murder) are all excellent. I just finished Richard Osman’s “Thursday Murder Club” and I thought it was excellent.
I wanna read it! I’d request it from the library but my account is locked due to a Margery Allingham book I’ve had out basically the whole pandemic and can’t bring myself to finish or return.
I am intrigued and would like to read that book!
My latest book is Alex Trebek’s autobiography because I enjoy making myself cry.
I’m interested in reading this. It sounds like it’s more “intellectual” than I usually read (I’m a sci-fi/fantasy junkie), but I do occasionally enjoy those. One such book was “Seveneves” which I felt a lot about how you seem to feel about this book.
I’m intrigued and putting in a library hold!
The last book that really grabbed my attention was The Great Alone, which I read during the election / my birthday the next day. It was a treat to escape to Alaska for just a bit.
You have me VERY intrigued, especially given that I don’t even know what it’s about! 600 pages always scares me, though, as often the same story could have been told in 300 and the author just didn’t wanna. (I always prefer shorter, more condensed novels.)
Ohhh, reading this review made me think of how I felt about Seveneves by Neil Stephenson. I read it a few years ago and still think through it like this.
I am a teacher, and once break began, I needed to completely distract my brain. I completed 3 puzzles while listening to Obama’s new book, all 27 hours of it. It was great, although not as good as listening to Michelle reading hers. I did speed the lengthy economic lectures up to 1.5 speed. He has a slow, measured cadence anyway, so I still feel like I got enough of that content.
Side note, I went to put this book on hold at the library, and it mysteriously says, “Please ask library staff for assistance,” not just “all copies checked out” or whatever. Hmm. Adding to the intrigue!
You sold me on giving this a try, thank you for the honest and hilarious review. I think I might try the audio as I am finding myself in a reading phase where I am a bit intimidated by doorstop sized books that take awhile to get into and I want to keep my reading momentum up (a silver lining for 2020 for me was I read more than I ever have).
I just read Woman99. I was all in for the first 60% but then it felt like the author got stuck & didn’t know where to take the plot (don’t want to say more & ruin it for others).
I think it’s being made into a tv/mini-series?
Well! Now you have me intrigued. I am currently reading Let Me In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist. This is NOT the type of book I usually read, and originally I was sure I would give up on it and move on to the next one, but I am 2/3 of the way through it and it’s fascinating. I get a lot of my book recommendations from Lit Hub Daily and/or Pinterest, and from the end of the year roundups ( I can’t place requests for newly released books at my library, so I wait til the new year dawns and then start requesting the previous year’s books… the librarians know me by name).
I need something to think about like that. I’m continually obsessing over this volunteer work I do/have done for my church and how my feelings are hurt around all of that. Maddening and would rather put my brain power toward a fictional world
I want to read this book.
I picked up a pile of light reading from the library before it closed for a two-week holiday. One standout was All Adults Here by Emma Straub. Very enjoyable, loved the protagonist, a 13-year old girl.
I second this recommendation
I hardly ever comment, but I am very interested in this book and want to join on the giveaway fun, even if I don’t win! Thank you, Swistle!
I enjoyed this book A LOT, and I DO like books that are ambiguous and too clever by half, so it’s very much in my wheelhouse. The morning after I finished it, I woke up feeling like I understood life, the universe, and everything. It was an odd sensation that quickly evaporated – the way that dreams do. Your explanation of the female characters is spot-on and put into words my gut reaction that I wasn’t able to articulate. Thank you.
Thank you for this huge laugh/truth: “so it feels like the author of a Clever Book is feeding Paul’s ego while also feeding his own ((LOOK HOW CLEVER WE BOTH ARE!!)), and that the two of them ought to knock it off.)”
I just (finally) read A Gentleman in Moscow and had the same feeling of immediately wanting to start over, albeit for different reasons.
I appreciate your very deep thoughts on men writers and women characters. I really wish you’d read the expanse series (it’s currently 8 books long, with the final book on the way, though) because it’s written by two men (under one pen name) but the points of view shift from character to character every chapter and many of them are women and I would love to get your perspective specifically. I truly feel that each character’s perspective is really well-rounded and different but some of the characters are less likable than others. As they should be. For instance a reviewer I trust referred to a line comparing something to a hooker, and she was like that’s clearly written by a man, BUT that particular CHARACTER was a man, and one who would think just such a thing and be annoying for it.
I’m currently rereading the entire series and I actually really love it for a lot of reasons but I haven’t done a lot of looking at it with a feminist lens because I’m scared to. I want to continue loving the series and I think I probably still would but I just can’t yet. (This reminds me of an onion article in which the woman being featured is consciously choosing to not look at things from a feminist view so she can enjoy one damn thing for once.)
Is it the series by James S. A. Corey?
I laughed about the Onion thing!
I’m intrigued and would love to read it!
I am currently halfway through binge-watching the TV series and want to read the books now. I am obsessed and love the show but I do indeed have SOME THOUGHTS about it from a feminist perspective!
Swistle, I immediately googled the book, and this review popped up. It makes many similar points to yours — I think you’d enjoy it. https://www.npr.org/2019/12/08/785600254/sprawling-revisionaries-impresses-and-exasperates-in-equal-measure
Oh my gosh, YES
This was an amazing and flattering review. Andrew is too humble, but I REVEL in a mostly positive and appropriately critical review by NPR OMG!!!
I’ve been reading a lot of historical fiction set in WWII. Maybe trying to glean handy helpful hints about how old women can contribute to the resistance? Also, this may not be the right time and place, and yet maybe every time and place needs this: Ring Out Wild Bells by Alfred Lord Tennyson and Hsia-Jung Chang
https://youtu.be/MDp4XRgI7Do
Well this sounds much too long and now I am very curious! Thanks for the excellent review. I’m looking forward to eating my last New Years cinnamon roll as a treat (if the kids didn’t eat it while I was out grocery shopping)
I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this review! I’ve been in a few different book exchanges recently and keep giving people The Alice Network by Kate Quinn because it was such a great page turner, in case anyone out there needs that type of book. It’s historical fiction based on a real-life female spy ring in WWI. I also loved her next book, The Huntress.
The last books I finished were ones with engaging story lines and characters and not a lot of unnecessary dialogue.
I wish I had something more interesting to add, but your review made me want to read this book!
Like a lot of the others, reading (shockingly) has fallen by the wayside for me during the past year. Because of this intriguing review I had to go peek at the synopsis and it DOES sound like the kind of book that would draw you in.
i am now Very Curious and would love to try it!
I would like to read this based on your Very Good review!
Ooh, I was so excited when I saw your headline! I’ve of course wanted to read his book since it came out but haven’t yet, and this is an excellent recommendation! Going to have to purchase it this week if I don’t win it! Yay!
I recently read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and it was depressing but the kind that feels needed, but I hate when the story shifts from person to person and I have to keep track of who is talking. Thankfully the first page was a diagram of people/generations so I flipped back there at the beginning of every single chapter.
Just put Revisionaries on hold at the library! I’ve been binging the Pendergast series (as audiobooks while working on knitting projects) and your comments about the female characters also apply to those books. They’re well written and they do cool stuff but the main plot actors are the men. The book are fun thrillers and the main character is a man in a male-dominated field, it would be weird and off-putting if women were shoehorned into the plot where it doesn’t make sense, so overall I accept the refreshing presence of women with unremarkable breasts doing spy stuff and when it’s just a Too Much Men I switch to a podcast. Also, most of them are narrated by Rene Auberjonois who does wonderful character voices.
Thanks for the awesome review, I’m definitely intrigued now even though I have no idea what the book is about!
I just finished The Practice House by Laura McNeal and I liked it very much. Before that I read The Paper Wife by Laila Ibrahim which I also liked very much.
I read the Olive books after your recommendation and I’m adding this to my list of books to read!
I caution that this book is a VERY DIFFERENT VIBE than the Olive books! It will be very fun to see if we line up on BOTH or not!
Yes! All the more reason to read this one too!
This giveaway is perfect because I also do not read male authors, or like ambiguous endings (the author! cannot make up their mind! they are merely releasing themself from the obligation of writing an ending! you cannot have it both ways!!) but I’m in a slump and would like to read something I think about all the time, so if I win this I don’t have to pick my next book, and if I don’t win it, I don’t have to read something by a Clever Male Author.
I added to my library queue when you mentioned it before but alas, it still isn’t my turn. I am still interested in reading it!
I love this post. I love this review. I love the title of the book (turns out that books called The Luminaries or The Immortalists or The Whatevers has some weird hypnotic want-to-read effect on me). I love books where I only gradually understand what’s happening and then it all deliciously comes together but I don’t like books where I’m left feeling like either I didn’t quite understand or like the author didn’t quite understand either and is trying to appear to be resisting closure while actually just being a bit lazy or overly clever. It is VERY BRAVE of you to review this book while the author’s wife is standing right there, but I think anyone would appreciate this review of their or their husband’s book.
The review I found compared The Revisionaries to the writing of Jeff VanderMeer and Michael Chabon, which is a big yes for me. Thanks so much for the discovery!
I actually just got a copy for Christmas, but I wanted to share my anecdote about how it got onto my “To Read” list. A couple months before “The Revisionaries” was released, I went to an event at my local bookstore for Benjamin Dreyer’s book “Dreyer’s English” and someone in the audience asked Dreyer what books he was looking forward to in the near future. My rough memory of Dreyer’s pitch for “The Revisionaries” was that he was initially skeptical that a 600 page book would get published, but that once he read it he thought, “Okay, I get it now.” I figure if a copy editor will recommend a book that long, it has to be special. Just about everyone in the audience scribbled down that recommendation!
I enjoyed The Journey of Coyote Sunrise, a middle grades book I read with my son.
I had decided I’d add myself to the hold list at my library and let the prize book go to someone who may not have library access… but my library doesn’t own a copy so here I am!
I am looking forward to eating my mom’s biscotti and also her orange toast…. Christmas treats, a little bit delayed. The book sounds intriguing.
My husband gave me an audible subscription for Christmas (well done, him) and while I haven’t used a credit yet (so much pressure!), I am enjoying adding books that are included with the subscription to my listening library. I am currently listening to “Unequal Affections,” which is basically Pride and Prejudice fan fiction and it is a goddamned delight.
I do not personally have an Audible account *but* one of the ladies in a book club does, and she reported after a book-club book that was Really Not Her Thing that she was able to turn it back in for credit after having listened to it rather than keeping it forever. So, check the rules, and she may have either had a weird kind of account or been a long-enough subscriber that they let her get a “refund” for that one since she normally doesn’t, but there may be slightly less pressure than you think?
As always, I love your book reviews!
Oh, yes, please. I would like a book I can’t put down.
This is a stellar book review and I am interested, although like everyone else my attention span is shot to sh*t this year and I can’t read a book to save my life. I LOVE your description of Paul’s type of book and I also hate that type of book mostly because of problem number 3, that the author just went in without a plan. I feel like that’s what happened with GRRM’s Game of Thrones, and another good example is the book series that starts with Annihilation which was made into a movie a few years ago with Natalie Portman–it was a super creepy sci-fi mystery story but (IMO) nothing ever really gets revealed or resolved, things just get progressively weirder and then it ends. The book tries to play it off like “wow the conclusion is that things are now beyond human understanding, so profound!” but I was like, “yeah, you just bit off more than you could chew there huh.”
YES, THIS EXACTLY: “The book tries to play it off like ‘wow the conclusion is that things are now beyond human understanding, so profound!’ but I was like, ‘yeah, you just bit off more than you could chew there huh’.”
This kind of thing is why I keep coming back. There is at least 1 book (very very famous) that I think does this. And a movie.
Everyone is like “it’s so deep” and I’m like “you’ve got no idea either, do you?”
Occasionally, but very much occasionally, I find that looking back at things read as a child as an adult (I read to my children) or things like that DO actually shed light – but often not in a good way. Take Potter. WTF is Hermione? She does ALL the work and barely gets credit. Also, Scabbers???? What? Or LOTR – Tolkien needs a copy editor STAT and he’s garbage at naming things and he never, ever, tried reading his work out loud, methinks.
Anyway. I love this blog and I love y’all commenters and thanks for being amazing when everything else is pretty garbage.
I think I need to check this out!
Huh. I am intrigued.
Oh God I’m scared of the length of a book like this but… I think that would be a good challenge for me during a year when I’m trying to reel my fleeting attention back in a little.
I have been searching for my next book and this seems perfect – I don’t mind ambiguous endings. Since life has been stranger than fiction for the last 4 years, I might as well bury myself in 600 more pages of fiction.
Between your review and The Wife’s comment, I now have to read this book!
My favorite book I read this year was The Salt Path by Raynor Wynn – in the same vein as Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb. I was very into non this year.
Already had my treat of fudge for the night but I might sneak some more…
Added this book to my to-read list!
I also loved this review and am now desperately wondering whether you, Swistle, have a Goodreads account? Or would consider making one? I would love to be up to date on all the books you read and be able to hear your thoughts on them.
I attempted one long ago, but it just immediately flopped for me and I can’t remember why, just that it didn’t fly!
I thoroughly enjoyed your description of you liking a book and how Paul likes different books especially the clever aspect. So funny.
I am rarely interested in such a long book that I know nothing about, but you did make it sound VERY good. Now I am interested.
You’ve sold the book to me, so perhaps I’ve missed the giveaway, but I have a bookstore giftcard that now has a target. Thanks!
I just finished the Starless Sea, which is similar to the sort of book you described the Revisionaries as, in that a lot of things happened that didn’t make sense, and when I got to the end, I’m still not sure I understand what happened, and now I want to re-read it to see if it makes more sense, or if I can get more out of it. I loved the prose in the Starless Sea – it was just gorgeous, the kind of writing I want to wallow in.
The Starless Sea was the perfect example of a beautifully written book with such a disappointing ending. There was so much wonderful symbolism that was revealed to have no meaning. Wonderful and frustrating!
I think I might just have to try The Revisionaries!
Emily, I’m glad to hear your thoughts on Starless Sea, because they really echo my own experience reading that book. Wonderful and frustrating is exactly right.
This is just another time in my life with Swistle where I am 100% certain we are sisters. Our thoughts are so similar it’s scary, and your descriptions are exactly how I FEEL but can’t articulate like you. I can’t say I’d ever seek out a 600 page book with small margins, but boy oh boy I’m excited to read this! Thank you for the amazing book review.
So, when I read your massive book rec thread a while back, the book *I* thought was recommended was The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. And it was very good! But very different from this, and I got laughably confused.
I have to admit my eyesight is not super-awesome anymore so I’ve switched mostly to audiobooks. Plus I can listen while doing mindless chores like cooking or cleaning. I’ve got a few Audible credits to use up, so I’ll be checking the recommendations above for ideas!
I’d like to read this!
This book review and thread of comments with recommendations was just what I needed today. I would love a post on recommendations for what teen boys are reading. I have some “reluctant” readers who definitely enjoy it when they find a good book.
I loved this review, thank you. I’m reading it at the moment – I’m about 1/4 of the way in, thinking it is intriguing and well-written and also that I might put it down in favour of going back to one of the other books on my list instead – because despite all of my positive impressions of this book, it has not Caught, as you’ve aptly described. I am very curious to know the point at which it Caught, for you, if you see this!
Paul feels about the same way you do and is asking me the same thing. I wish I could remember the plot point where I felt Caught, but all I can remember is that I was a lot further into the book than I usually would be: like, usually I make myself give a book 50 pages, and I think in this case I was something like 150-200 pages in.
Thanks very much for the reply! For what it’s worth I pressed on with it again this morning and found myself finally hooked somewhere around page 220. I’m very glad I read your review for the motivation to stick with it :)