ohmonster's reviews
37 reviews

The protahonist insists on using 1990s romantic comedies to contextualize everything.   And verbalizes it. Constantly. 

The why's and where fores of her emotional connection to the genre are pretty clear. Those reminders are repeated but sufficiently infrequent. 

She has little  inner life (at 1/3 of the way thru this mess) of anything else, and can't imagine others having one. 

And if Tom Hanks  1990s/early aughts movie work is her touchstone, she seriously ignores then blockbuster movies and  awarded performances such as Forest Gump, Philadelphia (there is romance in this one , admidst tragedy), and Castaway.  

Mostly, it's too damn pitiful having  a story of a young adult who can't engage beyond getting a toehold on the relationship ladder and climbing . 

And despite a mention of some tertiary gay characters and one of bisexuality, it's extremely heteronormative. 

The interesting bits are the characters she sometimes she just lets be. Her uncles D&D group, for example. Some details from a possible love interest. There's not enough interesting around her. People feel more like props. 

As in an escapist movie. (and I am down for escapism, don't get me wrong). 

Losing your parents  while you're growing up and being raised by your uncle as back story doest keep her from being tediously flat.  If she grows, I don't feel like  sticking around for it. Not even with audio at 1.5 speed.

I derived more engagement with this book saying why I didn't finish it than with the book itself. 

ps. I like romance. I acknowledge that romance novels have  forms and structures. That's okay. That's not why I stopped trying to listen to this. 

pps-- I don't think I could have managed to speed read + judiciously skim this as a book book. It would still have been a DNF. 

this is the book my ex tried—with less compassion— to write via blog at the turn of the millennium.

in both cases, the hard shell that prevents simple empathy gets old. as does the fact that one or two patients somehow break thru as people. 

shorter version: the inner perceptions and venting of  health care providers’ thoughts of their patients is perhaps, as with many professions related to The Public, kept inside their private journals and conversations. 

Jumped between audio and text. Text was much faster and more interesting. or maybe the last third of the book that much stronger. 

I should try again later

On audio, at 1.1-1.25 speed you end up with a narrator that sounds slightly like Tig Notaro. 

long, yet like listening  an outline of a book. meh. 

could not bring myself to care who unit or why or how or why of the various subplots or relationships. 

disliked the narration. delivered with the serious plodding of THAT KIND OF POET. And even worse for one of the male characters. Ended up listening at  1.5x speed — not my norm. 

Doesn’t need much attention. Fluffy time passer. Predictable.