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Addison help us out here.

🕑 Added 2025-06-27 18:15:16 +0000 UTC

Comments

samantha

my brain was scrambling a little with this one but i rlly enjoyed it. i think i rlly like reading about families and ppl with difficult relationships!! anyways i think i preferred ivans chapters. i feel like his perspective rlly contrasted against peters and margaret’s, he kind of accepts things as is, and doesnt rlly put much emphasis on societal acceptance (and well he is a man) and i found some of his inner monologue funny. peters felt like a dim sewer mostly. i liked the sprinkling of thoughts on god throughout the book. ESPECIALLY the little paragraph after peter and sylvia make up. the end of 16 was absolutely beautiful, i think the switch from margaret freaking out perfectly captured how much weight societal norms and people’s perceptions of us can have.

blueberry pumpkinpatch

I finally understand the Sally Rooney hype! This was waaay less obnoxious than Normal People. I loved how flawed everyone was and how both Peter and Ivan were at times unreliable narators, not admitting certain things even in their inner monologues. The writing style stood out as well, I loved the dialogue and how eloquently everyone expressed themselves or sometimes failed to do so. I prefered chapters with Ivan’s POV, despite his inner monologue being a bit frustrating at times. Peter’s chapters were more hit or miss for me, I think it worked really well when he was actively spiraling and less so when he was more functional. Or maybe when shit really went down (for example the fight at their dad’s house and the aftermath of that) I was just more invested, whereas when things were less intense the writing style sometimes felt over the top. Each of the main characters felt so unique and real and I couldn’t help but sympathize with all of them, despite some of their horrible actions towards each other. Also, I want more books featuring dogs that don’t die at the end of the book!