Insert pun about not achieving liftoff
3 stars
This is such an odd book, really. If you go look on Goodreads you'll see a bunch of reviews that are basically "I just didn't like the main character".
Which, and I don't want to presume other people's feelings, I don't think is exactly the problem. It's not just that she's self-centered and self-destructive, because those can be good traits for a character, it's that her self-destructive behavior feels less and less well-developed as the novel goes on.
She doesn't just impulsively do things to guarantee her freedom, at the cost of everything she finds good in life, it's that the book just tells us that she's like this and you watch her do things one after the other with no time to pause.
Other characters also don't really have discernable motives, they just hang like props as the plot arcs towards its pessimistic conclusion.
Like …
This is such an odd book, really. If you go look on Goodreads you'll see a bunch of reviews that are basically "I just didn't like the main character".
Which, and I don't want to presume other people's feelings, I don't think is exactly the problem. It's not just that she's self-centered and self-destructive, because those can be good traits for a character, it's that her self-destructive behavior feels less and less well-developed as the novel goes on.
She doesn't just impulsively do things to guarantee her freedom, at the cost of everything she finds good in life, it's that the book just tells us that she's like this and you watch her do things one after the other with no time to pause.
Other characters also don't really have discernable motives, they just hang like props as the plot arcs towards its pessimistic conclusion.
Like you can write a book that comes down to "emotionally unstable people make bad decisions". I like early Zadie Smith and Don Delilo for goodness' sake! Those characters are like universally awful people but they're interesting.