mikerickson reviewed What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell
Review of 'What Belongs to You' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Sometimes I have to remind myself that books can be judged on two different axes: quality of writing and enjoyment level. This was a fantastically written book, but goddamn was it a bummer.
I felt like the narrator was a friend of mine that we kept having late night heart-to-hearts about this new awful guy he's been seeing and we would agree that it's best if they break it off... and then a week later I would see him out with that guy again. And it's telling that this hookup that he cruised in a sketchy-ass public bathroom is the focus of the entire book because Mitko is literally the only named character; the narrator never names himself and everyone around him is only referred to by first initial. Even scenes that Mitko's not in, the narrator finds his thoughts drifting back to this guy he'd be better off without. …
Sometimes I have to remind myself that books can be judged on two different axes: quality of writing and enjoyment level. This was a fantastically written book, but goddamn was it a bummer.
I felt like the narrator was a friend of mine that we kept having late night heart-to-hearts about this new awful guy he's been seeing and we would agree that it's best if they break it off... and then a week later I would see him out with that guy again. And it's telling that this hookup that he cruised in a sketchy-ass public bathroom is the focus of the entire book because Mitko is literally the only named character; the narrator never names himself and everyone around him is only referred to by first initial. Even scenes that Mitko's not in, the narrator finds his thoughts drifting back to this guy he'd be better off without.
While the first and third parts are a slow-moving car wreck you can't look away from, the middle section was a brutal flashback to a play-by-play of the worst moments of the narrator's childhood and teenhood, told through a single, multi-page paragraph. Sometimes I have trouble with that kind of stream-of-consciousness writing where punctuation takes a back seat, but I was able to keep pace here, even with the occasional italicized Bulgarian words peppered in throughout the book.
This is a good book that does what it aims to do very well, but it's definitely not a lighthearted feel-good story if that's what you're looking for. But if you want to watch the entire course of a relationship that's doomed from the start, this will be right up your alley.
