The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
by Yukio Mishima

★★★☆☆

Oops oops oops I'm very late!

"That's it?" was the first thing I said when I finished this book. I feel somewhat neutral about it, there was too much purple prose for me and I wished we would have seen the aftermath of the arson, I also had a hard time feeling anything but disgust for the characters.
I was very invested in the first chapters, but after chapter 4/5 since I couldn't connect with any of the characters I started to feel a tad bored. I had a hard time getting through the last three chapters and felt like the ending was VERY abrupt.

I had already read another Mishima book, "Life for Sale" a month ago and the writing style was completely different! From what I read online, "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" is the book that represent best his writing style. So, I don't think I would read another one of his book, but it was an interesting experience to read about a despicable character's vision of beauty.

Apr 20 - May 11

The Melancholy of Resistance
by László Krasznahorkai

DNF 53%

So, unfortunately, this one was a DNF for me.

I Absolutely loved the pitch and the introduction chapter, but it went downhill for me after that.
The first chapter was challenging, but not unreadable, I liked the atmosphere, I totally felt like I was on this crowed train with the character, along with the paranoia of walking in the street at night.

Then, in the second part, I had a harder time just, understanding the sentences. I like to think my english level and my hability to understand complex clauses and long sentences is not that bad, but this book definelty made me rethink that ahah. The lack of paragraph break and the very long sentence made me totally confused.

I also felt like a lot of the book broke the "show, don't tell" rule, a lot of characters' backstories are just some sort of flashback, which don't really relate to the main story. They feel more like digression rather than important plot points of the book ; Not that I inherently think it's a bad thing, I just think it's not that well executed in this book. Since I don't feel connected with the characters, i don't really care about what their very detailled back story is.

And on the topic of the main story, why don't we really stalk about this giant whale and this circus before the 50% mark?? I really love book/manga (kuroshitsuji)/games (ace attorney) which takes place, or interact with circus troups, and I didn't find that athmosphere that I love in this book.

All in all, I think this book is not bad, just not right for me at this time, and I'm definelty open to trying to read it again it the future.

I'm 100% aware that this is NOT the global opinion on this book, which is why I encourage you to go read other bookbug's review, such as the one from Marta's, Possum's, Vita's and Eric's.

Nov 3 - Dec 3

Wuthering Heights
by Emily Bronte

★★★☆☆

I feel conflicted about this one, I went into it blind and wasn't expecting much from it. I'm not a big Classics reader tbh.

I didn't like the fact that around 95% of the text was just a story being told by someone, in that case Nelly. It made the story feel kind of bland? Like everything had already happened. I also didn't like the fact that many things felt flat, for example, when one of the character dies in childbirth, it happens in Literally a line? Many things are just glossed over and I feel like we skip over a lot of interesting themes because of that.

Like with The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, I felt like most of the characters were despicable, and I don't like to read about people I despise.

I'm still glad I read it because it's a classic of english litterature, and i feel like it's a reference I could be able to use during my studies.

Jul 25 - Jul 30