The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li
A magnificent, beguiling tale winding from the postwar rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school, to the quiet Pennsylvania home where a woman can live without her past, The Book of Goose is a story of disturbing intimacy and obsession, of exploitation and strength of will, by the celebrated author Yiyun Li.
Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised—the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story.
As children in a war-ravaged, backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves—until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.
I wanted to love this book.
It had so much potential and promise for me.
And it was the kind of story about the kind of things that I USUALLY eat up like candy.
Historical fiction.
Love.
Friendship.
Creativity.
Women.
Coming of age.
Life experiences.
Imagination.
Writing.
It was emotional.
It was intense.
It had struggles.
And trauma.
And connections.
And complex characters.
It was about defining what love really is and who we curate it for….it was about forgery and lies that become truths and truths that become lies…it was about made up worlds colliding with the harsh reality.
ALL THESE INTERESTING THINGS.
PLUS a strong woman author.
All these pieces and parts that would generally make a stellar read for me.
But unfortunately….this book just felt “ok” to me.
It was one of those reads that wasn’t what I would call bad or horrible or completely unenjoyable…but I definitely can’t call it amazing either.
Just another “meh” read.
I don’t even have much else to say about it, to be honest.
So I’m just gonna sum up my thoughts by pulling out this emoji and calling it a day:
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