Kasper Krone is a world-renowned circus clown, and a man in some deep trouble. Drowning in gambling debt and wanted for tax evasion, Krone is drafted into the service of a mysterious order of nuns who promise him reprieve in return for his help safeguarding a group of children with mystical abilities—abilities that Krone also shares. When one of the children goes missing, Krone sets off to find the young girl and bring her back, making a shocking series of discoveries along the way.
Ahhh... So after 4 days of semi-forcing myself to finish this book, I'm finally done. There are nice quotes throughout the book, but aside from that, I didn't really get anything from the story save for a splitting headache and disappointment. Though I got this secondhand, I wish I hadn't bought it at all. It's that bad (for me, at least).
CONFUSING. If I had to use just one word to describe how I feel about The Quiet Girl, that would definitely be it. Looking at my notes, that's the most used word. It's an understatement, still.
A few things:
- Time, sequencing: too confusing. I felt like I'm being propelled back and forth through time too often than necessary.
- Too many characters. Too much stuff going on. Too many complications. Too many pages. Too many information sometimes. I had to go back a few pages (and sometimes, chapters) just to remember who the hell these people are and what the hell's happening. More often than not, I still didn't get it. I don't think I understood anything at all.
- I find it extremely boring. I fought the urge to quit reading it too many a time. But I finished it, still; I desperately wanted to find something that would make me like this book, because I genuinely felt there was something to like. Well, 408 pages later, I found nothing. Aside from Maximillian, which was the only character I truly liked, loved even. I'm torn between liking Kasper and dismissing him as just "okay."
- When I was reading the book, I decided that this would fall to the okay-i-have-to-read-this-again-some-time-maybe-i'll-appreciate-it-by-then pile but that changed even before I was done. I never wanted to discard a book even if I didn't like it much but this one, I don't know. I just feel extremely dumb because of it, feel like it ruined my life. HAHAHAHA. Kidding aside, there's a part of me that seriously wants to get rid of the book.
I rarely do this because I'm not good at making reviews, I just felt like I had to let this out somehow, somewhere. Haha. Forgive me for rambling.
my Goodreads rating: 1 star
I'm glad I'm not the only one that has been thrown into confusion by this book. The rhetoric was quite lovely as were the quotes, and for awhile I was just curious and fascinated about what the hell I was reading. But then I got the gnawing suspicion the book was something the reader was never supposed to understand quite fully--- I kept hoping that somewhere along the way, everything I'd read would make sense through some sudden revealing of information that maybe I'd missed, but when I got through Part 2...well, I was just as confused as when I'd started. I lost patience. Which rarely, rarely happens to me. Overall it made me wish I'd spent the cash on something that didn't end up with the sad fate of an unfinished book on my shelf.
ReplyDeleteYay for late night rambling. ;'')
DeleteThank you for your thoughts! I managed to force myself into finishing it, but afterwards regretted it. I could have done something more rewarding with my time but, yes, there was still hope until the last few parts.
DeleteAnd oh, I kept on thinking what books I could have gotten instead if I didn't pick that up. It's been almost a year but I still feel betrayed and tricked.
:)