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Three Strong Women (2009)

by Marie NDiaye(Favorite Author)

3.18 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0307594696 (ISBN13: 9780307594693)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Knopf

review 1: I finished reading this book two days ago and I'm still putting it together in my mind. This will stay with me for a long time. I have a couple of issues that kept me from giving it a 5-star rating. It is billed as a novel but it is not. It's three short stories (one might be a novella). What's up with calling a short story collection a novel? This is the third book I've read like this in less than a year. Maybe short story collections don't sell as well or aren't nominated for as many prizes so it's a strategy to lie and get a book into the novel category? That's my guess. Second, I love the word "extricate" and try to use it as often as I can. How can I not love that word? But it should be used sparingly, not a dozen times in 100 pages. The first story was nearly perfect... more. It is difficult to work in so much character development and nuance in just 80 pages and it was done perfectly. It made me work just enough to be invested but not so much that the author didn't work as well. Unfortunately the bulk of the book is the second story/novella. It was a slog to read, as it was basically a pitiful man whining for 140 pages. But I understood in the end why he was so whiny and all the pieces fell together. The writing was masterful, just not pleasant to read. This piece was more literary than the other two and I'd call it magical realism. It helped bring the style together among the three stories. The final story was most intense. All three stories included bird symbolism and powerful but really powerless women who were victims of their social circumstances and tried to do what they could to control their life stories of despair and pain. Great book.
review 2: Pääsin tässä noin puoleenväliin ennen kuin luovutin. Synkkää tekstiä. Päähenkilöt olivat ahdistuksessaan kuin riivattuja, ja sisäinen tuska puski ulos vastenmielisinä fyysisinä reaktioina, kuten virtsankarkailuna, peräpukamina, sairaalloisena hikoiluna, joita kuvailtiin hyvin perusteellisesti. Kirjoittajalla oli kyllä omaperäinen ja hyvä tyyli, mutta en vain päässyt pitemmälle. less

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