pickI waited a long time to listen to this book. It was so different and based on a graphic novel.. this work surprised me with the writing style to describe a world that comes alive with its characters. #Read2025 #ISpyBingoMarch @DieAReader @TheAromaofBooks
so-soBook 96📚 2.8âï¸
I really wanted to like this one but I found it very hard to follow. The alternating chapters/time lines were unnecessary to me. I was more interested in the current time line.
pickI love China Mieville's work (Embassytown, The City in the City) and I was intrigued to see what his collaboration with Keanu would look like. It took a minute to get into it, but once I did I was hooked. Unute, aka B, is an ageless warrior who regenerates after each death. A partnership of convenience with a US special forces team allows him to direct his "rage fugues" but his true purpose is unknown, even to him. Absorbing and mysterious.
so-soHmmmm. Disclaimer: I can't separate my experience of this book from my knowledge of its precursor. If I consider the experience of reading the book, the time taken to deliver information through other POVs of people encountering Unute over his long history; the space given to grief as a theme; the recognition that while Unute's experience may be hard for the reader to grasp, 1/?
Gorgeous bookending of a chapter.
First paragraph near the start, second paragraph near the finish.
Connection, significance conveyed by punctuation.
Swooning for this writing. And this is just the style for this chapter - changes with each POV! 🥰ðŸ˜
OMG, flashback to every action movie scene itemizing the ordinance and me just in my head going 'gun, gun, gun, knife'...😆
so-soOne might has to know more about the BRZRKR universe to truly get this story? I just went with the flow. There's some deep sh... going on, which I totally could not grasp. But it still kept me going. Maybe that was China Mieville's part of the story. Who knows? Don't read if you're not ready for weird stuff going on.
bailedAdd me to the bailers! I gave this about 30% and it‘s just bizarre and confusing. There‘s an immortal pig involved. And yet really not much seems to be happening. I‘m all done. I still think you‘re great, Keanu.
#AboutABook Day 4: perhaps this one is #WithMystery - not very sure yet, but cover seems imbued with mystery. Sad to see so many litsy folks bail on this novel though. Any other thoughts on this collaboration between Mieville and Keanu Reeves, so far?
bailedI'm sorry, Keanu, we just didn't vibe. I could not force myself to care. Bailed at 20%.
bailedI think this is going to be a bail for now. I have had to backtrack so many times because of POV hopping, timeline hopping, and seemingly unrelated interludes.
I‘d like to try this again later, because I was really excited about it.
bailedI give up. Took me 11 days to get to 48%. The book is supposed to have 352pp, but I'm certain I've read more than 600pp already. I liked the GN, but I'm no fan of all the tangents, different POVs and endless dialogue (just an example, more than half a page of talking about how reinforced a particular door is - on my Kindle, with the font size setting on the smallest font possible).
This might be a good novel, but I don't have the patience.
#ARC
The Book of Elsewhere: A Novel | 
