This book pretty much sums up all my existential fears: the idea of starting out life filled with ambition and anticipation—having many questions and the confidence that they will all eventually be answered, and then life turning out to be not the great adventure you initially envisioned but a succession of few moderate thrills and many disappointments. Maybe the ending is really not as bad as it seems, and for a person like the protagonist, who does not know life as I do, such a destiny is as good as it gets (I mean she eventually finds a place comfortable enough she can call her home, has never starved or suffered except from the grief of Anthea’s death, and dies with relative dignity), and I guess it’s a universal truth that things more often than not don’t turn out the way they’re planned and oftentimes you just learn to accept them, gradually and subconsciously, but, as a young person, I find it super depressing. I’ve read people’s reviews claiming that they found the story freeing…I thought it was bleak and nihilistic.
by pnkzkt