Blueberry
27d ago
First the viral book-tok hit „A little life“. There are good ling rants about it on reddit:
https://old.reddit.com/r/books/comments/g7ctg9/why_a_little_life_is_not_worth_reading
A girl I’m subscribed to made a half hour-long video about it. I saw Antoni from Queer Eye wear t-shirts with the characters’ names on them on the show. … A Little Life has been on my mind every single day for over two weeks now. At first, this was because I was in the middle of the story and was immersed in what was going on, anticipating where it would go. Then, it was because I’d finished it and was consumed by how devastating it was. Now, it’s because I’m genuinely angry that I let myself get so emotionally invested in a book that is in actuality terrible in every sense of the word.
Spoiler: This bestseller is practically emotional torture porn about a gay friend group and the gay protagonist who is sexually exploited (of course as a child also by monks) and how he collects traumatic experiences until he suffers so much that he can’t bear it anymore and suicides himself. I am terrible unfair here, but sometimes I think women have a strangely dark place in them and like to read about fucked up stuff (also why true crime podcasts are predominantly consumed by women). Bonus point: All books by the female author are about suffering homosexual men which weirds me out as a strange kink.
Then there is a fiction book with the plot that all women one day lay down on Earth (planking) in a silent strike instead of working in underpaid jobs / doing unpaid care work.
A book about a grand story of an immigrant family and the unwelcoming discriminating experiences they make over the decades in the host country full of Nazis. Though that was a little bit a submarine: The true theme was how the parents impose their backward rural-muslim culture on their kids which fucks them up. in the end an unknown trans kid which was adopted away shows up.
Then there is a non-fiction book about how in current times one can’t just live privately anymore, but must be personally involved politically against the new far right in europe.
Also the kids and their relationship with each other.
If the kids are told: Imagine growing up knowing your dad is consciously not in your life and instead just an aquaintance, because he truly loves only your half siblings. Conversely knowing your dad has somewhere another child which he is caring for … what example does that set?
If the kids are not told: High chance they will find out anyway (ancestry dna tests) later in life about the half sibling.
Disclaimer: I dont have experience with patchwork families, maybe it works.
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