Melancholic (4.5⭐️)
Cruel, yes, but so was the world to her.
This book was both intriguing and confusing, and that’s exactly what made it special.
The narration doesn’t follow a straight line — it drifts, pauses, and meanders — which was, at first, quite irritating but eventually became mesmerizing.
When you take a step back, you realize how real this style feels. We humans rarely think or speak in straight lines; our minds jump, circle, and loop — and this book captures that beautifully in written form.
At first, the fragmented rhythm frustrated me, but before I knew it, it grew on me. I couldn’t put the book down. It felt as if the main character was collecting her thoughts in real time, with all the pauses, hesitations, and messiness of memory. That rawness gave the story its soul.
I loved getting a glimpse of how the world might look and feel through the eyes of a 93-year-old woman. The subtle touches of wisdom scattered throughout added a sweet, deliberate warmth that deepened the experience rather than weighed it down.
Her relationship with the 14-year-old boy was unexpectedly moving. You can sense how desperately she yearned to talk, to be heard — a heartbreaking reminder of the cruelty of silence. Her shifts between irritation and forgiveness reveal not instability, but longing — the ache of someone who’s carried years of emotional weight without release.
That quiet desperation, that need to be seen, is what gives this story its pulse. It’s not something you catch instantly; it’s something you feel once you step back and absorb the whole picture — her pain, her loneliness, her fragile humanity.
The ending was shocking and unexpected, yet dark enough to fit the mindset behind it. It showed just how unsettled she was — she simply couldn’t let go. After all those years of suffering and loneliness, she couldn’t bear the thought of dying alone. In her mind, she needed to take someone with her — cruel, yes, but so was the world to her.