Gold Fame Citrus in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Sep 01, 2015 Nadine in NY Jones rated it did not like it

Shelves: wouldnt-normally-read, literary-schmiterary, fantasy-and-sci-fi, dystopian-and-post-apocalyptic, unreliable-narrator, broken, r2015-in-2015, scum-lit

This was a really distasteful book.

Everyone in this book is damaged. But they are not strong and damaged, they are not healing from damage, they are not fighting their ways back into life. They are destructive, seeking to damage more. They damage themselves, they damage each other.

There is nothing meaningful here, nothing uplifting, nothing to learn. it goes nowhere. It's just grimy.

Maybe I'm just not smart enough to get it.

And the writing? The writing is quite good, I guess, except the author This was a really distasteful book.

Everyone in this book is damaged. But they are not strong and damaged, they are not healing from damage, they are not fighting their ways back into life. They are destructive, seeking to damage more. They damage themselves, they damage each other.

There is nothing meaningful here, nothing uplifting, nothing to learn. it goes nowhere. It's just grimy.

Maybe I'm just not smart enough to get it.

And the writing? The writing is quite good, I guess, except the author seemed hellbent on making the book as gritty and grimy and crass as possible in a l-o-n-g, s-l-o-w, s-l-o-g. I just don't like this kind of writing. I didn't need to read about young Luz sticking strips of cloth inside her labia on the event of her first menses. I didn't need to read about Luz diddling herself after intercourse with Ray. I didn't need to read about how Luz smelled like another man. I didn't particularly want to read ANY of it. I didn't want to read about how Ig's face looked like a skinned fruit when she cried. I confess, in some parts my eyes just skimmed the page, because my brain had HAD it with the grime. The endless grime.

So, that's how I feel about the story and the writing. How about the characters? I hated every one of the characters. Hated them. Hated spending time with each one of them. I resented each extra word used to describe each one of them. Luz is the heart of the book, and Luz is the one I disliked the most. She goes through life in a haze, she almost practices her incompetence. It's pathetic. She is like a mirror, she is no one unless a man is there to be reflected in her light. She changes with each man, clings to each like a limpet, idiotically accepts all that he tells her as gospel. Some of the men she meets are good men, some are bad men, some are men just getting through life, but she clings to each of them, and I hated every syllable of every word.

So far as the dystopian world-building goes, I didn't really buy it. A gigantic glacier-like sand dune, dubbed the Amargosa, is a central figure in this book; it is massive, engulfing all the southwest, moving inexorably forward, tall enough to engulf the Sierra Nevadas ... The Amargosa is described A LOT. And I just kept wondering: where is that all coming from? We're meant to believe that all the sand comes from dried up lake beds, but that just didn't feel right to me. Is there a giant CHASM in Mexico that was emptied out in order to provide enough gravel and sad to engulf the Sierra Nevadas? It really bugged me.

I love dystopians in general: zombie dystopians, oppressive-government dystopians, environmental dystopians, aliens-have-landed dystopians, planets-out-of-orbit dystopians ... I love the genre. This is the third "literary" dystopian I've read. California and Station Eleven were the other two. Station Eleven was fantastic, I loved everything about it, but I did not care for the dismal world of California. Amazingly to me, Gold Fame Citrus is even MORE dismal. ...more

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Sep 15, 2015 Laurie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2015

Overall a stunning book. Well written with vivid descriptions of post monster drought California and Nevada. This was especially trippy to read during December in Minnesota. I also liked the vivid characters and thought they behaved realistically in the situation. A few passages seemed over done to me, but overall a beautifully constructed book that will stick with me for some time.

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Sep 06, 2015 Andrea Thatcher added it

Shelves: arcs, incomplete

I've been reading this over two weeks and I'm still just not into it, I'm calling it. I really wanted to like this, I like the premise and it is well written for sure. But it's not plot driven, it's not character driven...and reading it started to feel like a chore. Not for me. ...more

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