From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth Ozeki

Start date: March 15, 2015

Finish date: April 1, 2015

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Barb

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Reading List

* The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
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What Members Thought

Jul 23, 2013 tee rated it it was amazing

Shelves: e-pube, favourites

I feel, that at the age of 30, I am finally starting to accumulate Things That I Have Learned. One is that I need to write any long piece of written work into a text document that I save frequently, such as Goodreads reviews. Particularly when your Mac is being a cock and overheating and shutting down for no good reason. Like, I actually just did that right then. I didn't wait until I lost an entire review - I just did it! I've been doing this for a year now! I feel like a fucking adult who has I feel, that at the age of 30, I am finally starting to accumulate Things That I Have Learned. One is that I need to write any long piece of written work into a text document that I save frequently, such as Goodreads reviews. Particularly when your Mac is being a cock and overheating and shutting down for no good reason. Like, I actually just did that right then. I didn't wait until I lost an entire review - I just did it! I've been doing this for a year now! I feel like a fucking adult who has their shit together. Another is that if I am bored by a book - I CAN PUT IT DOWWWN. I don't have to keep reading it! I have nothing to prove to myself, or to anyone, by persisting with something that is literally making me fall asleep. I'm 30 now, I could die any time and I don't want to die with a shit book in my hand. I rather die on the toilet, constipated and weeping. Like my Macbook shutting down and taking all my precious data with it, I refuse to let Death take more than he deserves.

I've been ditching dud books for a few years now and whereas I started out feeling oddly guilty, I now feel excited and liberated - it opens new worlds. I feel like my time is valuable and I am in no way going to give hours and hours of my time to some shit author somewhere who doesn't probably even care whether I finish their book or not. Anyway, as usual there is absolutely no concise point to my review - Goodreads may delete it for being off topic which means they might as well delete me as a person and I will cease to exist because I basically AM my Goodreads reviews. I express my hatred for a book with vicious diatribes about the author and my love for a book by writing gushing rambling spews about how I'm going to seduce the writers, marry them, tend to their whims and fancies in houses by the sea whilst we grow organic corns and have pet donkeys. If I'm not allowed to do that, how the fuck else am I supposed to express just how much I enjoyed this book?

Fuck ye Goodreads, I want to marry the author of this book and develop recipes for vegan marshmallows that don't taste like shit so I can feed them to her as she proffers me stacks of written materials that will delight me until I die. Which will be soon because I am now 30. This book gave me so much sweet nectar; mystery, interesting people and so much juicy fucking information, my toes CURLED as Ruth combined foresty island life with Japanese hovel life with smatterings of crows and storms and panty bidding hentai and shitstain school bullies BUT ALSO included actual true facts like things about 9/11 (which I usually SHIT MYSELF ABOUT in a BAD way, not a good poop either like when you poop yourself metaphorically because it's your birthday and have 24 sweet donuts all to yourself to eat but a bad poop - fierce, all consuming rage shitting on the floor with streaks of blood and haemorrhoids bursting). Where was I, oh but then Ruth mixes in TRUE FAX about Japanese mythology and botany and motherfucking quantum physics which make me hyperventilate and poo on the floor in the mOST EXCITED WAY, like when dogs wee on themselves cos they can hardly contain their love and excitement about that love and sometimes their little doggy doodle comes out - that's me with quantum physics.

Well it's all fucking in there. And I even read it out loud for two fucking hours this morning, to my partner who has the attention span of a gnat. I mean, I read him the entire ending and he was kind of pissed off because it was so good that he wanted to read it himself but I basically spoiled the entire thing, which made my day because it's like being the first person to write FIRST on a youtube video or a celebrity's Facebook status. Yeah buddy, I just gifted you some sweet nectar, now go forth and buy me a stash of Lush bath products in return. Which he did, and the dude at Lush was a hipster and he took a real shine to me because I kind of ooze hipster but it's mixed up with began knacker so sometimes I just confuse people like a skunk done up in a sloth costume but hey he was tall and ginger and pronounce "stash" like "stache" and I snorted but I'm OFF TOPIC (sort of, really, I mean this is relevant to the fact I read this out loud to my boyfriend because it was THAT GOOD. I hate fucking talking and using my voice!). The worst thing is, I really should just stay on-topic but I really want to tie another story in -

I was in the art store and the dude looked at my shrink plastic and was like, oh hell yeah this is cool every time I see this on the shelf I always want to buy it. I'm like, dude really you work here don't even try that line with me because every time I buy it I get a different clerk and they always say that and it's so tedious. It's ten dollars, just do it. Your life will be changed but then he goes So hey, remember this shit when you were a kid. I'm like, dude fuck yeah and we both go CHIP PACKETS! I kind of whispered "motherfuckkkinnn" in my head first, it better represented my intense memories of them and also, I have to sully every pure moment with cursing. But like, my mum never let me ever do cool shit like shrink chip packets in the oven or eat two minute noodles or wear a bra so I basically have fond memories of living vicariously through all the stupid molls at school who got to watch The Simpsons and eat those fucking dummies on rings and had their skirts taken up instead of rolling them up under my tits like I used to.

Uh. So. Oh yeah, so we had a shared awesome moment where I felt like I was in Adventure Time and about to go on some rad 64 bit adventure with this dude, nintendo 64 style with like rainbow road music playing and just general 80's/90's fun antics and he said that he said, "yeahhhh….. i tried making them with my niece and nephew recently and it turns out modern chip packets are not the same plastic and it just burns and puts out really toxic smoke everywhere" and I did one of those gross ugly honking laughs where you slap your thigh and just can't fucking contain yourself because that shit is funny as fuck. Everyone stared at me and he was pretty chuffed that he was so funny and we had a great laugh and then I kept laughing about it as I walked out onto the mall. I'm pretty sure he then thought I was just being a bitch instead of sharing a funny tale with him but I kinda wanna go back and be his friend because self-deprecating tales are the best.

That story is relevant to this book because sometimes Nao, the schoolgirl, can be a little self-deprecating and it just reminded me of her so I'm totes not going against Goodreads TOS or anything.

So, I read this book instead of watching Big Brother (which is about as fucking shit as tv can get, really) but I was choosing Big Brother over another book I was trying to read and that's when I knew it was time to ditch it. You just know in your gut okay. Try it. And this book guys, I just like read it til 12 at night then rolled over and READ IT INSTEAD OF SCROLLING THROUGH INSTAGRAM on the toilet the next morning. Like for real. I chose it over Zelda Ocarina of Time on my DS (which I WAS allowed to play as a kid until my mum thought it had too many mystical elements in it for fuck's sake). Then I came here and rated it five star and looked up the author and bought another of her fucking books because she's just pretty awesome and I'd put a ring on it and profess my love for her via this review if it didn't mean I'd have my review deleted so we'll just leave it at a hypothetical situation. Maybe I would do that. And make her cookie dough brownies. We could grow bok choy because I have a thing for that at the moment too. But I'd have to sleep in a separate room because it makes me fart and I have too much love for her (and her writing of this book, which this review is about) to abuse her senses with post Bok Choy aroma. ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Jan 02, 2014 Paige rated it liked it

This book is probably slightly better than a 3.5 but not quite as good as a 4. There was a lot here that I liked, and then some that didn't work so well for me.

I'll start with what I liked. Mostly I liked the characters and their stories. That's not to say I always approved their behaviors or thought they were great people (with two exceptions, all the characters pissed me off at some point), but they were all fairly compelling and realistic, and so were most of the situations they found themsel ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Jan 05, 2014 Dree added it

Shelves: east-asia, asian-am-can-diaspora-lit, canada, booker-long-short, 2014-reads

Author writes a novel featuring herself as a character (and her husband, both homes, etc etc). Author as character is writing a memoir. Is the novel the memoir? Author as character is also researching another story, that she found in a bag on the beach near her fictional and author's real home.

Dull, picks up, and then just gets weird. And simply unsatisfying in the end (why? sorry, no spoilers). Just because something is different does not make it good--I am looking at you, Booker Prize committe ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Jun 04, 2014 Tensy (bookdoyen) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, audiobook

I really liked this novel, and especially the audiobook narrated by the author, Ruth Ozeki. This story moves back and forth in time between the present day and the past as told by a 16 year old in her diary. The theme of time is a constant thread through the novel (at times a bit too obviously), but the narrative is engrossing, and at times, disturbing. This is the type of book that makes you want to dissect it with a group and discuss all the various threads that weave in and out of the story.

O ...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Cynthia rated it it was amazing

Great writing and an interesting story, I wish the ending had been slightly less pat, but over all a great read. I really liked the magical realism qualities of the story and the way it shifted narrators to move from one perspective to another. Some of the scenes were hard to read, especially the scenes of bullying. It was necessary to the story to understand how hard things were, though.

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Jul 23, 2013 Rosana rated it liked it

Shelves: canadian, 2014

I had another case of “too high expectation kills the book” which is not the book’s fault per se. It started well enough, but the mystical/Buddhist/quantum physics ending just did not work that well for me. It felt artificial. It is too bad, as actually my bookclub is just restarting after a couple of years hiatus, and I chose this book for our first discussion. I should know better than choosing a book I have not read…

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Jan 16, 2016 Cheryl rated it it was amazing

I loved this book. But then again, I always seem to like books that have some sort of diary entry in them.

Will I be reading a book on an electronic device, however?

Not if I can help it.

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Jun 10, 2013 Abbey rated it it was amazing

Loved is an understatement. This book is so smart and brave and honest. It reminded me of "Elegance of the Hedgehog" meets "Sophie's World" meets "Spirited Away"... basically, perfect for me. ...more

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