The Book of Form and Emptiness

[Amy]

space to discuss 2022 TOB contender: The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

[Chrissy]

I just started reading this, maybe 10% in and enjoying it but also having trouble getting into enough to keep me awake more than 15 minutes when I read before bed. Hopefully I can finish this week to include it in my considerations for zombie!

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

So I was going to bail. And then the library closed a day earlier for the holidays and someone in Instagram hosted a chunkster readathon from Dec 27 to Jan 2 so I picked it back up.

It was around page 460 when I realized I'd be giving the book 5 stars. I tried to resist her but the way she pulls it all together, well, somehow it really worked for me.

I write a longer review where I give away some of the pleasures:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The philosophy is unusual enough that it doesn't feel like just an exercise like SO MANY BOOKS did to me in 2021. It really asks the reader to think more about their assumptions about mental illness, it discusses how varied our experiences with books are (this group will like that part I think!), it shows how a person can be so strange and isolated in one place and be immediately known in another. Like A Tale for the Time Being, it does have that dreamy quality to it that can sometimes lag a bit but I ultimately feel this will do quite well in the tournament.

[Gail]

I was so looking forward to this novel because of The Tale for the Time Being. I kinda hated it but finished it because it was on "The List". I just looked up my rating....two lonely stars ** The topic is one that interested me, too. Am I the only one that wasn't pulled in?

[Nadine in California]

Gail wrote: "I was so looking forward to this novel because of The Tale for the Time Being. I kinda hated it but finished it because it was on "The List". I just looked up my rating....two lonely stars ** The t..."

I'm with you Gail - I bailed very early because it seemed so dreary I just couldn't hang in there to wait for other factors (like those Jenny mentions) to kick in.

[Jan]

I'm about halfway through the audio version of this. I'm enjoying it and intrigued by it, although I agree, there is a lot of dreariness and the pace is slow. It's reminding me of All's Well in that there's a lot of grimness to get through but also a lot to keep me going. I loved A Tale for the Time Beingand can see this one being 5 stars if Ozeki sticks the landing, and probably at least 4 stars. But I can definitely understand people finding it too slow and depressing to keep going.

[Tim]

Gail wrote: " Am I the only one that wasn't pulled in?..."

You're not alone. I'm saving my ammo for the Tourney, but I already fear the Very Important Topic backlash.

[Jan]

I ended up disappointed. If the book had been 200 pages shorter, I could have loved it, although Annabelle was such an overbearing mother that maybe not.

[Jan]

@Jenny, I liked all the things you mentioned.

[Karin]

I really liked this one, too. I agree with @Jenny’s review about reconsidering the way we think about mental illness and presenting it in a very approachable and poetic way.

[Kyle]

I like Benny and Annabelle, but the secondary characters (the Aleph, the Bottleman) feel a little too quirky for me. She has a nonbinary ferret named Temporary Autonomous Zone? How random.

[Amy]

Gail wrote: "I was so looking forward to this novel because of The Tale for the Time Being. I kinda hated it but finished it because it was on "The List". I just looked up my rating....two lonely stars ** The t..."

and here I was thinking there weren't any doorstoppers this year on the shortlist... whoops!
I like the family drama (I am a lowly 8% into the book so far) but I'm not loving the Book talking to the boy shtick.

[Kip]

There is a lot more family drama on the way, but also a lot more things talking to the boy.

[Jessica]

I finished this last night, and it felt like a slog through most of it. However, I really did enjoy the final 100 pages or so (I may have cried??) but I'm not sure that the journey was worth it. It truly felt like a task at times to pick up this book. It has a very high star rating here and I've seen so many people enjoy it; perhaps it just wasn't for me.

[Kip]

I really enjoyed her appearance on SMDB books and felt like hearing her talk about it really boosted my enjoyment of the book overall. But also think that on its own terms the book needed that little extra oomph to make it more enjoyable, which is a mark against.

[Gwendolyn]

I mostly enjoyed this novel, but the end feels too neat and overly sentimental—like I somehow landed in a Hallmark movie unexpectedly. The best part of the novel for me is how there is such a range of characters, all with different mental states (for lack of a better way of putting it), and everyone seems to find their place and their people. Ozeki depicts a world where neural diversity is celebrated rather than labeled and diagnosed. This felt freeing and also very unusual. This aspect of the book makes me think hard about how we handle mental illness and focus on treating and curing and labeling. There is a better way perhaps…

[Lauren]

I finished this a couple of nights ago and have been going back and forth on how I felt about it. It's between a three and four-star me, and I usually round up on the ratings.

As some have mentioned here, I think this was longer than it needed to be. Since the pandemic I've had significantly less patience for books over 400-500 pages. I listened to a lot of this on audio (following along in print from time to time), which was mainly because of the length, but I think the narration was part of why I didn't love it. It reminded me of The Goldfinch in some ways, and maybe also Skippy Dies (which wasn't for me, but I know we have lots of fans here). As mentioned in another thread, the mom's voice in the audiobook is terrible and it made it more difficult to sympathize with her. I might have enjoyed it more if I only read it in print, but that would have taken too much time from my other book commitments.

I liked some of the philosophical stuff, the eclectic characters, etc. but there were some cringey moments. I'm probably in extra sensitive mode since I just got really harsh feedback from a sensitivity reader on my own novel draft, but I'm learning from that and it led to me having uneasy feelings about how some things were portrayed in this story, like the mental health aspects, the pot-smoking-led-to-the-dad's-death situation, etc. I don't know, I'm still on the fence about some of it.

[Bretnie]

I just finished and ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would. I really liked how things came together in the end. I never got used to the audiobook's narrator of Annabelle's voice, but I tried not to let that shape my view of the book.

Someone I care a lot about has struggled with hoarding much of their life, and I found Annabelle's story both heartbreaking and very accurate at times.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Jessica wrote: "I finished this last night, and it felt like a slog through most of it. However, I really did enjoy the final 100 pages or so (I may have cried??) but I'm not sure that the journey was worth it. It..."

I feel like my rating is based on how it ended, up until then, I was doubtful. I'm as shocked as anyone that I ended up in five stars!

[Daniel]

I read this, mostly in one day, this past shabbat and did not really enjoy the experience. It's easily 200 pages too long and a lot of that was anxiety inducing with repetitive hospitalization for mental illness with patients not being believed. You always know that that thread will resolve itself, but it's done so perfunctorily with no apology for the gaslighting that preceded it. There is also a constant threat of homelessness and unemployment and general unhappiness, stemming from grief that just seemed to go on forever and felt needlessly cruel and manipulative.

The character work was fine, but I felt queasy for large amounts of my reading time. I don't mind a smidge of magic realism every now and then, but this was all just a bit random. The idea of a book being narrated by itself isn't horrible, but I just don't think it's successful in this instance. Overstuffed, overegged and, frankly, I'm glad it's over.

[Ruthiella]

Daniel wrote: "I read this, mostly in one day, this past shabbat and did not really enjoy the experience. It's easily 200 pages too long and a lot of that was anxiety inducing with repetitive hospitalization for ..."

This book made me anxious too Daniel.

[Nadine in California]

Daniel wrote: "I read this, mostly in one day, this past shabbat and did not really enjoy the experience. It's easily 200 pages too long and a lot of that was anxiety inducing with repetitive hospitalization for ..."

I DNF'ed for these reasons at about page 75. Thanks for making me feel better about the decision. So at least that's one real life mental health benefit for little me ;)

[Maggie]

I just started this, and I am actually really loving it so far. It’s already gotten under my skin in some powerful ways.

Most notably, I’m a child psychiatrist, and I find the idea that my toys are suffering very distressing. 😳

I think I’m going to have to choose to believe that *my particular toys* are tired but alight with sincere purpose.

[Cat]

Maggie wrote: "I just started this, and I am actually really loving it so far. It’s already gotten under my skin in some powerful ways.

Most notably, I’m a child psychiatrist, and I find the idea that my toys ar..."

your toys are ok, they are happy to be a coping tool, (i found that particular detail very creepy too) and THANK YOU for what you do!