Huh?

This book lost me. It wasn’t as bad as Borges but I still felt lost and confused. I mean I think I understood the overall concept of the book but the little details here and there just confused me. I don’t know if I like or dislike this book, for me it’s just there, like something I don’t quite know how to feel about. I will say though, whether it was intended or not this book did a good job of making the reader feel uncomfortable and frustrated at times with the narration of the story.

Going back to how I felt reading the book, there was something about David’s character that made me feel uneasy. His interaction with Amanda was so strange and I always felt unnerved whenever he spoke. Everytime David said “that is not important”, I wanted to scream. Like why isn’t it important??? What do you know that we don’t know?? Every single time he said “that is not important” I anticipated something big to happen next because I had this uneasy feeling that there was going to be a big revelation. I don’t know what it was about David’s character that made me feel like we were playing a game, like somehow his mentions of certain details not being important, were all part of some kind of puzzle. It truly felt like David was playing a game with Amanda, like somehow he knew the end of the story but wanted Amanda to tell it. Maybe I just didn’t understand David as a character or maybe I just hated him. Either way his character was quite confusing and frustrating to me.

Moving on, the reason behind Amanda’s sickness was interesting. The idea that Amanda (and Nina) had been plagued by the poisonous water was a unique idea and wasn’t something I was expecting. Sometimes during the story I would forget that Amanda was sick, just because of the interaction between David and Amanda and how she was telling the story. I wish the importance of agriculture pesticides was explored more or mentioned more clearly during the book. Also, the symbolism behind the worms was interesting. They kind of represented the illness that was contracted from the pesticide spray in the water. Worms are tiny little things that grow and slither around you, without realizing, kind of like the illness that spread in Amanda.

Overall, this book was interesting and confusing, it truly felt like a fever dream. 

Question to think about: Why did the author chose to convey the importance of pesticide poisoning, in such a creepy and unnerving way? Did it add something more to story?