My Absolute Darling
Rating: 2/5
First time read
You know when you hate-read something? Have you ever done that? Well, I have. With those cheesy girly books that are basically self-published, and with this book. There's so much rambling about the various flora and fauna, SO. MUCH. And I actually felt my eyes glazing over so I'd have to skip to the end of the paragraph before I passed out from boredom. I don't need to know what the edge of a stump is called, nor have I ever wanted to. And most of the more visceral animal scenes used such unnecessary gory descriptions.
But the author clearly knows his nature, or, at least, can pretend he does. If only he'd stuck to trees and insects instead of trying to get into the head of a lonely, emotionally stunted fifteen-year-old girl who calls herself Turtle...
Okay, so nothing actually happens until page 223. Until then, you’re dragging along, wondering if you’ll even be able to finish this god-awful book, or if you really want to. Then at the very end, it’s so overly dramatic, like what a combo of an old western and Game of Thrones would be, but not...good...at all. It’s almost as if you stumbled into another book. But don’t worry, because you go back to tedium in the final chapters. You’re begging for it to end at this point.
Tallent uses such awful descriptors for situations he knows nothing about and has absolutely no business discussing. There's incest rape (this is not a spoiler), self-hate in a teenage girl's inner dialogue, her learned misogyny. It's all so absolutely ridiculous and made even more disturbing with the terms he uses. For example, not only does Turtle use the word "cunt" to describe herself, but also the word "slit," which is so dehumanizing and disgusting. And no, it didn't help the book at all. Tallent could have easily not used this. Or the term "asshole to mouth" when talking about gutting various animals throughout the novel. Throughout. Yes, that phrase was used MULTIPLE times. He also has the gall to fetishize Turtle's first period. A scene that was so offensive, I considered throwing the book away right then. Why did I not, you ask? If it was really so bad, why did I torture myself? I must just enjoy complaining. Nope. It's just a matter of pride that I finish every book I start and I had this sick hope that some redeeming quality would come though towards the end (spoiler: it never did).
So. My point to all this is don't waste your money or your time. This book is not worth any of it. It was over 400 pages of garbage.
