The Palm House // Big Kiss, Bye Bye
Has anyone read: The Palm House by Gwendolyn Riley and Big Kiss, Bye Bye by Claire Louise Bennett
I went in blind for both of these books written by British female authors. Neither are the types of books I would usually gravitate towards.
There was something that viscerally angered me about the Palm House. I rarely don’t finish books but I was 30 pages away from the end and just couldn’t bring myself to finish it without skimming. Most of the book takes place through mundane dialogue. None of the characters are interesting, nor are the conversations. The book is about her friendship with a middle aged man who quits his job as an editor of some kind of pretentious political / literary magazine. There’s no romantic or sexual tension between them for any kind of intrigue. She recounts memories with her mother as well as being randomly being groomed by a stand up comedian when she was a teenager. Nothing happens throughout the book and then it just ends abruptly. It depressed, bored, and pissed me off from beginning to end.
BKBB, similarly, is narrated by a female protagonist and her on again off again relationship with an older man throughout the decades. Thematically has similarities with TPH but the way it was written is a lot more stream of consciousness and less structured than TPH. Reading about it felt like falling into a nap and waking up and over and over and over again in a good way. Would I read it again, no. But I’m glad I experienced it.
Would love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read these books.