Sharon G. (mustangsharon) reviewed on + 84 more book reviews
Let me preface this with the confession that I did not read Life of Pi. That being said, I did not go into this book thinking about how it would measure up against Martel's earlier work. I really did not like this book very much. I did not like that it was written in one long chapter. I did not like the two main characters having the same name. When we first met the taxidermist my first thought was this is Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, run before he puts you in a pit and wants you to rub the lotion on the skin. I did enjoy the injections of conversation between Beatrice and Virgil, the donkey and monkey who are the main characters in the taxidermists play. If the entire book were to have been this play I would have enjoyed it much more. Read it if you must, it was a really fast read but read it with a grain of salt. It is a play within a book written in diary form with main characters that are not very interesting. Martel tries to use tricks to capture our attention. And lest I forget, the horrible games at the end are very disturbing, I did not find them thought provoking, I just found them awful.
