I’m often quick to give up on a book. I’m a firm believer that it’s the author’s job to pique my interest, not my job to slog through something just to figure out their message. So when it comes to White Tears it’s a good thing the first half actually came first. I was sucked in early on. I enjoyed the whole scene, the style, the feeling, the characters, the intrigue.
It devolved for me, though. The second half is written so that you feel his descent into madness or whatever it is. Time keeps folding on itself. The narrator keeps losing his thread. And all of that is cool, but it doesn’t stop. It’s 150 pages of short sentences and a spiral into psychosis.
In the end it’s saved somewhat by its message. The rich, white family has a history of black subjugation, indentured servitude through policing once slavery was erased. The elite staying rich at the expense of the poor. And, of course, some cultural appropriation thrown in there to boot, with some guilt, or lack thereof.
I would say I don’t regret reading it. I didn’t dislike it.
But it wasn’t as good as I thought it would be by how quickly it sucked me in.
Sex And Depression 