LIT 243

We talked a little about how the text is trying to be both a mystery and a psychological thriller (and how it kind of fails at being both because of that), but there are some other issues that bothered me in the closing sections.

I found the whole relationship between Lo and Carrie really unbelievable. The “making a friend of my enemy” story has been told and there’s nothing wrong with it, but it feels forced and rushed here. I can understand why Carrie would start to feel some compassion for Lo, but not the other way around. Lo spends the first 2/3 of the novel being suspicious of and anxious around everyone. She is then trapped in a closed space, cut off from communicating with anyone, is barely fed, and cut off from her medication and boozing. After this, she develops a bond for her captor? This especially bothers me because it becomes the book’s final reveal. I know there were attempts in the text to make us empathize with Carrie, but it falls flat because we don’t learn anything about her aside from that she “loves” (gag) Bullmer.

The ending sequence is also really convenient, which is my favorite thing to complain about in storytelling. Here’s a brief list: Despite having plenty of time to establish is influence, the book tells us right before it becomes important that Bullmer has a wide influence in Norway business, law enforcement, and the like. Lo stumbles into a hotel and is sold out by the owner as she returns to consciousness. She runs away from the hotel away from civilization, somehow not noticing she’s running up a mountainside. She injures her ankle, but this doesn’t stop her from running through the woods for miles before stumbling on a barn. This barn is owned and actively used, but not only does she sleep soundly for ~36 hours straight, the barn owner (who should have been caring for his two horses) didn’t notice her inside at all. This owner also is completely okay with helping Lo, and doesn’t recognize her or even have a clue it might be the missing woman/connected to the Aurora case which would have been all over the news.

My worst fear is being trapped anywhere and to read those last lines I got goosebumps. I was impressed with the way she got out, I honestly don’t know what I would have done. I wish some of the things she was thinking in her head she would say out loud like, “despite my ovaries I can remember a simple two-digit number.” Like show him who is boss! The words weren’t reassuring because the locksmith guy was being a macho dick. WHY IS EVERYONE TAKING THE ROBBERY AS A JOKE. It is so frustrating because if it was a man this happened to then it would be deemed “serious.” All these jokes have Lo thinking that she should bring it up lightly when it is a serious matter. 

Jude dropping that job was not even remotely close to Lo’s fault, he never talked it over with her!! Men being men put the blame on her because she emotionally could not handle the relationship anymore. Surprise, surprise. 

One of my favorite lines “They did that sort of manly half-hug thing, where you’re too metrosexual for a handshake and not hip enough for a fist bump”But then men in this book SUCK. That Ben guy saying you cant blame a guy for trying is total BS because she just said she was unavailable so piss off??

Traci Brimhall, from “Love Poem Without a Drop of Hyperbole in It,” published in The New Yorker (via lifeinpoetry)