The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner. (2018).
**No stars as didn’t finish – read 58 of 336 pages**
It’s 2003 and Romy is facing two consecutive life sentences in prison. She is stuck inside while outside is the San Francisco of her youth, and her young son. Inside involves thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive, violence by guards and prisoners and the absurdities of institutional living.
I just couldn’t get into this at all which is a shame because the blurb sounded quite fascinating. I found the book quite hard to engage with when passages were jumping back and forth and felt totally random. I literally had no interest in it – I didn’t even flick through to read the gist of the rest of it. I will say a disclaimer that I tried to read this right after the hectic time of Xmas and maybe that wasn’t the right time to give it a go.
This book was a nominee and on the shortlist for the 2018 Man Booker Prize award and has many reviews describing it as brilliant.
*I used to feel bad when I didn’t finish a book but now I figure life is too short to force yourself to continue something you aren’t enjoying and it’s ok to just stop. And it doesn’t mean others won’t really enjoy this book just because it wasn’t working for me 🙂
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