So, I just finished Lapvona last night and I am unsure of how I feel about it. I really enjoyed My Year of Rest and Relaxation by the same author. I think perhaps I am not the target audience for Lapvona, mostly because I grew up in a mostly atheistic household, and couldn’t really connect to the themes of religion and it’s evils.
I will say I found it interesting that most of the characters who were in the God-believing group had interesting and unique personal motivations within that context. But other than that, I guess I found the overall message of the book a bit too obvious? I was hoping that everything with Ina would end up being revealed as a sort of, “see, religion is dumb when you can be an evil girl boss who steals eyes and smokes weed,” kinda message.
I’m iffy on whether I feel that the grossness/gore/detailed descriptions of abuse were over the top or not. I don’t mind any of these things on their own within books, and in some scenes, I did feel like it did help to really sell the perversion and cruelty of some of the characters. Villiam and the grape scene, for example, really sell home how people only exist to fulfill his selfish whims and boredom. Other scenes approached the gore more just to add detail and context, in my opinion. But for the most part, I felt a lot of it was gratuitous and felt like the author was going “welcome to my sick and twisted mind,” while chuckling and rubbing her hands together.
I wish I could have enjoyed it more. I like her writing style, especially because it reminds me of Sayaka Murata. Earthlings is one of my favorite books, so I was hoping for another interesting take on society and normalized rituals of conformity and how it harms people.
by boneyoni