Title: Malagash Author: Joey Comeau
Source: Bought
|Goodreads
Rating:
Summary: The perfect blend of heartwarming and poignant, beautifully crafted.
I don’t typically re-read books, but it’s something I’ve been considering doing in an attempt to engage more deeply with the books I read. Malagash, which is one of my favorite books ever, was a great choice to start with. It’s short, so it was easy to commit the time to a re-read. It was also easy to go back over sections multiple times during my re-read. It packs a real emotional punch too. It’s the story of a young girl, Sunday, whose father is dying. It’s about grief and family and how her family in particular is coping with grief. Sunday is currently recording as much of her dying father as she can, with plans to encode his words into a computer virus so he can live forever. So, despite being short, there’s a lot here! There were universal themes to think about and delightful particulars that made me laugh and cry. If anything, I loved this book even more a second time around.
One thing I noticed more on this read through is how perfectly crafted this book is at the chapter level. I did previously note that at the sentence level every word seems chosen with care. I felt that this time too. Every little detail helped convey the emotion of a given scene. This time I also noticed how that careful sentence creation made almost every (short!) chapter into a meaningful vignette. Many of them, taken entirely in isolation, still conveyed a lot about the characters and could make me laugh or cry or both. As I also noticed last time, the dialogue was extremely well done. I particularly enjoyed Sunday’s parents’ sense of humor this time around. The dad jokes weren’t too punny or cliched. They felt real and unique and gave a real sense of her dad’s personality.
Look, you guys. I don’t do gushy very well, so I’m just going to tell you, I’m madly in love with this book. What I mostly noticed on re-reading it was that I thought every word, sentence, and chapter was made of perfection. I would like you all to read this immediately. This is your PSA 🙂 Even better, over the next few weeks, I’ll be creating some more content related to this book. That’s both because I’m fan-girling over this one (just a little, I’m sure you hadn’t noticed) and because I’d like to make more creative content that forces me to spend more time with a book. Hopefully you like it and I have fun doing it and I’ll make a habit of this whole re-reading thing!
Liz Dexter
Re-reading is great! I used to have a Month of Re-Reading twice a year: I used it both to revisit old friends and to check that particular authors or genres were ones I still wanted to keep on my shelves, and it’s very rewarding. Of course, I’m re-reading Iris Murdoch’s works at the moment, which is also great, but I’d like to get back to those months one day.
This does sound a very interesting read, and what a lovely passionate review.
DoingDewey
I love your idea of a month of re-reading, although I’d definitely have to work up to it. I have a hard time making time for a single read, instead of picking up the latest and shiniest thing, haha.
Thanks for your kind words about my review. I know it’s kind of fan-girly and maybe not my most critical review, but I’m happy to have my love for the book come through 🙂
Heather
I have been thinking about doing some re-reading myself lately. I want to focus on books that make me happy and knowing I’ll get to revisit an old favorite makes me VERY happy! I hadn’t heard of this book but I just added it to my TBR! It sounds great.
DoingDewey
I have a hard time making myself take the time to re-read and I think revisiting favorites might be the way to go. It’s much easier for me to spend the time on a book I know I loved the first time around 🙂 Glad to hear this is going on your TBR!
Briana @ Pages Unbound
I’m really intrigued now that you mention the carefully crafted writing. That’s something I appreciate but tends to be missing from so many of the books I read.
DoingDewey
It’s definitely a book I’d recommend for that. I enjoyed spending some time savoring it 🙂
Krysta @ Pages Unbound
I love well-crafted books! This sounds wonderful!
DoingDewey
Haha, I love that you and Briana had the same thing to say about this one. It really was well done!
Carole from Carole's Chatter
Off to look into this one further. Thanks
DoingDewey
Awesome! Obviously, I recommend it, haha.