Review: How to Be Both - Ali Smith

I saw this book around Booktube a few months ago and everyone seemed to rave about it, so I thought I would check it out. And I must say I was disappointed. Once again! I seem to be disappointed a lot when it comes to hyped books lately. 

The book is told from two perspectives. The fancy bit is that one perspective is told in the first part 

of the book, and in order to read the second perspective, you have to flip the book over and start again from the “back” if that makes sense. This means that you can start from either end of the book, and that should supposedly give a different reading experience, depending on which part of the book/which perspective you start with. 

The two narrators are a young girl who has recently lost her mother in the present day, and a Renaissance painter from Italy. The painter is however transported to the present day, and thinks back on his life in Italy. 

I didn’t really like the writing style. I thought it made the story feel quite superficial, and you spent so long figuring out where and when you were (it jumps around a lot in both perspectives) that it was just confusing. I don’t really see the big fuss over the splitting of the story, as I was just beginning to find the modern day perspective interesting (I started with that) when it shifted to the other perspective. And while we do get some more of the modern day story line from the painter, it’s from the painter’s Renaissance perspective and only in visuals, as he doesn’t speak the language. Which leaves the story line quite open to interpretation. Some people might like that, but I don’t. 

As for the characters I didn’t really connect with them, mostly because of the writing style. I feel like the modern day story line would have been more interesting without the painter’s perspective. That just confused me, and I didn’t really see the point of it. 

This is one of those books, that everyone loves and raves about, and when I read it and don’t like it, I feel like I’m missing something. Maybe I am just being stupid and completely missing the point with this book, I mean there must be something there, since everyone loves it so much, but I just can’t see it. I used to worry about being too dumb for these books, but I’ve decided that it’s okay if I don’t like a book everyone else loves. There are different people out there, who will like different books, and even if I could scrape something profound from this story with a bit of work, it’s just not the type of reader I am. Not that I want everything spelled out for me, but it has to be accessible without delving into metaphors and the deeper meaning of the colors on the wall and the size of the brother’s foot. I’m not even sure this is the sort of book where that type of thing is important for your understanding of the book, but nevertheless; I didn’t like it. I’ll just leave it there and get to the next book, which I will hopefully like better. 

I gave this 2 stars out of 5 on Goodreads.