Review: All of This Is True

All of This Is True by Lygia Day Peñaflor
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It's frustrating because of the potential that bleeds through every page, every line and every word that you read when you find your way through this book. There is so much of it, such beautiful potential, especially with the format of interviews and emails and texts. The fact that the book squanders this potential makes for a really strange experience. It's one of those books that deserved to be more than it is.

Let me start by discussing three things the book does well.

First, it's a different take on the epistolary format that was easy to read. Not nearly as engaging as a lot of other epistolary fiction, but really easy to read. The different characters and parts of the book were well-separated by the format. I read the entire book in a couple hours, in one sitting, and I think the reason is how quick and effortless reading it is.

Second, the open questions. The book doesn't answer some of the questions it raises. I liked that, it kept with the larger themes and added some value to thinking about it. I won't tell you which ones it does answer, that's for you to find out (if you read it).

Third, the ending. It was a well-formed ending that would have been cathartic had the rest of the book been a journey. It was...I could feel how powerful it could have been if it had followed a better book.

And with that, I will get to my complaints about the book.

It's not well-written. The only thing the prose has going for it is the fact that it is easy to read and follow. Now, usually, that isn't such a big problem. There are plenty of books with plain prose that make for really good reading because of plot and character. The problem is that the prose here is mixed with the plot and character.

So, the book is epistolary. This means that it is made up of things like letters and excerpts from emails and interviews. Within the book, there is a fictional author whose works are excerpted as well. This fictional author is supposed to be powerful, poetic, emotional, you know? Just, a really good writer. Her writing is hyped up from the get-go, and then we get to it and its...ok. The anti-climax of that is what ruins everything. It's mediocre. This amazing, New York Times bestselling author with a massive controversy around here, who is known and appreciated by students and teachers alike has middling prose. (This is why House of Leaves would make for a difficult movie, the main character is a stellar filmmaker, whose every shot is poetry. You would need to replicate genius.) So, the central figure in that way never feels special. Her 'genius' and 'passion' feel fake. The book tells you that her writing feels painful, but then you read her writing and feel nothing.

Then, the plot. It's a little underwhelming. The "big twist" is so obvious that you can see it coming the moment it's set-up. It's just annoying that no one in the book seems to. The larger plot is not really that engaging? There are some good bits, but overall it's just middling. Average. Missing a lot of the flair that would make it good. The epistolary form is perfect for injecting that flair (Carrie is a really good example of that). It isn't "bad", but it's plain and not noteworthy.

The characters are disappointing. They were very 2-dimensional. I didn't really care about any of them, and the book didn't try to make me. I didn't hate them, they were bearable and even human sometimes. They were never 'bad' characters. They just...did not have the depth they needed to have for the book to be powerful.

And I think that's the heart of it. It could be a powerful book. The premise and the idea that exists here, the overarching themes, are pretty cool. There's just not enough there in terms of depth. There were parts that were so ridiculously out-of-place that I laughed out loud.

Maybe this entire thing is some really sophisticated satire of the epistolary form, human beings and the profession of writing. Something so nuanced that I did not get it at all. If that is the case, someone tell me so I can re-read it a couple times and try to see if it is.

Or maybe it's just an average book that squandered the great ideas that inspired it.

View all my reviews