I listened to “Peaces” by Helen Oyeyemi and found it very odd. I can’t say I enjoyed it, although I finished it. It’s a strange story. I can’t say I’d recommend it.

totally incomprehensible, incoherent, absurdist (?) fiction. I cannot tell you with certainty about anything that happened in this book. I don't think I can even faithfully describe a single character.I don't want to think about this book again.

I had literally zero ideas about this book ahead of time. I am generally an Oyeyemi fan and requested it from the library.On one hand, this is one of her more linear books, I think. (Not that that's saying much of anything at all.) On the other hand, it's very hard to pinpoint all that is going on here. There are many themes, some having to do with seeing or unseeing others (those we let into our life, those we cut out or ignore or try to erase all remembrances of), being seen or unseen ourselve...

What is it like to edit Helen Oyeyemi’s novels, I wonder...

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | |3 ½ stars “Talking to strangers can be riskier than it is rewarding; even people who know each other well talk at cross purposes and derange each other’s perceptions.” Peaces is the type of freewheeling novel that fully embraces its own weirdness, taking its readers along a madcap sort of adventure, one that is guaranteed to be equal parts amusing and confounding. What drew me to this novel, zany premise aside, was that it would take place on a train. It just so ha...

This book was such a wild (train) ride. I had trouble mentally squaring off with Oyeyemi’s last book Gingerbread but Peaces was just grounded enough, while still fully encapsulating her enviable imagination, to be accessible. We follow Otto and his partner Xavier and their pet mongoose on their non honeymoon honeymoon, a gift from Xavier’s aunt. They board a train headed to a destination unknown. The ticket divulges no clues and the compartments are symboled instead of numbered or lettered. Ther...

How even to describe this book? It's as mysterious, addictive, and strange as most of Helen Oyeyemi's work but this time packed with even more queer characters than ever! Xavier and Otto Shin are given tickets to a train called The Lucky Day for their sort-of honeymoon. They step aboard with their pet mongoose, Arpad XXX, without knowing their route or destination and by a mishap leave half of their luggage behind on the station. The Lucky Day is the permanent residence of a reclusive musician,...

What does it mean to be seen by those you value, and what befalls you when you become invisible to them? Helen Oyeyemi’s Peaces is a skilful and unsettling fable that is difficult to pin down, slowly allowing the existential angst to seep into the reader. Known for brilliant fairy tale recreation that perfectly embodies the genre in a literary sense, here Oyeyemi slips comfortably into train-mystery aesthetic that feel like Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes meets surrealist horror that just so happe...

i fucking love mongooses

Not every book is for every reader, and I was absolutely not the right reader for PEACES. I should just accept that my love for Helen Oyeyemi’s previous novel GINGERBREAD is a fluke, and also I’m not sure she ever apologized for the abhorrent transphobia of her novel BOY, SNOW, BIRD, so why am I even still reading her? I clearly deserve the vast unpleasantness that was this reading experience. PEACES is framed as a whimsical train journey where bizarre and inexplicable things happen, so I though...

How does one review Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi?I don't even know.Peaces follows honeymoon un-honeymooners Otto and Xavier Shin (who have agreed to share their last name but they have not gotten married, and hence it is not a honeymoon) and their pet mongoose in a train ride. The first encounter with one of the fellow passengers of The Lucky Day happens when Ava Kapoor appears in front of Otto with a sign saying 'help' - or was it 'hello'? Hour after hour, as the unhoneymooners continue their trip i...

To do justice in describing this novel, you'd need Helen Oyeyemi's way with words, and I don't have that, so this review can't do justice. It is hilarious in a way that surprises, and before you can finish laughing it catches you with some deeply emotive passage that makes you want to hug anyone who is nearby. Buried inside of this whimsical tale of Otto and Xavier on their non-honeymoon honeymoon along with their mongoose Arpad XXX (that's the 30th) aboard a fantastical train called "Lucky Day"...

3.5this was weird

2.5 stars

I think I'm done with Oyeyemi. No matter how much I appreciate the imagination and clever touches in her work, I never enjoy reading it and almost always walk away more frustrated and confused than satisfied.

It would appear that Helen Oyeyemi has left me way behind. While I loved her early books, her most recent books, including this one, are just increasingly inaccessible to me. I keep hoping the next will be the one that pulls me back into her work, but I think I just need to move on.This book just really made me think of an absurdist work, like something by Thomas Pynchon. There is so little to really grasp onto to keep the reader curious about the plot, and going from chapter to chapter feels co...

she hasn't beaten mr. fox as a technical achievement or white is for witching as a visceral one, and she may never, but this is far and away the most rewarding puzzle of helen oyeyemi's more recent work. a good oyeyemi leaves you confused at the end but in possession of a complete toolkit. mr police, she gives you all the clues.the synopsis of this reads like a wes anderson film and in pretty much any other author's hands it would come off as twee and self-conscious but the oyeyemi hallmark is s...

Do you want to know about a mongoose, or why it must travel before middle age? I think it has something to do with becoming narrow minded. Well, I didn’t need to know that, but at least this book confirmed my belief that I can’t read this author. Abandoned.

Really 4.5, maybe?I was so nervous after really bouncing out of Oyeyemi's prior book and having some difficult conversations about BOY SNOW BIRD that this wouldn't go well. Isn't that always the way, when you hope that the experience of a favorite author's new work will match up to the ones that made them a favorite in the first place? Wonderfully, PEACES is Oyeyemi in fine form -- with all the wonder and frustration that entails.One thing that strikes me is how many of her novels rely (yes, fai...

Weird fiction is not for everyone. But, if you are not averse to the the slippery edges of allegorical concepts, you'll enjoy this story. Boiled down to its absolute essence, this entire fuzzy-edged narrative is about feeling seen and about feeling invisible. As often noted with Oyeyemi's work, the ending is not the point, and may feel downright anticlimactic. Everything the author wants to say is concentrated in the center of the story. The writing is what earns this four star rating. The style...