John's Thoughts

I found the book to be unenjoyable to read. Cole’s overly descriptive style often disrupted the flow of the writing with an unnecessary amount of adjectives and inappropriately large and specific words. Looking past the pompous style that he employs in his book, the character of Julius makes the book even harder to read. While Teju Cole does a good job of creating an interesting character, he is not a pleasant person. I wouldn’t normally criticize an author for creating an abrasive character who is well written, but if I need to fight through poor writing in a novel in order to understand an interesting personality, I’d rather it not be an uncaring, egotistical jerk who believes every thought he has is tremendously profound. The book had a very well developed character who explored interesting ideas, but the way the book was written made it difficult and unenjoyable to read.