Disappearing Earth: The book with a disappearing plot
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips is set in the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. It has an extremely interesting beginning — two little girls are kidnapped in broad daylight by a man in a nice car. However, beyond that first chapter, this book seems to forget its plot.
During the book, we are introduced to a set of arbitrary men and women and are thrown into their lives at a random moment in time. Even after reading the book, I have no idea what most of these characters have to do with the original plot.
Each new chapter is a haphazardly written short story of a character that is vaguely connected to these girls. Most of these chapters are focused on women making poor choices and living with the consequences that follow, wallowing in self-pity. Such characters are difficult to relate to in the 21st century. If the intention of the author was to make this book women-centric, she fails miserably. Julia Phillips probably should’ve created a stronger set of women, not only in their determination to fight the circumstances but also in the complexity and intricacy with which the character itself is designed.
The bigger problem is that these stories are very abrupt. This gives no room for character development, which is the reason for the shallowness in the emotions of these numerous characters.
At the end of the book, it almost looks like Julia suddenly remembers the premise that she had started the book with. She wraps up that original story of the kidnapping as abruptly as the other short stories, leaving so much of the story to pure chance and luck. As a reader, I feel betrayed; what started as a kidnapping story turned into a tasteless, unplanned, and botched up closure.
Usually, my book reviews are longer. I have enough to compliment or critique about the plot, the characters, or the message. However, Disappearing Earth has no plot, a plethora of characters that lack finesse, and nothing really impactful (positive or negative) to talk about.
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