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Blue Ruin

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Blue Ruin

By: Hari Kunzru
Narrated by: Hari Kunzru
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About this listen

 A Simon & Schuster audiobook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every listener. Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological South Asian Creators

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Kunsra's narration of his own work is beautifully understated.
He is a wonderful story teller drawing the reader into the private, drug-induced hell of 2 young aspiring artists in the pretentious but seedy London art world. He spits his characters out decades later in pandemic ridden America and we hear of their separate lives in the intervening years. There's no great revelations in this book - just great, absorbing writing.

Past and present collide during pandemic paranoia.

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Such an accurate depiction of the London art school scene and pandemic. I loved the perspective it was written from and found some aspects hilarious for how silly but believable parts of the story were- so good!

Loved this book and its take on the art world

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This book should be called closure. I’m not really sure what the whole point of this was. The characters are well fleshed out but the plot is a little meh. There is a distinct beginning middle and end but it’s nothing to write home about. Also it’s very heavy on the art

Closure

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Not quite up there with God's and Men but an interesting take on the fakery and commercial in modern art

Art and Craftiness

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I’m a fan of Mr Kunzru and Blue Ruin is a bitingly cynical takedown of the art world wrapped in a love story circumnavigated through Covid. His decision to narrate his own books is unfortunate in my opinion. There are many talented narrators who would have done a much better job. The characters are hard to differentiate with his somewhat deadpan, unvarying tones. At one stage (much later in the book) he seems to remember one of his characters is Mancunian and quite unexpectedly adds a hitherto absent (and unintentionally hilarious) Yorkshire timbre to his speech. The same unimmersive reading style blighted Red Pill also. Stick to what you’re best at, Hari!

Blue Ruined, Great writer, one-dimensional narrator.

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