Review by _khush_p -- Ironing by Navajo

[_khush_p]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Ironing" by Navajo.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Written by Navajo, Ironing is a short story categorised as other fiction. This 125-page novella is a book that follows 3 characters- Emma, Ginie, and Royanda, through their bus ride to a dog race taking place in London. Despite having a couple of main characters, the book is a whole whiplash of various other characters, their stories, random events going from extreme happiness to extreme sadness. In short, readers are in for a literal roller coaster!

Having such a strange title name doesn’t really give off any hints, because that is how this book was intended to be. After reading the whole thing I could come to the conclusion that Ironing is meant to be a book that highlights how connected and at the same time, how separated our lives are. The book follows the 3 above-mentioned characters while also giving a glimpse into the life of several other characters. There are no plotlines, no backstories, no character building, and certainly no starts and/or ends. The book is very much like real life, random and unpredictable. You could be reading into the life of Emma and her crazy mom when suddenly you’d be thrown into the depressing case of a young boy being handled by Caitlin. You could be reading about how cute Pixie is when, again, suddenly you’d be thrown into a disastrous happening at a train station. As much as I disliked the whiplash of emotions from this book, I couldn’t help myself connecting the randomness to real life. Which is what I think the author was trying to convey.

Coming to the technicalities, let’s first talk about the things that I loved. I have to appreciate the ability of the author to think from so many dimensions and lifestyles. I cannot comment on how realistic these lifestyles are but I liked getting a tiny peek of how they could be. The author has tried to introduce humour. I use the term ‘tried’ because it is not what we commonly see in books, and I have to wholeheartedly appreciate the author for it. Not to forget the utter daring of the author to destroy book stereotypes. I have learnt that books do not need to follow certain formats to be interesting and fun. The construction of the book could be deemed chaotic but still beautiful and it might be one of the reasons that made me like this book.

Coming to the dislikes, there are a lot of places of improvement in this book. I say the book connects to real life; however, the characters are very much un-real. The situations, the way they react, the way they do things, all of it seemed very unnatural to me. The randomness of the book did in fact give me whiplash and I would be thankful if the author considered indicating a break of scenes. I felt confused and lost for more than half of the book and I must warn future readers for the same. The book makes use of the English language typically spoken in London which makes it difficult to differentiate typing and grammatical errors from deliberate changes. The language also confused me many times because of the slang words. The book also contains limitless usage of profanity which wasn’t a bother for me, but is something that readers need to watch out for. Readers need to pay great attention as the fast-moving storyline can leave one confused.

To rate Ironing, I would give it a 2 out of 4 stars. Personally, I had a frustratingly hard time trying to catch the gist of the book and to understand the route it was taking. As much as I appreciate the meaning and randomness portrayed, I would rather not go to such great extents to read a book. I take off 1 star for that, and another for the errors and lack of strategical construction. I would only recommend this book to readers who are deep lovers of other fiction, have great patience, and can tolerate profanity.

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Ironing
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[Jasy95]

Thanks for the thorough review! This novel sounds like it has a really interesting premise with the way that it tied together stories of strangers with very different lives. It's a shame that the execution wasn't as well done as it could be.

[_khush_p]

Thanks for the thorough review! This novel sounds like it has a really interesting premise with the way that it tied together stories of strangers with very different lives. It's a shame that the execution wasn't as well done as it could be.

Agreed! Thanks for stopping by =)