Official Review: Lilly Among Clouds by Marie Washtag

[holsam_87]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Lilly Among Clouds" by Marie Washtag.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Lilly Among Clouds by Marie Washtag is contemporary fiction that has been translated from Serbian to English. It follows the life experiences of Lilly and Sasha, as they have interactions together and interact with their friends in Budapest. This slice of life book doesn't pull any punches, so read this with caution as it can get a bit gritty and uncomfortable at times. If you are interested in the life experiences of Lilly and Sasha as she and he make certain choices that affect them for better or worse, proceed but tread lightly.

I enjoyed the characterization of Lilly and Sasha as it can be seen that they are good friends. They do a lot of talking about the past and how it has affected them up to that point. Both them and the secondary characters are given fairly complicated backstories, but you have to infer from the conversations that are held. There are also foreign words, with definitions that are provided to make the reading much more smooth.

The first thing to note is that Lilly Among Clouds has a lot of mistakes, but it seems to be in regards to the translation from the author's native language to English at a lot of points. Some errors include using Lilli versus Lilly and Eve versus Eva or using punctuation that would be used in the Serbian language. Other errors include the misuse of ellipses and not using quotation marks. At times I had a really tough time discerning who was talking when, so I highlighted every spoken sentence for myself and denoted who was talking and made a note to add quotations to the best of my ability.

Viewing the formatting of this book was a bit difficult. There wasn't a notable end or beginning to each chapter, considering the fact that there were no chapters. Everything was written down, and there were odd moments where a sentence would break off and continue on the next page in the Kindle version. This also made reading difficult, especially with the addition of superscripts for unfamiliar terms. Preferably, their definitions should have been placed at the back of the book in a glossary to neaten up the formatting. However, they were placed in odd spots.

Some warnings to include would be that this contains drug use, murder, sex, rape, and PTSD. If these types of issues make you uncomfortable, then avoid Lilly Among Clouds, as these are spread throughout this book. Another thing is that this book clearly needs more proofreading before being a fully finished product. I would be interested in reading the source material and the other translated texts to see if more issues with formatting exist, but unfortunately, I am only fluent in English.

It with these considerations that Lilly Among Clouds receives 2 out of 4 stars from me. I had to take off one star for the errors and one star for the formatting issues. Perhaps with several more rounds of editing this book would be a more concise read. Unfortunately, in its current incarnation, it seems like it wasn’t even edited once.

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Lilly Among Clouds
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Like holsam_87's review? Post a comment saying so!

[Franc93]

For a minute there it sounded like a good book with an interesting plot line, characters and background stories,up to the point where in the review you noted that there was great difficulty when reading due to grammatical errors and the likes. Let me give this one a wide berth. Thanks though

[holsam_87]

For a minute there it sounded like a good book with an interesting plot line, characters and background stories,up to the point where in the review you noted that there was great difficulty when reading due to grammatical errors and the likes. Let me give this one a wide berth. Thanks though

You're welcome, I totally understand your reasoning. I did some research on the author and it appears that she has written other books as well. I would be interested in seeing whether she has improved or not since this book was published in 2016.

[Sonya Nicolaidis]

Thank you for your honest comments on this one. It's unfortunate that this book doesn't seem to gel together very well, and with the editing oversights, it sounds like just too much hard work. I'll move along I think.

[kandscreeley]

I can only imagine the difficulties in translating a work such as this. So much can get lost from a different language. I think the graphic nature would not settle well with me. Thanks, though.

[T_stone]

I'm here wondering if there are any words left in Serbian language that aren't translated to English language; either by choice or mistake. I'm having a mixed feeling about this one, but it seems like it has a good storyline, asides the errors. Nice review.

[Jgideon]

It sounds like a well-written book. Lilly and Sasha's story shows that the author did a masterful job in developing the characters.

[Connie Otwani]

Just the phrase 'Lily and Sasha's story' piques my interest. A pity that the errors stop me from following the story up. Great review!

[charmperit]

It sounds intriguing having them talk about their past that lead them to their present. I guess that in this way, a good picture of the characters is shown to the reader.

[María Andrea Fernández Sepúlveda]

Even with the errors, it seems like a very interesting book that approaches subjects that, although they're hard, they need to be discussed.
I agree that the main problem is probably the translation, switching languages is hard!
Thanks for a very analytical review!

[melissy370]

Too bad that a lot got lost in translation. I don't think I would particularly care for this book because of the explicit themes. Good job on your review.

[Espie]

Like you, I'd also want to read the original version of the piece to give it a chance and perhaps more justice. You also made me remember how good it is that my first OBC review was on a well-translated piece. Thank you for your honest review.

[fernsmom]

Great review!
Sounds like with a round of editing it could be a lot better. Not too sure if I want to read it as it is though.

[Shrabastee Chakraborty]

The contents of the book seems to include a lot of critical issues. However, the technical errors you mentioned would certainly be a put-downer. Thanks for the review!