I am going to be relatively kind to this book because I think I realised fairly early on that it wasn't for me. Because it was an audiobook, I didn't DNF but I'm not sure that was the right decision. We Were Restless Things is the story about a group of friends who are dealing with the fact their other friend drowned on dry land. There is some magical realism stuff but mostly it seems to be character-focused stuff, which would be fine if the characters were interesting or compelling. I can honestly only remember details about Noemi and Jonas, and I didn't particularly like either of them.
I really really don't like the romance in this book. Noemi is asexual and some aspects of that are portrayed very well, but I am uncomfortable with the fact she is narrated as being very flat and emotionless. Maybe it reads different in the text but I didn't like the association between asexuality and emotional flatness as, while sometimes the case in real life, this is also the stereotype I see most in the media. That aside, the romance is with her step sibling and that's the part I really hate. Sure, they meet as teenagers but I dislike the fact that two teenagers in fiction can't meet and have a platonic relationship, especially when a romantic one is pretty inappropriate. She even uses the 'stepbrother' label to push him away when she's worried about her asexuality which...gross.
Honestly that's all I have retained about this book sadly so I can't say much more. There seemed to be some good magical realism/ghost type stuff but those moments seemed very infrequent. It's a shame because I think this book could have been great if the characters were a little more distinct and interesting. Having said that, if you enjoy magical realism then you will probably get a lot more out of this than me. I was hoping for a Raven Boys-style conversion for me but alas that wasn't to be.
Overall Rating:
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