Wreck and Order by Hannah Tennant-Moore

 

Title: Wreck and Order

Author: Hannah Tennant-Moore

Pages: 304

Published: February 9th 2016 by Hogarth

ISBN: 1101903260

Summary:

A boldly candid, raw portrait of a young woman's search for meaning and purpose in an indifferent world

Decisively aimless, self-destructive, and impulsively in and out of love, Elsie is a young woman who feels stuck. She has a tumultuous relationship with an abusive boyfriend, a dead-end job at a newspaper, and a sharp intelligence that’s constantly at odds with her many bad decisions. When her initial attempts to improve her life go awry, Elsie decides that a dramatic change is the only solution.

An auto-didact who prefers the education of travel to college, Elsie uses an inheritance to support her as she travels to Paris and Sri Lanka, hoping to accumulate experiences, create connections, and discover a new way to live. Along the way, she meets men and women who challenge and provoke her towards the change she genuinely hopes to find. But in the end, she must still come face-to-face with herself.

Whole-hearted, fiercely honest and inexorably human, Wreck and Order is a stirring debut that, in mirroring one young woman's dizzying quest for answers, illuminates the important questions that drive us all

Review:

I had really high hopes for this book. Like, really high. I thought I could relate to the main character because we both took time off after school to go travel and get to know ourselves. Well, we really have nothing in common. Elsie, the main character, decides to leave town with her father’s money and travel the world. She is so self-absorbed that while visiting an impoverished country, she still can’t stop thinking about her own problems for one moment. She claims she is seeking personal change, but I don't believe she will ever find it.

Elsie is a self-destructive character that thinks the grass is always greener on the other side. Honestly, she was infuriating and I wanted to shake her and talk some sense into her! I actually disliked her more and more with each page that I read. I also was not prepared for the intense sexual talk that happened on every single page. It was just a little too much.

Typically, I can get through a good book in days and at the longest a week. This book has taken me almost a month and it was a painful month. I hate to post a bad review but I just didn't enjoy it. I feel almost guilty at how excited I was to finish this book. It could totally be great for someone else, just not me. I would not recommend this book to a friend.

*Rating 1/5