To be honest, I’m not so much into LGBT genre and I had to step out of my comfort zone to read this book. This is my second book from this genre, I read ‘Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe’ couple of years ago and I didn’t like it. It wasn’t my book or probably the time wasn’t right.
‘The Rules of Seeing’ left me with mixed feelings. I liked it, no doubts, but I had a tough time reading it. Let me explain.
Nova is blind since birth. This doesn’t stop her to lead a normal life. She speaks fluently several languages and works as an interpreter in Scotland Yard. When her brother told her that there is an experimental treatment for her blindness, at first she doesn’t except the idea of not being blind. If you wonder, then – yes, the operation is kind of successful. This brings new challenges to Nova’s life – to learn how to see. She goes to this journey hand in hand with her companion – the book with ‘Rules of Seeing’. All the fears she has about her not being able to understand the world around her, come to life. But then she meets Kate – a little star in Nova’s dark days.
“People imagined blindness as darkness but for Nova, the world was a mysterious shadow.”
Kate is an architect. She is going through a really hard time which she doesn’t fully understand. Her husband Tony, who also works in London Police station, like Nova, is kind of short-tempered and abusive. After he pushes Kate and she hits her head, she becomes unaware of her surroundings, loses control over her own life and let Tony excuses his behavior and makes her believe she is responsible for what happens to her. Then she meets Nova at the hospital and realizes that her life was so wrongly spent.IMG_9415
“She’s scared that, if she lets Nova leave now, she will be taking a part of Kate that she can’t get back.”
Nova is such an annoying character. I can’t decide if she is spoiled, or she simply can’t deal with difficult situations. She is moaning through the whole book. First – because she is blind. Then – because she sees. After the first problem, that pops out in her relationship with Kate – she goes away. She runs away the very same moment Kate needs her and acts like a douche bag. It is quite difficult to feel for her and her condition.
I had this feeling that this book has so much depth than an ordinary one. There are so many things happen in just a few pages, I had a feeling I had read half of the book. Not to mention that the book covers a period of a couple of years. I’m not sure if I’ve just finished 400 pages book of 4000 pages one. So much action. People change in the blink of an eye. Probably this is the reason why it took me so long to come to the end of this story. I couldn’t cope with the intensity and had to put it down after a couple of pages and thin over what happened so I can put the whole picture together.
I’ve never thought of how difficult would be to learn how to see. ‘The Rules of Seeing’ of Nova are so wittily composed they made me stop for a moment and reread them, enjoyed the rule and dissected it. Such universal rules, which we all know by default, but never thought of transparency or opaque. I just know that although the glass is a solid material, I still can see through it. I see like I speak my mother tongue. The author did a great job describing Nova’s blindness at first and then her way through the world of seeing.
‘The Rules of Seeing’ left me with mixed feelings. I liked it, no doubts, but I had a tough time reading it. Let me explain.
Nova is blind since birth. This doesn’t stop her to lead a normal life. She speaks fluently several languages and works as an interpreter in Scotland Yard. When her brother told her that there is an experimental treatment for her blindness, at first she doesn’t except the idea of not being blind. If you wonder, then – yes, the operation is kind of successful. This brings new challenges to Nova’s life – to learn how to see. She goes to this journey hand in hand with her companion – the book with ‘Rules of Seeing’. All the fears she has about her not being able to understand the world around her, come to life. But then she meets Kate – a little star in Nova’s dark days.
“People imagined blindness as darkness but for Nova, the world was a mysterious shadow.”
Kate is an architect. She is going through a really hard time which she doesn’t fully understand. Her husband Tony, who also works in London Police station, like Nova, is kind of short-tempered and abusive. After he pushes Kate and she hits her head, she becomes unaware of her surroundings, loses control over her own life and let Tony excuses his behavior and makes her believe she is responsible for what happens to her. Then she meets Nova at the hospital and realizes that her life was so wrongly spent.IMG_9415
“She’s scared that, if she lets Nova leave now, she will be taking a part of Kate that she can’t get back.”
Nova is such an annoying character. I can’t decide if she is spoiled, or she simply can’t deal with difficult situations. She is moaning through the whole book. First – because she is blind. Then – because she sees. After the first problem, that pops out in her relationship with Kate – she goes away. She runs away the very same moment Kate needs her and acts like a douche bag. It is quite difficult to feel for her and her condition.
I had this feeling that this book has so much depth than an ordinary one. There are so many things happen in just a few pages, I had a feeling I had read half of the book. Not to mention that the book covers a period of a couple of years. I’m not sure if I’ve just finished 400 pages book of 4000 pages one. So much action. People change in the blink of an eye. Probably this is the reason why it took me so long to come to the end of this story. I couldn’t cope with the intensity and had to put it down after a couple of pages and thin over what happened so I can put the whole picture together.
I’ve never thought of how difficult would be to learn how to see. ‘The Rules of Seeing’ of Nova are so wittily composed they made me stop for a moment and reread them, enjoyed the rule and dissected it. Such universal rules, which we all know by default, but never thought of transparency or opaque. I just know that although the glass is a solid material, I still can see through it. I see like I speak my mother tongue. The author did a great job describing Nova’s blindness at first and then her way through the world of seeing.