I was really excited to read Toad by Katherine Dunn since I loved her other book Geek Love. Unfortunately I didn’t care for this book. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator Christina Delaine did a fine job but I couldn’t get into this story and these characters. I actually took a break from listening to this and listened to two other audiobooks instead. When I finally got back to this one I was curious to see if the ending would be redeeming but it wasn’t. This novel is about Sally, a recluse, and her friends Sam and Carlotta. Many parts are grotesque and just plain gross. I didn’t find any humour. It’s a bit too long so I found myself getting bored by this story.
.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio via NetGalley for my ALC!

I had never read anything by Katherine Dunn before. I don’t know if this is the book I should have started with; it is very depressing, overally descriptive, and just disgusting there were times I felt gross listening to the story. Many of the antidotes in the book felt random
This book was not for me.

The novel is small in scope--we are in the mind of a single smart woman who observes everything, and has nothing--but it is a mind so full of wonder and intellectual meanderings and truth that it feels like an epic story. Every sentence gave me a zing--zing--zing! of surprise. Surprising precision of thought. Surprising wisdom. Surprising humor.

I love Geek Love but I loved this novel so much more because it doesn't rely on strange unlikely people, or on events that would never happen--everything Dunn wrote here is both uniquely imagined and yet completely believable. And perfect. The perfect noun, verb, adjective, over and over. I was continuously upended and surprised by the perfection.

"He had no neck. If he'd had one, it would have been pink and covered with exzema."

I read via audiobook, narrated by Christina Delaine, and she has given an extraordinary interpretation, a perfect mix of bleakness, exhilaration, and wisdom. I recommend it.

Toad, a posthumous novel from the author of Geek Love Katherine Dunn, does not disappoint fans of the author.

Written in the the same funny, deft and capable style one would expect from Dunn, this book was a pleasure to read and also very sad and heavy. Quite a conundrum really.

Her prose is stunning as this reader expected, but the story about a depressed woman is really depressing and it is not going to be for everyone. Fans of Dunn will rejoice, Others, will be leary but won't be disappointed.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Toad is a previously unpublished (under published?) novel by Katherine Dunn, the celebrated author of Geek Love. Toad was her third novel, Geek Love her fourth. Let's get the obvious out of the way up front, yes, there's a reason this one was not published/celebrated. Long meandering paragraphs that try to elicit shock by sheer disgust. The narration here doesn't do this story any favors, flat and unengaging, I couldn't stay engaged here and, ultimately, did not finish this one.

Holy pontification.

This is an incredibly self involved stream of consciousness that could be more boring unless you are the main character.

Thank you Netgalley for this audio edition of Toad, by Katherine Dunn.

Everything about this read is totally surreal, beginning with the note at the beginning about the late author and how this book came to print. Even that I wondered, "is this part of the story?" It's all so much!

The biggest piece of advice I can give you while reading this (which feels unfair because it's unintentionally reductive) don't read this while eating, or on a full stomach. It's so gross. Like, from beginning to end. I felt so dirty reading it, seriously. And I'm not talking smut, or anything like that. I'm talking literal filth. Dunn has absolutely no problem diving into any kind of bodily function etc. Ugh, enough about that.

Sally is a deeply depressed individual remembering her time with her three friends. Sam, Carlotta and Rennel. She meets them all while attending school and the four of them become a ragtag group of frenemies who definitely blur the lines between love and hate. They support, they care, but they can also be cruel, and eventually a tragedy will cause a deep chasm in their friendship.

I will admit to fading in and out of this one, especially because, as I mentioned, it's very descriptive. It also doesn't move quickly. The whole thing just has a rank stagnation to it. But did I like it? Well, I'll never freaking forget it, so there's that!