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jessicaxmaria 's review for:
The Last Book Party
by Karen Dukess
Woof. Definitely not for me. Longer review to come.
//
I was prepared for a light, fluffy, perhaps melodramatic book about a young woman navigating the world of book publishing. And yet I found myself constantly annoyed by the characters and plotlines. This is one of the most dated books I've read recently; and I don't mean because it's set in 1987. I feel like it was written in the '80s and then published in 2019 without an edit, or anything meaningful to say.
You can certainly set something in the past and use the setting to comment about contemporary life, perhaps about drastically things have changed—or they haven't at all. TRUST EXERCISE did this really well (also set in the '80s for a large portion). THE LAST BOOK PARTY has no commentary, even when the protagonist Eve is propositioned more than once by men in powerful positions—that she works with. You'd think there'd be a very clear connection to modern times; but there is not. Instead: romance!
//
I was prepared for a light, fluffy, perhaps melodramatic book about a young woman navigating the world of book publishing. And yet I found myself constantly annoyed by the characters and plotlines. This is one of the most dated books I've read recently; and I don't mean because it's set in 1987. I feel like it was written in the '80s and then published in 2019 without an edit, or anything meaningful to say.
You can certainly set something in the past and use the setting to comment about contemporary life, perhaps about drastically things have changed—or they haven't at all. TRUST EXERCISE did this really well (also set in the '80s for a large portion). THE LAST BOOK PARTY has no commentary, even when the protagonist Eve is propositioned more than once by men in powerful positions—that she works with. You'd think there'd be a very clear connection to modern times; but there is not. Instead: romance!