A very quick read (listen? Audiobook!) but I loved the heartfelt narration. For a short read, there is a lot to unpack and even decipher (in a good way). I was most taken by Strout's themes on judgment. There's a lot of emotional impact, too. The mother-daughter relationship that is the focus of the novel is strange; I understand it to an extent but I had many more questions. In the end, I wanted to spend more time with Lucy...I wanted her to tell me more. But it was satisfying.

I was laughing as this started; it seemed like a fun little frolick of a novel in the beginning. I liked our protagonist, Lo/Laura, and thought her mess of a friend Tyler was hilarious. I recognized a bit of my former self in their boozy antics, and then they went further. There was a lot of wincing as I continued, because I was rooting for these characters. There's a lot of dark parts, but it doesn't ever veer into wholly depressing or bleak. There's also some exceptionally funny scenes, and it all felt true. I especially love, love, loved the ending. I wasn't sure where the book was going to lead me, but I was very satisfied.

A very quick read... part memoir, but written like snippets of thought -- similar in structure to Jenny Offill's Dept of Speculation (which is name dropped), though much more ingrained in reality and essay and research than the fictional Dept.. It's about a woman who is a writer and has a child. It's clever and endlessly relatable to the likes of me who recently had a child (getting a baby a passport...I could relate to her stress!) but I could see others enjoying her insight. I want to seek out more by this author; this is the first I've read of her.

Full book review after this weekend's book club meeting.

Updated:

This novel was almost unbearable to continue. I just don't think it's my style. I understand it might have an appeal to others... Right away I don't get any comparisons made to Hunger Games and when I thought perhaps the bees and hive would be used in a similar way as Animal Farm, nope. It's just about bees. And maybe religion? But there's nothing particularly riveting about Flora, our main bee, the little worker bee who can do basically everything and yet is relegated to the sanitation department...though she seems to move between strata with ease? It made me curious about what bees actually do, but not enough to look up each and every fact within. I wish there was a little appendix or something that was like "female bees groom and cater to their male drone bees before they fly out to try to breed, totally true!" or "nope spiders are not psychic and do not trade bee sacrifices for info."

The writing is incredibly repetitive and the book needed a better editor. The beginning was a slog (many fellow book clubbers found it hard to continue, some didn't finish). I could see where the book was going pretty early on, and the ending climactic scene made my eyes roll. I was just not invested in these characters or what happened to the hive. I expected something that articulated a human experience, but that's my fault to have that kind of expectations. This book is just about bee life...fake bee life. I would rather have read a non-fiction book if I wanted to explore the life of bees.

Again: others may find this interesting, I really did not.

SPOILER -

The only good part was when the lady bees gathered all those male drones and massacred them. That was sweet.

Joe Goldberg, narrator of You, writes directly to his object of desire, Beck in the novel. But when you're listening to an audiobook, it's like he's talking directly to the listener which makes his already creepy and sneering narration that much more shudder-worthy. I suppose part of that lies in the talents of Santino Fontana who reads the audiobook (and now I may never see his character of Greg Serrano on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in the same way again...), but certainly Caroline Kepnes knows how to write a slithery asshole.

At the same time, the book is hilarious? The plot twists handled by Joe and the cast of characters are pretty great--at one point I may or may not have said out loud in my car laughing, "Joe, you're such an idiot!" And the pop culture references rival Bret Easton Ellis (also name-dropped), but are used to much better effect than just listing things. Witnessing Joe fall in love with the Barden Bellas in Pitch Perfect because the woman he's obsessed with loves the movie cracked me up. (Also, Ryan Adams belt reference? Rewound 15 sec to make sure I heard that gem right.)

The novel is highly entertaining and completely disconcerting in terms of stalking, manipulation, and social media. It was fun to listen to, but Joe's the bad guy, right? The (vicious) end was not where I hoped this book was heading, but I see there's a sequel, so maybe it wasn't really the end yet...

An interesting novel that does not read like any historical fiction I've read; it definitely seems to be written in the spirit of the Duchess Margaret Cavendish. The beautifully written prose is a bit whimsical, like Margaret and her own writing. Now I want to read a straight biography of this woman, and the author provides a couple of titles at the end to pursue.

Anybody in need of a page-turning beach read: look no further. Well-paced mystery that had me up late reading whenever I got a chance. I had so many guesses as to what was happening while I read, but I didn't put the pieces together until the very last moment. A satisfying read and well-crafted.

What a strange trip of a book. I loved the way it was written from the point of view of the protagonist's inner life, with very few glimpses of who she is to other people, though she is...famous. There's not much tangible about her fame, but you know she's obsessed with herself and you're entrenched in her brain...she allows you no other view. This novel feels very...of the last decade? It's like a weird time capsule; it reminds me of 2007 and Cory Kennedy and party photographers BUT you only get whiffs of that in the distance; the protagonist keeps you close to her world of vapid self-involvement. Strangely, I didn't dislike her.

Quick quick story with that very Flynn narrator voice; a little creepy, a lot to question but the story answered my questions as I thought of them. I smiled as it ended.

A powerful memoir bursting with sadness and anger and pain. Berkowitz has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and in this book she explores the emotions of chronic pain, the path to diagnosis, invisible illness, and trauma. Her prose is withering and she manages to pack so much into so few words. And those words, they linger. I look forward to more from Berkowitz.

Highly recommend.