Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

4/5 stars

What's it about? Sometimes actress and full-time sad girl Maria Wyeth is wise to the emptiness underlying the dazzle of Hollywood in the 1960s and can’t unsee it, especially after having a clandestine abortion. The husbands and lovers, the ambling days by the pool, the beloved daughter too complicated to mother, the vapid gatherings—Maria can’t summon the performance to care.

How’d I find it? My husband said I should read this and lent me his copy. He was right.

Who will enjoy this book? Readers of Bret Easton Ellis will recognize the vibes, and those who love Eve Babitz will recognize the Los Angeles that Didion captures so vividly.

What stood out? The ennui of this book absorbs the reader, so much so that one might crave a chaise lounge nearby. Maria moves through her life tearful and without a filter, indulging fixations: her upbringing in an abandoned mining town, the loss of her mother, the L.A freeways. Didion nails setting so completely that it’s easy to forgive the confusing shifts in time. Enjoy the passages describing Maria’s long drives; they’re a particular treat in this merciless novel.

Which line made me feel something? Maria tries to connect to her past, or anything really, during an impromptu trip to Vegas: “By the end of a week she was thinking constantly about where her body stopped and the air began, about the exact point in space and time that was the difference between Maria and other. She had the sense that if she could get that in her mind and hold it for even one micro-second she would have what she had come to get. As if she had fever, her skin burned and crackled with a pinpoint sensitivity. She could feel smoke against her skin.”

Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams

5/5 stars

What's it about? Pearl works for Apricity, whose proprietary tech tells people what they should do to be happier. But do people even want to be happy? Pearl’s son Rhett has an eating disorder, and maybe Apricity can tell Pearl how to save him. A gorgeous novel about humanity and fulfillment.

How’d I find it? The New York Times review made reading this book a priority. I found a gently used copy at Powell’s.

Who will enjoy this book? Tell the Machine Goodnight is for the sad girls, a pet sub-genre of mine that includes all of Lana Del Rey’s discography and the film Sometimes I Think About Dying. You know what? I’m creating a tag called Lana to commemorate works of this ilk. If you appreciated the writing chops and feels of Biography of X by Catherine Lacey or the “sad girls of the future” lilt of Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma, you’ll enjoy Williams’s first adult novel.

What stood out? Williams chooses to shake up the narration throughout the book, made up of standalone chapters à la Olive Kitteridge. The effect rounds out the story’s focus on the human, which contrasts with the added chaos of technology. Calla Pax, a superstar for her screaming abilities, was a particularly compelling character.

Which line made me feel something? The meaning of Apricity recalls our blue light present and holds its melancholy tightly: “The warmth of the sun on one’s skin in the winter.”

Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma

3/5 stars

What's it about? Iris is losing her lifelong battle with depression. Her career as a digital brand strategist? Meaningless. The tense distance from her family? Overwhelming. Feeble attempts at love? Unfulfilling. There’s a way out: the reality show Life on Nyx is offering 100 Earthlings the chance to live on another planet for the rest of their lives. A wry and devastating book about how the trappings of civilization obscure what really matters.

How’d I find it? This bookstagrammer in the UK has the absolute best recommendations. She gets my taste exactly.

Who will enjoy this book? No book can overshadow my admiration for Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis, but Everything You Ever Wanted is certainly in the same family of novel with its reality TV in space backdrop.

What stood out? This narrative slipped in and out of realities in a way that left loose ends and kept me guessing. My interpretation of Iris’s fate may just be a reflection of my mood at the time, and I appreciate any book that immediately demands a reread. While hard to put down, Everything You Ever Wanted has its flaws. The mother trope pushed Iris’s story into clichéd territory, and we get too few breadcrumbs about the mystery of Nyx (what a setting though). The chapters titled “These Are the Things” and “Things,” which catalogue what Iris misses on Earth, offer sweet interludes.

Which line made me feel something? This cracked me up: “The other night, she dreamed she was in a corner shop, and as she unfolded a twenty-pound note it released a whiff of papery, cocaine bitterness. Did banknotes smell of cocaine, or did cocaine smell of banknotes?”

Out There by Kate Folk

4/5 stars

What's it about? Kate Folk’s debut story collection wanders the weird, the creepy, and the obsessive. Populated by characters who throw up their hands and give in, Out There holds a mirror up to the inanity of the 21st century.

How’d I find it? This Electric Lit article. “Dark playfulness:” book-buying catnip?

Who will enjoy this book? Those who loved Karen Russell’s Orange World and Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties will want to pick up Out There.

What stood out? The creativity in these stories makes for a dynamic read. There’s a house that “needs moisture.” A violent Thanksgiving tradition. A clinic for people with Total Nocturnal Bone Loss. Folk writes them all with humor and a touch of Cronenberg grossness. The first and last stories (“Out There” and “Big Sur”), about handsome AI that seduce women in order to steal their identities, are the book’s finest achievements.

Which line made me feel something? This description of dating at 30 really hit home: “Sam slept in a sleeping bag wadded at the center of a king-sized bed. There was a closet in the hallway where he kept his camping gear, and from which he retrieved a spare pillow for me to sleep on, still in its wrapping, as if he’d bought it for this purpose. At the foot of the bed was a Rubbermaid container full of folded T-shirts and socks. On its lid sat an electric kettle he used to boil water for coffee, so he wouldn’t have to go upstairs.” Oh, I have met Sam.

Emergency by Kathleen Alcott

3/5 stars

What's it about? In these seven stories, women face turning points in their lives and seek exits. A powerful collection about reckoning with the self and embracing the fallout.

How’d I find it? I read “Temporary Housing” in Harper’s, and my socks? Blown off. I swiftly ordered Emergency from Lost City Books.

Who will enjoy this book? If you want to hang out in a long Lana Del Rey song, this read is for you.

What stood out? As a lover of Lana and sad girl ennui in general, this book felt written for me. Yes, the stories are California even when set in New York. Yes, the female friendships are overwhelming. Yes, Alcott’s work pairs well with a drink. The stories sag in certain places, and another round of editing might have cleared out distracting details (i.e. Helen’s jeans in “Emergency” — are they on or off?) to let narrative shine. Either way, “Temporary Housing” is a knockout and worthy of any reader’s eyes.

Which line made me feel something? Because many of my favorite excerpts appear at the end of these stories and I wouldn’t dare spoil one, here’s a tidbit from “Part of the Country”: “This was something my mother had warned me about, the spring I met him, but by then I saw her advice like something in the back of a fridge, likely past its expiry and suspect anyway for how rarely one had reached for it.”

Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis

4/5 stars

What's it about? Environmentalist and former evangelical and aspiring Olympian Amber Kivinen abandons her boyfriend of fourteen years to compete on a reality show for the chance to join the first manned mission to Mars. A tender, funny, and at times didactic debut about ambition, love, and human greed.

How’d I find it? This book found me. While shelving at Solid State Books, I discovered this fabulous cover and had to have it.

Who will enjoy this book? Lovers of reality TV will adore this book and its satire.

What stood out? You know what? My enjoyment of this book gets 5/5 stars. I read all 300+ pages over the course of three days while working full-time and could not get enough of the hilariously obnoxious cast of characters: restless Amber, her boyfriend Kevin, the MarsNow contestants, slimeball billionaire Geoff Task, and Kevin’s stoner besties. Willis completely sticks the landing (hehe) in a surprising and satisfying way that absolves the novel of some clunky bursts of sentimentality and climate change warnings. It took me awhile to warm to Kevin’s narration every other chapter, as the breaking of the fourth wall and persistence of his gloom distracted from all the fun of the reality show’s taping.

tl;dr — read this one.

Which line made me feel something? “She chose this barren place and now she’s scraped out, empty, mourning everything. The smell of a red pepper when you cut it open. The pattern of rain on a window. The feel of water on her skin. She misses birdsong, even a crow’s cackle. Her dad’s voice. The smell of her mom’s hair.”