Awescape
Pros: Really funny, great slice of life description. The best part of this book was the small details. My favorite character was Morris and I found that aspect incredibly charming, and also Andy's mother. I also loved the perspective shift at the end, and the endearing flaws of everyone involved.
Spoilers:
Cons: Not enough plot, meandered near the middle and end and I got bored. Also while I liked the perspective shift at the end, it felt overdetermined, like Jen was Alderton's mouthpiece trying to make a point about men and women in relationships and female singledom in the patriarchy and worked the characters around it even if it didn't quite fit.
Andy was an inconsiderate and self-absorbed partner but the book repeatedly tries to make the false equivalency that Andy's flaws represent hetero romance in general, and therefore Jen's only options are be unappreciated and bearing unequal load in a relationship (as Jen's female friends say when she talks to them about her issues with Andy, "Welcome to relationships"), or be single. The book also tries to say women have vast emotional support networks in their friends and men do not, but none of Jen's friends in relationships give her any genuinely helpful advice regarding her relationship like, "Talk to him and make it clear you feel unappreciated" or "Maybe he isn't the guy because he's a bit shit and selfish, for you but not all relationships have to make you feel this way, and being in a relationship doesn't automatically mean becoming someone's doormat". Instead all her friends give the message she needs to just put up with it because that's the way it is if you date men if she wants to be in a relationship, and this is somehow supposed to be a feminist angle.
Don't get me wrong, I fully support someone being single or leaving a bad partner, but the way it was written leaves no choice for anyone to want anything but because it's presented as so obviously bad- even women who are in relationships or have children secretly wish they didn't. Andy's mother imagined if she had never had children to Jen, and Jen's grandma imagined never getting married all the time, with this tone of "Most women secretly feel they'd be better off single". Even the one healthy relationship in the book, Jane and Avi, had Jane basically managing Avi, with him calling her panicked at 3 am asking how to support a sick friend. There was not a single competent man or happily married person or happy mother in this book who wasn't wistfully dreaming of the state of freedom of being untied. Jen's portion of the book felt like more an essay by Alderton tacked onto the end of a novel.
Jen also never communicated her issues with Andy during or after their break-up, and the book never acknowledged that as abnormal. The fact Andy wasn't going insane and showing up at her house demanding answers or calling all the time, or at least scheduling a time to talk over coffee a week or two after the break up to have a mature conversation about why it ended, I consider a plot hole. It would be traumatic and incredibly confusing and feel like a personal betrayal to have a four year relationship end with no attempt at an explanation. He would be way more mad at her than he was, and way more distraught. Then Andy wants to be friends with her despite her total lack of communication? What friendship, they never talked or repaired anything?
Pros: Really funny, great slice of life description. The best part of this book was the small details. My favorite character was Morris and I found that aspect incredibly charming, and also Andy's mother. I also loved the perspective shift at the end, and the endearing flaws of everyone involved.
Spoilers:
Cons: Not enough plot, meandered near the middle and end and I got bored. Also while I liked the perspective shift at the end, it felt overdetermined, like Jen was Alderton's mouthpiece trying to make a point about men and women in relationships and female singledom in the patriarchy and worked the characters around it even if it didn't quite fit.
Andy was an inconsiderate and self-absorbed partner but the book repeatedly tries to make the false equivalency that Andy's flaws represent hetero romance in general, and therefore Jen's only options are be unappreciated and bearing unequal load in a relationship (as Jen's female friends say when she talks to them about her issues with Andy, "Welcome to relationships"), or be single. The book also tries to say women have vast emotional support networks in their friends and men do not, but none of Jen's friends in relationships give her any genuinely helpful advice regarding her relationship like, "Talk to him and make it clear you feel unappreciated" or "Maybe he isn't the guy because he's a bit shit and selfish, for you but not all relationships have to make you feel this way, and being in a relationship doesn't automatically mean becoming someone's doormat". Instead all her friends give the message she needs to just put up with it because that's the way it is if you date men if she wants to be in a relationship, and this is somehow supposed to be a feminist angle.
Don't get me wrong, I fully support someone being single or leaving a bad partner, but the way it was written leaves no choice for anyone to want anything but because it's presented as so obviously bad- even women who are in relationships or have children secretly wish they didn't. Andy's mother imagined if she had never had children to Jen, and Jen's grandma imagined never getting married all the time, with this tone of "Most women secretly feel they'd be better off single". Even the one healthy relationship in the book, Jane and Avi, had Jane basically managing Avi, with him calling her panicked at 3 am asking how to support a sick friend. There was not a single competent man or happily married person or happy mother in this book who wasn't wistfully dreaming of the state of freedom of being untied. Jen's portion of the book felt like more an essay by Alderton tacked onto the end of a novel.
Jen also never communicated her issues with Andy during or after their break-up, and the book never acknowledged that as abnormal. The fact Andy wasn't going insane and showing up at her house demanding answers or calling all the time, or at least scheduling a time to talk over coffee a week or two after the break up to have a mature conversation about why it ended, I consider a plot hole. It would be traumatic and incredibly confusing and feel like a personal betrayal to have a four year relationship end with no attempt at an explanation. He would be way more mad at her than he was, and way more distraught. Then Andy wants to be friends with her despite her total lack of communication? What friendship, they never talked or repaired anything?