Vicarious

This novel's kind of a Monet: when you take a step back its really beautiful but if you lean in, its a hot mess. When I got to the end, I was like, “Oh, that was really clever,” but I was never really engaged by the story. The execution keeps falling over itself trying to get out of the way and so it all seems awkward and stilted. The first few chapters really shouldn't be there at all; the cover art shows the scene where the novel should have begun (and the cover art should have been a collage of multiple scenes, imo). Most irritatingly, there are these intermittent descriptions of inane events (such as showering or getting dressed or eating) that serve no purpose other than to disrupt enjoyment of the narrative flow. (Knowing that our narrator dried herself with a towel that was fluffy and white in no way improves the story for me. She's clean, I get it! Let's move on with the story that I was almost engrossed in!)