Reviews with content warning for Toxic friendship - A Shot in the Dark

Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

A Shot in the Dark by Victoria Lee

2 reviews

bi_n_large's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

bookishmillennial's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

disclaimer if you’ve read other reviews by me and are noticing a pattern: You’re correct that I don’t really give starred reviews, I feel like a peasant and don’t like leaving them and most often, I will only leave them if I vehemently despised a book. I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. Everyone’s reading experiences are subjective, so I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not, regardless if I add stars or not. Find me on Instagram: @bookish.millennial or tiktok: @bookishmillennial

premise:

contemporary fictional romance / dramedy
told in dual first-person POV (but MOSTLY from our main character)
26-year-old pansexual Elishiva "Ely" Cohen returns to New York City from LA after being kicked out of her family home eight years ago, to study at the Parker art academy/institute(I'm probably fucking this title up, I'm sorry but just know it's super important and prestigious and a BIG DEAL)
After meeting her cool new queer roommates, Ophelia and Diego, and attending a gay club, Revel, Ely has a one-night stand with a hot trans man who is originally from North Carolina
When Ely sits down for class the next day, she realizes her steamy one night stand is her new young professor, 32-year-old, world-renowned mixed-media artist Wyatt Cole
Both Wyatt & Ely are in recovery; 10 years and 4 years respectively
Ely's New York past -that includes her younger sister Dvora and her childhood friend Chaya especially- haunts her and she grapples with the guilt she feels of being back there
However, Ely makes a new frum (Jewish, religious, observant) friend, Michal, and unpacks her own biases of the Jewish community (Ely is ex-Orthodox) as she gets to know Michal's community via weekly Shabbos
Ely & Wyatt fight their feelings for each other but the summer sun is not the only thing that heats up!
cw: addiction, alcohol, death(s), (underage) drug use, toxic friendship, family disowning because of transphobia, child abuse (referred to), antisemitic thoughts recognized and challenged by narrator
steam: 2/5 --- there's a *lot* of angst, longing and tension that I felt sooooo strongly and that's what is adding to this score

thoughts:
oh my goshhhhhhh. wow. This is the first book I have read by Victoria Lee (they/she/he) and I am just in awe. I think Victoria Lee is now a new auto-buy author for me -- they are funny (meaning there's some millennial and pop culture humor, like a Love Is Blind reference hahah), thoughtful, evocative and take such great care in crafting realistic and wholly fleshed-out dialogue and characters.

First of all, I adored Ely's voice and humor, even the self-deprecating parts of it. Ely is one of my favorite characters of the year. This sounds so cheesy but she was just so desperately, beautifully human. Ely was still quite wrecked over the past she shares with the family she no longer speaks to, and yet, she reckoned with missing the community and missing her connection to her spirituality. I grew up in a Roman Catholic household so I can't speak to the representation of Orthodox Judaism but I deeply appreciated Ely's introspection and memories tied to her culture and religion. I felt and believed her longing for it, and her pain in feeling she was unworthy of it now.

Wyatt's dynamic with his family -the wondering of why they didn't fight for him harder- was so tough because you can't help BUT wonder when you are unable to get clear answers from the people who were supposed to love and support you. I appreciated that we saw representation of Wyatt attending Narcotics Anonymous (NA) and how he discussed these issues there too. I respect the holistic view of examining our habits and choices, and I welcome the attitude that Wyatt has when it comes to relapses. I love that no one was villainized or portrayed as evil just because they were an addict. Ely especially already carried enough guilt, accountability, and feelings of shame so I adored that Wyatt remained so encouraging and hopeful of her journey.

As far as Wyatt & Ely's romance, I love a funny professor x student setup. It's funny because I totally would talk so much shit if this was my real life (say, if a professor started dating one of their students at my university) but I loved the setup of the one-night stand. It absolutely gave Grey's Anatomy & I enjoyed the explicit nod to it in Ely's thoughts haha.

I will be adding all of Victoria's books to my Libby holds and looking for them on Kobo, Hoopla & Libro.fm -- I'm officially a Victoria Lee stan & no one can stop me!

quotations that stood out to me (this was hard because I highlighted SO much):

I should have listened the first time someone told me it was a problem, that time Chaya Levy and I had our big fight when we were sixteen and she told me that I was a threat to her Yiddishkeit and we had to take a friendship break. You’re just a little too intense, she said, and the accusation flung me into the kind of immediate, reactive rage that pretty much proved her point.

Maybe my problem isn’t caring too much after all. Maybe it’s that I take every possible opportunity to gamble away the things I care about on high stakes for stupid prizes.
Or as my sponsor would put it: “Ely, you sure do like to fuck around and find out.”

I wonder what it’s like to exist in the world as someone who didn’t ruin their life when they were eighteen.

My want is a living, throbbing thing inside me, unignorable. I squirm beneath him as he does it again; fucking torturous, it really is...He touches me like he actually cares if I get off, like he actually cares more about my getting off, even, than his own. And maybe that shouldn’t be a rare quality, but it kind of is. Or maybe I have a habit of giving myself to people who want me for very different reasons. I’ve never asked for more. Never thought there was more to demand.

This is literally TV-drama behavior, without the benefits. I’m pretty sure this is the plot of the first episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Only McDreamy didn’t kick Meredith Grey out of her surgical internship afterward—we got multiple seasons of yearning stares and steamy scenes in surgical supply closets.

It feels like the kind of coincidence that shouldn’t happen in real life. New York is huge. That’s one thing I like about this city: the anonymity. I’ve lived here long enough to have plenty of stories about missed connections, people I ran into one time on the subway or at the grocery store and never saw again. I have neighbors in my building who I’ve only met one time in six years. A part of me thinks I should deconstruct my office and search for hidden cameras, because surely this is some kind of joke. It’s not, though, and I know it’s not. I just have that kind of luck.

Art is a form of telepathy, really. You have an idea, or a feeling, and you try to get someone else—someone totally different from you, with different wants and fears and interests—to share your emotions, even if just for a moment. It doesn’t always work. But when it does, it’s the best experience in the entire world.

Working with film is one of my all-time favorite things. It’s so . . . physical, so profane. I like the way the negatives feel between my fingers, delicate as glass. The smell of chemicals. Maybe it’s the ex-Orthodox in me, still addicted to the art of ritual.

Recovery isn’t magic. You can’t just show up to a few meetings and get better. You have to want it. That took me way too long to internalize.

“All art is flawed,” Wyatt says, sounding surprisingly sage for a guy with neck tats and a penchant for arguing about sparkling water. “You can’t chase perfection. You just have to figure out what you wanna say, and then say it.”

Wyatt blew my world right open.

I’ve always liked the kind of art that pulls back the curtain and shows you that your reality isn’t the only reality.

“Losing your family, all at once . . . it’s like a death. Like the part of you that used to exist is gone, and you have to become someone new.”

“That’s what art’s all about—vulnerability. Peel your skin off, and let the wolves feast.”

But New York refused to hold me at arm’s length. It grabbed me with both hands and pulled me in, wrapping me up tight.

I became a filter through which the rest of the world passed—voices, sensations, the throb of the music. I was a bee trapped in its own honey. Everything tasted golden and sweet.

Everything Wyatt says to me feels like a hug, his fingers squeezing my shoulders and the skin of his cheek warm against mine.

But Ophelia called me her friend. And that’s pretty much enough to make me ride or die for her. I smile, the first real smile of the night. “Thanks. You’re . . . a very kind person, you know that?”
“It’s basic human decency,” Ophelia says, “but I appreciate the sentiment all the same.”

That’s one thing I missed about New York. All these people—all these lives, each with its own story, its own history and hopes and fears. Millions of people in this city living in their own social webs, silver threads connecting them to friends, lovers, sisters. The tenuous, fragile thread that connects them to me, in this moment where our stories intersect before we depart in our own separate directions. Makes you feel small. A tiny plankton in a massive ocean teeming with life. Your own problems become small too.

I know that feeling too well—the sickly blend of shame and anger, even after all these years still not being sure who to blame more: them or yourself. The deadly undercurrent of hope that one day, just maybe, they might change their minds and come back for you.

He keeps searching my face, no doubt looking for the reaction we always expect: disgust, revulsion, disappointment. The same emotions we usually see painted over everyone’s faces when we confess our darkest moments—the stolen credit cards, the used needles, the blow jobs in back alleys that you swore you’d never trade for dope until you did.
I hope he doesn’t find any of that there when he looks at me.
I hope he knows how deeply I understand.

The problem, as usual, is me. Because I’m pathologically incapable of not overthinking things, and it fucks me over every time.

It’s worth it. It hurts, but it’s worth it. That’s why we do this, isn’t it? We want to say something important. But in art, you can’t just say what you want to say outright. You have to wrap it up in layers of meaning and symbolism and trust that your viewer will be able to unwrap them. Even when it’s scary. Even when it hurts.”

Time to rip my heart open and spill out the gore.

I feel like I’ve been fighting my whole life just to be normal—the kind of person who can handle herself. Handle shit going wrong. Instead I’m intense, like Chaya told me during the worst of our fights. I feel things too much. I don’t know how to tone it down, or shut it off, or whatever it is other people do to keep their minds sailing along on an even keel.

I don’t know if I believe him—or if it takes ten years to get to that point—but I’m still glad he said it. I wrap those words up and keep them safe in the corner of my heart, where they might take root and maybe—one day—have a chance of becoming true.

Even looking at her feels sinful.

A lot of Jews believe them. But those beliefs don’t fill my cup the way religion used to. I want the feeling of arms wrapped around me, holding me tight. I want the structure of halacha and mitzvot, the rules and commandments all Jews are bound to follow as part of our covenant with Hashem—even the silly ones. I want to believe in G-d, but I gave all that up. I threw it away. I don’t know what I believe now.

The door isn’t open, but it isn’t shut anymore either. Maybe Wyatt was right. There’s always a way back.

It’s not much—it barely qualifies as observing Shabbos—but it’s something. And it counts.

Every moment we share now feels so precious and hard-won.

Content Warnings

More...