Reviews

Lally was a kingmaker; she had invested everything into her gallery in Manhattan and the sacrifices were finally paying off. Pat was a Sydney scholarship boy desperate to establish himself in the big game. They met at a New York’s Armory Show, where chemistry sparked through arguments about art and politics, talent and entitlement, and labour and privilege. Then came the long distance, and a juggle between money, ambition and love ensued.

This book surprised me in a positive way. I loved it! First of all, I didn’t care much about the romance. The sexual aspect was very just-get-it-done, and I thought it didn’t sound fun 😂. The romance itself didn’t start as anything special other than serving as a vehicle to surface Lally’s insecurities and fear of attachment. I only saw the chemistry when chapter 23 happened and highly intellectual banters were flying around.

The conversations about gender, fleeting success, failure, and making bad choices were amazing! Another point to ponder was about how much we could separate an artist from their work. Would it be fair to admire an amazing work when the artist was unethical and immoral? Or the other way around, would it be fair to completely shun an amazing work just because the artist was unsavoury? When would something cross the censorship line?

This was the perfect book for discussions and I loved analysing it with my buddy read group! We discussed about how Lally’s life could potentially be a lot easier had she not resisted the society expectations as much. But at the same time, it highlighted the flaw of our society design in that it wasn’t flexible enough to enable more choices than just one predefined pathway.

What a powerful writing! I love this kind of book that makes me feel smarter just for having read it. Now I have to go check Bri’s other books.

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