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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
In 2018 Starkfield, Massachusetts, a smash-up is coming. Ethan and Zo Frome are a married couple struggling with differences in life. Zo, angered by Trump’s presidency and Kavanaugh’s election to the Supreme Court, has begun a local women’s group, dedicated to resisting against the alt-right. Meanwhile Ethan is struggling financially when the Hollywood influencer company he founded with his former college friend begins coming under fire from the #MeToo movement. Meanwhile, their live-in, paid babysitter, Maddy, is beginning to cause problems, seeing as she drifts from around searching for purpose, while flirting with Ethan but not fulfilling basic requirements by Zo, to watch over their daughter Alex, an eleven year old who has an intensive form of ADHD. Financial problems, political unrest and problems within the marriage are a clear sign that somethings wrong in the Frome household. Will this little family make it through or will they be forever altered? Okay. This is a really interesting book to review. On one hand, it’s incredibly well written and relevant to what’s happening today. On the other hand, my god was Zo completely insufferable and Ethan a spineless twat. I found myself really only connecting with Alex, a girl whose parents were so obsessed with their own drama, they couldn’t even correctly help their daughter with her neurological condition. I found it really hard to sympathize with Zo: she took things too far. She’s peak white, feminism and reading her obnoxious rants, her lack of self-awareness, her bullshit attempts at inclusion for POC-well it was like being locked in a room with a thousand screaming birds and I hate birds. Just because I couldn’t connect with Zo’s character until the very end, doesn’t mean this is a bad book. It’s actually the opposite. This book was brilliant, showing the dirty side of liberal politics. While the far-right is extremely concerning, I think the far-left is just as concerning, which believe me! I know! Is controversial! This is a book that’s going to strike up a lot of debates and is genuinely compelling.
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
‘The Smash-Up’ by Ali Benjamin is a story of expectation, disappointment and displacement in a world that seems to be out of control. Ethan and Zo live in a small town with their daughter, and while Ethan spends most of his days at home looking after their child, Zo is active in an activist group who fight for women’s rights, who call themselves ‘All Them Witches’.
The story is told from Ethan’s perspective. He struggles with the life he has and how he thought things would go for him while Zo fights problems in the outside world during the #metoo movement.The novel shows that everyone’s perspective and experience is different and we all have a story to tell about the life we live and the life we want to live.
I enjoyed reading this book a lot and I loved the writing, but because the some of the characters seemed a little flat as they are described from Ethan’s point of view. None of the characters are very likeable, and Ethan does not seem to be very in tune with his own flaws. The fact that questions around #metoo and other feminist questions were presented from Ethan’s experience of them, seemed a bit off to me. However, the our own flawed personal narrative is one of the main issues raised by the novel. There is not one answer to the book’s main question: “What happened?”
‘The Smash-Up’ by Ali Benjamin is a retelling of ‘Ethan Frome’ by Edith Wharton. Because I only selectively read book descriptions before diving in, I did not know that the story was a retelling of a classic. I had not read ‘Ethan Frome’ (I have now!) But I don’t think it would have changed my reading of ‘The Smash-up’ too much.
Thank you to Riverrun books for sending me this gifted copy!
Thank you to Riverrun books for sending me this gifted copy!
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Thanks to Random House for a free finished copy of this title, which was published on Feb 23, 2021. I'm writing this review voluntarily.
The Smash-Up is a realist fiction novel set in a small Massachusetts town in Sept 2018, but it's also a loose re-imagining of Edith Wharton's classic novella Ethan Frome. The book tackles contemporary issues ripped from the headlines, like the rise of the #MeToo movement, the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, and the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
The book follows Ethan, a middle-age white married man who's generally unhappy and restless with his life. His current web design work is unfulfilling, and his skeezy former business partner is being accused of sexual abuse--a scandal where Ethan will have to take a side. Ethan's wife Zo has recently become politically radicalized, so she's constantly enraged and more concerned with her local activist group than her film-making job. Alex, Ethan and Zo's daughter, has behavioral disorders and is getting pushed out of her fancy private school by judgmental parents. Then there's Maddy Silver, the family's free spirit millennial live-in babysitter, who Ethan simultaneously wants to parent and bang (ie he's appalled by her doing gig economy sex work over the internet, but wants to have an affair with her himself). The family serves as an inevitable powder-keg--a microcosm of our current political reality that will eventually explode into stressful accusation and frustration. And violent tragedy.
I want to say upfront that I'm not the audience for this book; I tend to find these narratives--white liberals suddenly realize everything sucks after the Trump election, when it's been bad this entire time--pretty politically exhausting. Ali Benjamin's book, however, is incredibly well-written, and it also succeeds more than other books of this type (like Barbara Kingsolver's annoying Unsheltered) by making all the characters genuinely complicated, as opposed to puppets for the author's political views. Sometimes I got where Ethan was coming from, but watching him struggle to make a decision about basic human decency for monetary reasons was really frustrating (I get it, it's systemic pressure coming from capitalism, not an individual fault, but c'mon man). Sometimes I really identified with Zo's anger, but it was irritating to see her force herself into the police brutality narrative as a white woman, as opposed to being an ally to the Black Lives Matter movement. Sometimes I loved Maddy's rage at her elders and her "who cares" attitude, but I also wished she'd show more of an interest in progressive politics, like a lot of us millennials do.
All of this fraught imperfection makes for a compelling story, but the ending feels pretty forced. But that raises the question: how do you successfully end a novel that's so rooted in current politics, in ongoing social justice conflicts with no end in sight? Honestly, I have no idea. I can't imagine writing a book like this. Kudos to Ali Benjamin for giving it a decent shot.
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Car accident
Minor: Drug use
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
The Smash-Up is hard to define. It’s a novel (that’s easy) that encompasses the lives of one family but it also covers problems much larger than one town and at times, even the USA. Some themes are universal, some are local. It’s a ball of rage, unrest and unfairness set the in the Trump era told from the point of view of a white middle class man, but before you move on – it’s not like that. It’s a balanced portrayal of #MeToo, American politics and not fitting in to the cultural norms.
Zo and Ethan were once a couple with big dreams. She was a film maker; he was part of the internet revolution. But Ethan sold out his share and now designs websites for doctors who cherry pick evidence to suit and Zo is far too busy being angry to work on her current project. She’s part of a female activist group (All Them Witches) and is trying to get their daughter Alex in to see a paediatrician. Alex doesn’t fit in with the other kids at her private school – she’s a chatterbox and moves at a million miles per hour. Even some of her classmates’ parents are starting to question whether she belongs with their little darlings. Alex is also incredibly fun. Ethan is lost as Zo moves further away, always seeming angry (or ordering furniture online). His solace is through quiet morning walks to the local diner where he engages with his neighbours, conversations with the local UPS store employee and a weird kind of fixation with their houseguest. He’s there to attempt to pick up the pieces – oh and to try to stop a former employee of his company (now world-famous actress) from joining a class action against the co-founder.
The novel has some funny moments, as well as some jaw dropping ones. While Ethan is fairly predictable, Zo is not. She goads the police into arresting her and sometimes it seems her anger has no limits, no matter how big or small the target is. Ethan is by no means the stereotypical hero, as he spends a lot of time pondering the ‘right’ thing to do, whether it be blackmailing someone or returning a rug without telling Zo. One part I did enjoy were the flashbacks to Ethan’s company, Bränd, and their new style of marketing. It was more light hearted and fun to read about big, bold ideas after the minutiae of Ethan’s life. The ending was very powerful and really grabbed my interest as it was so unexpected (but maybe it shouldn’t have been).
Overall, The Smash-Up is very well written and held my interest as it tackled big issues from a small-town viewpoint.
Thank you to Hachette for the copy of this book. My review is honest.
Zo and Ethan were once a couple with big dreams. She was a film maker; he was part of the internet revolution. But Ethan sold out his share and now designs websites for doctors who cherry pick evidence to suit and Zo is far too busy being angry to work on her current project. She’s part of a female activist group (All Them Witches) and is trying to get their daughter Alex in to see a paediatrician. Alex doesn’t fit in with the other kids at her private school – she’s a chatterbox and moves at a million miles per hour. Even some of her classmates’ parents are starting to question whether she belongs with their little darlings. Alex is also incredibly fun. Ethan is lost as Zo moves further away, always seeming angry (or ordering furniture online). His solace is through quiet morning walks to the local diner where he engages with his neighbours, conversations with the local UPS store employee and a weird kind of fixation with their houseguest. He’s there to attempt to pick up the pieces – oh and to try to stop a former employee of his company (now world-famous actress) from joining a class action against the co-founder.
The novel has some funny moments, as well as some jaw dropping ones. While Ethan is fairly predictable, Zo is not. She goads the police into arresting her and sometimes it seems her anger has no limits, no matter how big or small the target is. Ethan is by no means the stereotypical hero, as he spends a lot of time pondering the ‘right’ thing to do, whether it be blackmailing someone or returning a rug without telling Zo. One part I did enjoy were the flashbacks to Ethan’s company, Bränd, and their new style of marketing. It was more light hearted and fun to read about big, bold ideas after the minutiae of Ethan’s life. The ending was very powerful and really grabbed my interest as it was so unexpected (but maybe it shouldn’t have been).
Overall, The Smash-Up is very well written and held my interest as it tackled big issues from a small-town viewpoint.
Thank you to Hachette for the copy of this book. My review is honest.
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes