Reviews

We Play Ourselves by Jen Silverman

kristenpoel's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

frogsrockno2's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

stokesiedgt's review

medium-paced

3.75

reneereads's review

challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

brookljn's review

challenging emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

chillcox15's review

4.0

I think that the narrative of Jen Silverman's novel We Play Ourselves, is fairly familiar: it draws from many of the tropes of the "flailing millennial woman" well. A preternatural talent who self-sabotages and buys into anxieties brought about by more preternatural, younger talents decamps, and decamps, and decamps again. The cycle repeats, until our protagonist Cass is completely run dry. The level of detail, both in specificity and originality, shores up Silverman's novel and makes it a completely worthwhile read.

breadandmushrooms's review

dark emotional reflective slow-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

3.5

sapphisms's review against another edition

emotional funny inspiring slow-paced

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

3.75

librarygxrl's review

2.0

I really enjoyed the prose of this story. The writing was undeniably gorgeous and illustrative. I feel that most everything else fell short.
The general themes and message behind the story were interesting and I think they played out well for the first half of the story. I feel that the message kind of got lost after that in favor of incident-after-incident of characters being depressed and somehow clumsily relating it back to the struggles of women as a whole.
A couple of side characters were the only likable people in the story. Cass and Caroline were both terrible people and Cass constantly made mistakes I couldn't begin to understand. I thought there would be more resolve for the original scandal that landed her in LA to begin with, but this turned out to be an underwhelming incident and didn't seem like something she should have thrown her career away over. The ending felt disjointed from the entirely of the plot. Hate to bash on a new release like this, but the story progressed clumsily.

deannawhitlow's review

reflective medium-paced

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

3.75