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alfia's review
2.0
Yikes. As my millellial-aged kid said, "it sounds like a 30 year old's Tumblr". While there are smatterings of lovely prose describing nature and food, the protagonist is so poorly written, and so unlikeable, that this was a very annoying slog. After coming into a considerable inheritance, 28-year old Lottie abruptly abandons her career teaching high school history. She decides to become a professional painter despite having little prior experience. Along the way she criticizes and punishes others, even those who applaud her efforts, and tries to justify herself by rattling off righteous platitudes and recommending we read Antonio Gramsci. She repeatedly bangs the reader over the head with declarations of how "different" she is, how forthright and fearless, about her "turning points", her "big fat secret" (BFS), and ostensibly how very damaged she is by her narcissistic mother. She epitomizes the whiny, entitled trust-fund kid who hyperbolizes perceived indignities.
Spoilers below:
Everyone in this novel who is portrayed with any sympathy agrees that cutting someone's hair off while they sleep and setting a building ablaze are appropriate responses to feeling unloved by a narcissistic parent, despite there having been no substance abuse, neglect, physical, or sexual abuse. Just bizarre. Read like the diary of someone with borderline personality disorder.
Spoilers below:
Everyone in this novel who is portrayed with any sympathy agrees that cutting someone's hair off while they sleep and setting a building ablaze are appropriate responses to feeling unloved by a narcissistic parent, despite there having been no substance abuse, neglect, physical, or sexual abuse. Just bizarre. Read like the diary of someone with borderline personality disorder.
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