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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
I had a real hard time sympathizing with the rich, spoiled, self-centred female protagonist who spends the entirety of the novel "growing" by constantly whining, riding the coattails of her ambitious boyfriend and well-connected family, remaining uninteresting and not very bright (despite a Yale education), and wondering why all the men in her life treat her terribly. This is a brutal depiction of an educated, privileged millennial woman entering the workforce during the 2008 economic crisis (just like me!!) who, rather than build a resume by volunteering, picking up hobbies and generally inserting herself into New York society, instead jumps from one man to the next when she doesn't feel like she's getting the attention she deserves. And--spoiler alert--she's still a piece of crap at the end.
I struggled between rating this with 3 or 4 stars. On the one hand the writing is great, the plot mostly realistic, and the author captures the feelings and struggles of post-undergrad life. However, the two main characters are pretty selfish, terrible people so it was hard to sympathize with their poor choices. I wanted to give up on them many times but the writing was good so I persevered. The ending was satisfying for both of the characters so ultimately I think it’s worth 4 stars.
Enjoyed the telling of a relationship from both sides. If I had to hear one more time that Abby and jake we’re still surprisingly happy I would have stopped reading.
Gambling on the future involves risk. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. Mostly, we make mistakes, restart, and move on. There are no guarantees in life. If we can learn from our errors, we improve our chance of success in the future.
The Futures is the story of young people growing up in a specific time in America, but the lessons are universal.
Julia and Evan meet at college. Their relationship is not perfect but they love each other. When Evan is offered a job too good to be true, working for a financial company in New York City, he imagines a glorious future with wealth, status, and success. Julia tags along, with no idea of what she wants to do with her life.
As Evan's work consumes his energy and soul, Julia feels neglected. At twenty-two, she thinks, she should have more than lonely evenings, a boyfriend too distracted and tired to even consider her needs, and a job she hates.
Communication, intimacy and mutual support compromised, each is drawn to other lovers. In anger, Julia betray's Evan's involvement in a bribery scandal in a futures trade for his boss.
I admit I passed on this book for quite a while because I thought I was too old. I have 60+ years of experience in relationships. I've made plenty of mistakes along the way. And I share some things with Julia and Evan: I moved as a young twenties to a big city, looked for work during the 1970s economic downturn, and ended up in a job I hated: customer service for an insurance company. Meantime, my husband's new career left him full of self-doubt and anxiety.
It turned out that I understood Julia and Evan much better than I thought I would.
Knowing who you are, choosing a career that maintains your integrity, and learning how to love is what being in one's twenties is all about. We must discard childish selfishness in relationships, and learn not to depend on the approval and affirmation from others. Emotional maturity involves forgiving ourselves, and those we love, for being merely human.
Anna Pitoniak has captured this aspect of the human experience.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Futures is the story of young people growing up in a specific time in America, but the lessons are universal.
Julia and Evan meet at college. Their relationship is not perfect but they love each other. When Evan is offered a job too good to be true, working for a financial company in New York City, he imagines a glorious future with wealth, status, and success. Julia tags along, with no idea of what she wants to do with her life.
As Evan's work consumes his energy and soul, Julia feels neglected. At twenty-two, she thinks, she should have more than lonely evenings, a boyfriend too distracted and tired to even consider her needs, and a job she hates.
Communication, intimacy and mutual support compromised, each is drawn to other lovers. In anger, Julia betray's Evan's involvement in a bribery scandal in a futures trade for his boss.
I admit I passed on this book for quite a while because I thought I was too old. I have 60+ years of experience in relationships. I've made plenty of mistakes along the way. And I share some things with Julia and Evan: I moved as a young twenties to a big city, looked for work during the 1970s economic downturn, and ended up in a job I hated: customer service for an insurance company. Meantime, my husband's new career left him full of self-doubt and anxiety.
It turned out that I understood Julia and Evan much better than I thought I would.
Knowing who you are, choosing a career that maintains your integrity, and learning how to love is what being in one's twenties is all about. We must discard childish selfishness in relationships, and learn not to depend on the approval and affirmation from others. Emotional maturity involves forgiving ourselves, and those we love, for being merely human.
Anna Pitoniak has captured this aspect of the human experience.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Good - predictable and the ending dragged a bit but I enjoyed the book. Very relatable for the right person.
Well written, unoriginal story about 20-something’s in NYC, during the 2008 financial collapse. I wish a new story about life in NY would be written — more Collin McCann than Philip Roth, would be good. At least this isn’t about a professor and student.
Evan and Julia are college sweethearts trying to make a go of it as adults in NYC. He gets mixed up with some Wall Street business, she has a boring job and is lonely. Their relationship implodes as things get worse. It wasn’t a page turner and could be depressing, but it was well written and a decent read overall.
I’m sure this book will resonate with lots of people - it’s an accurate exploration of that weird liminal period between leaving university and actually becoming a functioning adult. The characters are complex, if not particularly sympathetic, and there are some insightful moments. Unfortunately though, I struggled a bit with the constant flashbacks and chronological tomfoolery.
The story follows young couple Julia and Evan in the year after they leave Yale and move into an apartment together on the Upper East Side of New York. Evan gets a disgustingly well paid job at a hedge fund and Julia gets a job at a charity through her family’s wealthy connections (see what I mean about them not being sympathetic?). While they think they have it all planned out, both soon realise that their dream life - and their relationship - isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and things begin to unravel.
For me, this would have been much more compelling if the author had stuck to just one timeline. The chapters alternate between Evan’s and Julia’s POV so there’s already a bit of jumping around, but the narrative also moves forward and backward in time from paragraph to paragraph and sometimes I found this genuinely confusing. I like books with flashbacks and timey-wimey bits as much as the next woman, but here it was just badly done.
Also, it’s set in 2008 around the time of the economic crisis and yet it might as well not be. The characters are so privileged that the downturn barely affects them, and any observations about the crisis felt shallow and cursory. As someone who graduated during the depth of that recession (in 2009), and felt the brunt of it, I was looking forward to more analysis of how it affected people. I was disappointed.
In all, this was a compelling read and very assured for a debut novel.
(With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an honest review)
The story follows young couple Julia and Evan in the year after they leave Yale and move into an apartment together on the Upper East Side of New York. Evan gets a disgustingly well paid job at a hedge fund and Julia gets a job at a charity through her family’s wealthy connections (see what I mean about them not being sympathetic?). While they think they have it all planned out, both soon realise that their dream life - and their relationship - isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and things begin to unravel.
For me, this would have been much more compelling if the author had stuck to just one timeline. The chapters alternate between Evan’s and Julia’s POV so there’s already a bit of jumping around, but the narrative also moves forward and backward in time from paragraph to paragraph and sometimes I found this genuinely confusing. I like books with flashbacks and timey-wimey bits as much as the next woman, but here it was just badly done.
Also, it’s set in 2008 around the time of the economic crisis and yet it might as well not be. The characters are so privileged that the downturn barely affects them, and any observations about the crisis felt shallow and cursory. As someone who graduated during the depth of that recession (in 2009), and felt the brunt of it, I was looking forward to more analysis of how it affected people. I was disappointed.
In all, this was a compelling read and very assured for a debut novel.
(With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an honest review)