Reviews

You know how you want to stop reading a book because it's so bad but you keep going because it's not quite that bad? This book is that bad. Just don't waste your time.

juliasilge's review against another edition

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3.0

First book of 2022! What I liked best about this Cold War story was the setting: a Jewish family home near Coney Island, the mid-century NYC publishing world, reflections back on time at Harvard.

andrea_author's review against another edition

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5.0

Editorial assistant Simon is given the job of editing a cheesy, salacious political thriller for his failing publisher of literary fiction. The owner's hope is that the titillating novel will provide the company with the infusion of cash needed to save it.

As Simon works with the author to improve the manuscript, the two embark on a wild and obsessive relationship. Simon soon realizes that more is going on with the book than meets the eye. If he goes along with the conspiracy, it will cost him his integrity. If he fights it, he'll lose his job, and possibly his freedom, or even his life.

I enjoyed this book. It's beautifully written and an engrossing read. I was disappointed by the conspiracy theory aspects of it—frankly, I think that's the last thing the world needs right now. But there's no denying that it's a brilliant novel.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

dee9401's review against another edition

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3.0

In another year, I might have rated this 2 stars but my 2 star books so far this year were much worse than this. I wanted to finish this book unlike those. The writing is good but I felt the plot was weak, sometimes contrived, and then too neatly and quickly wrapped up. I really enjoyed Prose’s Blue Angel.

frogglin's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

The story here, set in the early 50s at the time of the Rosenburg executions and into the McCarthy trials, is narrated by Simon Putnam. Simon is a recent Harvard graduate, is Jewish, and the son of a woman who knew Ethel Rosenburg.

When he's given a job at a publishing house and offered the chance to edit a novel, he's troubled to find it's a racy, barely fictionalised, retelling of Ethel Rosenburg's story. Simon is very strong in his morals, so he is torn between editing the book as it is, and tarnishing the memory of Ethel (and upsetting his mother) but keeping his job, or trying to steer the flighty and exotic author Anya in a more sensible direction.

I suspect I am too far away from the historical events mentioned here, as I'm Australian, but even so they feel familiar. I found Simon's constant turmoil to be repetitive. Whenever a new piece of information or barrier appears in his path, he asks the same questions and treads the same path as to why it's a challenge for him to deal with - morals, his mother, himself. After a while it started to feel like padding as every major story beat lead to the same thoughts.

Simon falls in love very easily, deciding he's forever devoted to someone from a mere glance over desk, or a photograph. It's faintly ridiculous. Overall though, an interesting and compelling story that takes a while to get going but pays off.

Content Warnings

tensy's review against another edition

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4.0

My rating is closer to a 3.5. My rating kept changing as I read this book. The beginning was absolutely a 5 and could win an award as a separate short story about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's infamous 1953 execution. How an author could make that funny is sheer genius. Then the first person narrator and plot started going downhill, as we spend way too much time in our narrator's head. Simon Putnam (a name that does not connote his Jewish ethnicity) is a newly hired editorial assistant at a prestigious publishing house, where Simon is assigned to edit a horribly written manuscript, The Vixen, about Ethel Rosenberg as a sex crazed secret agent for the Russians.

He knows the novel is awful, but yet he wants to please his boss Warren and manage to get this manuscript published. Throughout this section of the book I repeatedly wanted to yell at Simon to get a backbone already! In all honesty, at my age I have forgotten how vulnerable we feel and how much we try to please our superiors when we first get hired after college. I can still remember hating my first boss after law school and at the same time trying to impress and please him with my legal acumen (of which I had little at the time). This dichotomy is front and center in Simon's story and perhaps it made me uncomfortable reminding me of my younger self.

By the end, we get lots of plot twists, some we could see coming faster than poor Simon, but others were a nice surprise turn which brought me back to a 4 rating. Prose is a skillful writer, her non-fiction book [b:Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them|39934|Reading Like a Writer A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them|Francine Prose|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1335367374l/39934._SY75_.jpg|1435619] is one of my favorites. She has a sly sense of humor, "we contemplated a plot to dominate world opinion through commercial romance fiction." Reading this during the Trump era, made me aware that parts of the plot and characters were a metaphor for our own times. In the end, I never gave up finishing the book because, for whatever reason, I felt invested in Simon's story and his character does show growth by the end as his blinders come off, but I did put it down quite a bit in the process.

bianca89279's review against another edition

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3.0

2.5

My first encounter with Francine Prose's writing hasn't left a good impression on me.
Apologies to my GR friends who loved this novel, The Vixen did absolutely nothing for me.
It was an accessible novel, easy to read.
It begins with the Rosenbergs' execution in the 1950s, but it's also about Simon Putman, a recent Harvard graduate, who's a bit of a wet blanket, truth be told. Now, don't get me wrong, I like good guys, who are sensitive, introspective etc, but I never bought Simon as a real person. Usually, first-person narrated novels get me on the side of the narrator no matter their flaws. Still, this perfectly nice young man got on my nerves.
The Vixen is a body ripper novel whose main character is supposed to be Esther Rosenberg. Simon, the newly hired assistant editor, is given the task of editing it. The author is this sexy, mysterious young woman, who's inhabiting Simon's fantasies, even before he meets her. When they meet she looks just like in the photo he was given. There are some incongruences and question marks, but Simon is too busy drooling over her and having sex in public places, pretty much on each date. Simon is used like a human dildo. I never found those behaviours believable, even knowing that many men would not say no to free sex with a gorgeous woman, I just didn't buy the premise, the justifications, few as they were.
There are spies, CIA agents, pretenders, everyone has secrets - it's one tangled mess.
Also, Simon seems to fall for every half-decent looking woman who says hi to him, I found that somewhat perplexing.

I thought the storyline was incomprehensible, convoluted, I didn't get what Prose was trying to say/accomplish. It was as if I was trying to put together a puzzle by using the pieces belonging to other puzzles.

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