A review by casskrug
The Material by Camille Bordas

4.0

thank you to random house for sending me an arc, and happy pub day to the material!

this was one of those books that i simply looked forward to picking up every time i had a chance to read. i feel like this is as close to a romp as i’ll get - even though it deals with some heavy topics, it does so with the right balance of humor and levity. everyone in the cast of characters is dealing with their own personal issues - fraught family relationships, depression, loneliness - gathering anecdotes to use as material for their routines in the stand-up comedy MFA. this book asks questions about how we deal with the things that happen to us, who has the right to turn certain stories into jokes, and is such a fun yet touching look into the way we connect with others who we’re in forced proximity with. i also thought that the use of images within the book was helpful for some of the niche references that bordas makes, and is something i wish more novels did.

while i loved getting insight into the entire cast of characters, there were a few that i wish we had gotten a bit more backstory about. i also wanted a bit (see what i did there) more resolution from the ending, but since the story takes place over the course of a single day, i can see why we didn’t get neat, tied-up ends.

great writing and storytelling + dark humor = a shining example of how to add comedic elements to literary fiction!