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A review by cortnyjoy
You & I, Rewritten by Chip Pons
3.0
After following Chip on Instagram for a couple of years, knowing he is an avid reader, and hearing how personally he wrote YOU AND I, REWRITTEN, I was really excited and hopeful to read his debut novel. I've written this review numerous times and ways, putting off the posting until now. It pains me to say it, but I was very underwhelmed.
YIRW (why isn't it YAIR? Or YIR?) is a beautiful story of love, friendship, family, and the full-circle nature of life. It touches on many heavy, relatable themes: anxiety, step-parents, loss of a parent, substance abuse, childhood trauma, fathers and sons, lifelong friendship, being seen and chosen, military sexual trauma, grief, guilt, and others. Unfortunately, I didn't think any were explored deep enough to do them justice. (Sometimes, including them WITHOUT exploration made the approach feel like tokenism. I've heard Chip talk on this story a lot, and I'm sure that was not his intent. But, it's a risk that comes with having a lot of buzz words in a short novel.) I wanted the book to be much tighter AND THEN much longer. Ditch the repetitive, unnecessary words and give us some action...some body sensations...some intensity. Show us the emotions and experiences instead of just naming all of them.
In the beginning, I kept thinking, "Rock on, Chip! This book is full of writing sins, yet somehow, it works!" Except, it didn't work for long, despite my respect for breaking the mold and flipping the bird to all the rules we place on art. Eventually, the over-used adverbs and redundant adjectives pulled me out of the story and became more patronizing than helpful, making it read like an early draft instead of a polished novel. As I watched Chip share about YIRW, I often thought, "This timeline seems SO fast, but he must know what he's doing and have an awesome team. He is set up for big-time success, and wouldn't risk rushing this book into the world until it is as close to perfection as possible." As I read, it felt like rushing is exactly what happened, and I think all the issues I had with YIRW could have been solved with a few more rounds of intense editing--the verbosity, lack of sentence variety, plot development/depth, telling not showing, etc.
Subjectively, I care about Chip, respect how difficult it is to put such personal work into the world for everyone to assess, and admire his vulnerability. I think YIRW has the plotline of a truly great story. Objectively, I cannot rate this book based on its potential or how easy it is to like the person who wrote it.
YIRW (why isn't it YAIR? Or YIR?) is a beautiful story of love, friendship, family, and the full-circle nature of life. It touches on many heavy, relatable themes: anxiety, step-parents, loss of a parent, substance abuse, childhood trauma, fathers and sons, lifelong friendship, being seen and chosen, military sexual trauma, grief, guilt, and others. Unfortunately, I didn't think any were explored deep enough to do them justice. (Sometimes, including them WITHOUT exploration made the approach feel like tokenism. I've heard Chip talk on this story a lot, and I'm sure that was not his intent. But, it's a risk that comes with having a lot of buzz words in a short novel.) I wanted the book to be much tighter AND THEN much longer. Ditch the repetitive, unnecessary words and give us some action...some body sensations...some intensity. Show us the emotions and experiences instead of just naming all of them.
In the beginning, I kept thinking, "Rock on, Chip! This book is full of writing sins, yet somehow, it works!" Except, it didn't work for long, despite my respect for breaking the mold and flipping the bird to all the rules we place on art. Eventually, the over-used adverbs and redundant adjectives pulled me out of the story and became more patronizing than helpful, making it read like an early draft instead of a polished novel. As I watched Chip share about YIRW, I often thought, "This timeline seems SO fast, but he must know what he's doing and have an awesome team. He is set up for big-time success, and wouldn't risk rushing this book into the world until it is as close to perfection as possible." As I read, it felt like rushing is exactly what happened, and I think all the issues I had with YIRW could have been solved with a few more rounds of intense editing--the verbosity, lack of sentence variety, plot development/depth, telling not showing, etc.
Subjectively, I care about Chip, respect how difficult it is to put such personal work into the world for everyone to assess, and admire his vulnerability. I think YIRW has the plotline of a truly great story. Objectively, I cannot rate this book based on its potential or how easy it is to like the person who wrote it.