A review by sonygaystation
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

Did not finish book. Stopped at 29%.

 This book was not good. Extremely cringey. I barely could even get into it which was disappointing considering my other first read of 2022 was also a DNF dud. Maybe I'm judging too prematurely because let's be real I think I got less than 30% of the way in but when the first five minutes opens with the main character swimming and her thinking a snapping turtle is gonna come up and chomp on her because it smells her vagina? I'm out dawg. I really tried, I promise I did. I thought maybe if I just ignored the author's weird obsession with the way her "sex" smells (sidebar I absolutely hate the sex euphemism for cuca but that's a me problem) I could muscle through it but I was so wrong and I love myself too much to put myself through a book that sucks in the year of our Lorde 2022. I feel like there's this growing trend of women trying to emulate the really annoyingly masculine way some very popular male authors write and I already hate it when the men do it. It's hard for me to describe but it's like that super gritty trying to be rough around the edges way of writing that just absolutely is NOT the style for me. I put a hold on this in Nov 2021 and got it in January 2022 and the wait was not worth it!!!! Also major tw for sexual child abuse??? Fuck all the way off honestly