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A review by ajb24
Pulp by Robin Talley
3.0
I have mixed feelings about this book. The Janet storyline was definitely stronger than Abby's. I was just overall way more interested in the struggles Janet was facing than what Abby was dealing with, which made Janet's chapters more compelling. Although, both girls did have a tendency to be annoyingly dense at times.
In general Abby's chapters were a slog to get through. I didn't find her likable or sympathetic at all. From an abstract level, I can see where someone might relate to Abby's experience of losing herself in fictional worlds to escape a difficult home life. In practice, however, I never got a full sense of why her parents were having such problems. It was established as "a thing," but then she was so bratty and evasive for what seemed like really weak reasons. Even the "big fight" that her parents have that leads to her and Lynne breaking up was so, anticlimactic? Or I just never got the sense of where the tension was...I don't know how to explain because I'm sure that having your parents yell at each other makes things really awkward and tense, but I couldn't find a way to sympathize with how it was presented. It seemed like a huge deal was being made of like, one big fight, but like, why are they fighting?? There was no underlying cause, the parents just suddenly didn't like each other anymore and Abby went around all mopey.
There was also multiple instances where Abby was really obnoxious about how amazing the Marion Love book was and was all "HoW cOulD yOu NOT KnoOoOwwW about this ONE pulp book when it's mildly famous within this ONE genre of novels." Really I was just irritated by how irritated SHE got when talking with the queer historian. Like, queer history is so much broader than your ONE novel, maybe take your superiority complex down a notch??
OH and her college application anxiety was never resolved, and it wasn't really explained what her hesitation was?? I guess she was trying to get her parents' attention by not applying, but her complaints seemed like a deeper "why is this my prescribed future" type of thing. And I think that would've been interesting if she had had an honest conversation with her mom or teacher or someone and actually said "hey, I'm unsure if I even wanna go to college because I'm not ready to make these big decisions in my life." But NO. Instead, she was just really rude to Lynne by being really aggressively against college applications without explaining any underlying issues she was struggling with. THAT leads into my second annoyance with how she treated Lynne. WHY was she SO surprised that Lynne thought Abby wanted to break up and not get back together? GIRL, it's because you don't SAY anything! She's so in her head alllll the time, and then anything she says out loud is like "I'm fine! Don't worry!" or "Leave me alone!" or something else that's unnecessarily confrontational given the conversation, but of course she wouldn't express her feelings or anything like that. No, she just fixates on this one pulp novel for reasons unknowable to her friends, and then she gets MAD at them for bringing up valid questions like "hey! why don't you wanna tour this college?" or "why haven't you started on any homework?"
My 3-star rating is basically only for the Janet chapters lol
In general Abby's chapters were a slog to get through. I didn't find her likable or sympathetic at all. From an abstract level, I can see where someone might relate to Abby's experience of losing herself in fictional worlds to escape a difficult home life. In practice, however, I never got a full sense of why her parents were having such problems. It was established as "a thing," but then she was so bratty and evasive for what seemed like really weak reasons. Even the "big fight" that her parents have that leads to her and Lynne breaking up was so, anticlimactic? Or I just never got the sense of where the tension was...I don't know how to explain because I'm sure that having your parents yell at each other makes things really awkward and tense, but I couldn't find a way to sympathize with how it was presented. It seemed like a huge deal was being made of like, one big fight, but like, why are they fighting?? There was no underlying cause, the parents just suddenly didn't like each other anymore and Abby went around all mopey.
There was also multiple instances where Abby was really obnoxious about how amazing the Marion Love book was and was all "HoW cOulD yOu NOT KnoOoOwwW about this ONE pulp book when it's mildly famous within this ONE genre of novels." Really I was just irritated by how irritated SHE got when talking with the queer historian. Like, queer history is so much broader than your ONE novel, maybe take your superiority complex down a notch??
OH and her college application anxiety was never resolved, and it wasn't really explained what her hesitation was?? I guess she was trying to get her parents' attention by not applying, but her complaints seemed like a deeper "why is this my prescribed future" type of thing. And I think that would've been interesting if she had had an honest conversation with her mom or teacher or someone and actually said "hey, I'm unsure if I even wanna go to college because I'm not ready to make these big decisions in my life." But NO. Instead, she was just really rude to Lynne by being really aggressively against college applications without explaining any underlying issues she was struggling with. THAT leads into my second annoyance with how she treated Lynne. WHY was she SO surprised that Lynne thought Abby wanted to break up and not get back together? GIRL, it's because you don't SAY anything! She's so in her head alllll the time, and then anything she says out loud is like "I'm fine! Don't worry!" or "Leave me alone!" or something else that's unnecessarily confrontational given the conversation, but of course she wouldn't express her feelings or anything like that. No, she just fixates on this one pulp novel for reasons unknowable to her friends, and then she gets MAD at them for bringing up valid questions like "hey! why don't you wanna tour this college?" or "why haven't you started on any homework?"
My 3-star rating is basically only for the Janet chapters lol