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A review by nashwa017
Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky
3.0
If I'm pausing reading to check if the author is white, that's almost never a good thing. I stopped to check that because you can just tell that a white person is writing about people of colour - in this case a Pakistani author who I think is loosely based on Mohsin Hamid and biracial twins. That just put me off a bit but other than that, the story is decent enough. We have a bunch of humans being who are vicious, vindictive, confused and generally behaving badly, in a very believable way.
This book tackles serious themes such as high school shootings, sexually transmitted diseases and includes a commentary on diversity - which again I was very confused by because "diversity hires" are discussed and it just rubs me the wrong way...
I also wouldn't recommend the audiobook because the Pakistani accent as portrayed by the female narrator was borderline offensive. It varied between Indian/Arabian/British accents and that was cringy. Just pick one lady, and stick to it. The male narrator - the actual Pakistani character - sounded Pakistani so that's kind of a win.
This book tackles serious themes such as high school shootings, sexually transmitted diseases and includes a commentary on diversity - which again I was very confused by because "diversity hires" are discussed and it just rubs me the wrong way...
I also wouldn't recommend the audiobook because the Pakistani accent as portrayed by the female narrator was borderline offensive. It varied between Indian/Arabian/British accents and that was cringy. Just pick one lady, and stick to it. The male narrator - the actual Pakistani character - sounded Pakistani so that's kind of a win.