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Anne

New favorite adult coming-of-age novel!

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2021

Looking for a moving yet optimistic followup to Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler? This is it!

Sometimes you read a book at just the right time for it to be uniquely profound to you, this was that book for me. I love books which have a very specific type of anxious and melancholic atmosphere balanced with brief moments of true euphoria. They are hard to execute well, but when I find them, they are instant personal favorites. Violet’s insecurities, wit, confusion, intelligence, and journey to find her place as an adult spoke so deeply and clearly to me.

I am so grateful to have read this book. I think it will be one of my favorite coming of age stories of the year!

Top reviews from other countries

Bionic Sarah

More than sex this is a book about love and female empowerment

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 24, 2021

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It’s hard to miss the hype for this book which tends to concentrate on the sex .Yea there is plenty of sex and steamy scenes but there is much more than this .There is a deep understanding of the insecurity buried deep in all of us ,of our desire to love and be loved ,to fit in and feel secure within our own bodies.
The young woman at the centre of the story violet is achingly insecure and lost in all elements of her life and you really feel for her as she gets entangled with a group of older people who enjoy group sex .It seems almost impossible that she will be able to escape without making more and more painful mistakes
Having said the sex scenes were not the only reason for reading this book they are very steamy .I did however find myself thinking too hard about whether some of the group scenes were anatomically possible .I imagine the author with her friends giggling as they tried to prove it could be done .An idea maybe for the next book club when covid makes getting together possible
I loved the humour that was very evident throughout the book it had a self deprecating element which was charming in itself
All in all a great read I’m sure it will be in everyone’s holiday case or kindle

n c cook

Full of smut

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 10, 2023

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Worth a read for the mucky bit, otherwise it’s not a very sophisticated story line

symbolman

Enjoy The Ride

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 8, 2021

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This is a very captivating book. Violet is a brilliantly written and very believable character. It is a rollercoaster of a plot which moves along very well until towards the end. The first person narrative works extremely well for this story and I loved the way all Violet's inner conflicts are there for us to see. I am not a massive fan of sex scenes in books, but of course the subject itself always makes for a interesting read. But generally they are well written, and cliches are avoided. My only reservation with this book is the joining up of everything towards the end. There is far too much going on, and unfortunately the carefully crafted plot up this point begins to fall apart. This happened with another otherwise brilliant book (Putney - Sofka Zinovieff) and I wish book editors would work with authors to avoid this kind of thing.
That's why I have given it four stars, but still one of the most entertaining books I have read for a while.

Gemma

Lots of characters

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 1, 2021

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This book had a few too many characters in it for me.

So I felt like I didn’t know all that much about many of them. Especially the men.

I could picture Violet, her ex and two of the women in my head.

When reading it, I did end up getting bored in the middle. I even ended up reading another novel instead before finishing!

Once I picked it up again and got to 3/4 of the way through, I started to enjoy and found it interesting and couldn’t call what was going to happen next.

There were a few unanswered things in this novel.

Some of the sex scenes were fairly intense, some were confusing which made them boring.

I wouldn’t call it book of the year or anything like that. But its certainly different and worth a read if you like the sound of it.

Michael Tappenden

Witty, clever honest -

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2021

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- the book offers a sharp and often poignant insight into the world of a Millenial struggling to cope in a modern city.
Violet is a young woman trying to find her way in an urban world in a job with no prospects, poor pay, with heavy debt, obnoxious men, an inadequate wardrobe, Facebook and Tinder.
The descriptions of her own feelings, lack of confidence and sense of inevitability and exclusion are heartfelt whilst the observations of those around her are often sharp and witty.
The book contains a number of group sex scenes which rapidly lose their sense of arousal and gratification and instead become indicative of the inadequacies and failings of the participants, who use sex as a means of power and control or even revenge and in Violet's case as a means of their acceptance.
This is a book about women where men do not come out very well but none the less it is a fascinating and quirky insight into the modern world.

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