Jenny Fran DavisReseñas

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for sending this book for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Can a single livestream derail the lives of 3 queer couples over the course of a ten-day holiday trip or will they survive the booze and drug-filled time only minorly bruised?

If you’re a fan of Otessa Moshfegh or Mona Awad but you find yourself wishing their books were more outwardly queer, then I have the story for you! Sasha and Jesse are a young queer couple approaching one year of dating. To mark the occasion they head off on a holiday vacation with a well-known older lesbian couple, Jules and Miranda. To Sasha’s dismaythis group also includes Jules’s best friend Lou, and their influencer socialite turned artist girlfriend Darcy. Whose Instagram Sasha has been privately stalking. Although starting off cordial the group slowly devolves into a fit of betrayal, misunderstanding, and mushroom-induced arguments. Forcing protagonist Sasha to navigate her own insecurities alongside a tumultuous relationship and a curious wandering eye.

As the days unfold she knows she must come to terms with her jealousy of Jesse and Darcy’s budding friendship. However, this begins to prove itself increasingly difficult as their interactions turn sour. Darcy’s effortlessly cool vibe undermines Sasha at every turn. Not to mention her and Jesse’s oh-so-secret livestream taking place at the end of the trip. What could those two be planning? And she can’t help but notice the growing peculiarities of Jules and Miranda’s relationship. Are those cracks she senses? Sasha is determined to find the truth while trying not to show how attracted to Jules she is. Or how intimidated by Darcy she is. Or how insecure she is about her relationship with Jesse. Easy, right?

If you enjoyed Detransion, Baby, or Eileen in the sense that you have no idea if the story you’re getting is the truth or some skewed reality then I would recommend this read. I did enjoy this book but it was quite a wild ride. Sasha is my perfect example of an unreliable narrator. Her way of viewing the world reminds me of Eileen from Eileen or Ren from Chlorine. The way in which she openly allows her biases and opinions to cloud her version of reality just goes to show how deluded some of us can be. And mainly being a linear story from Sasha’s POV allows for a crucial understanding of her inner workings. Although we do receive multiple POVs a few times. My favorite was the brief POV from Sasha’s dog. It was so sudden and normally an intrusion like that would bring me out of the story. But the way it slowly weaved in just worked. Kudos to the author for that one.

Sasha’s determination to remain stubborn and participate in her game was surprisingly endearing. Once she decided on something she really dug her heels in and I respect that. I wouldn’t say I necessarily liked Sasha’s character in the sense that I would want to be her friend or date. But I empathized with her complex web of emotions. She is very self-aware of why she does the things she does. But in the true fashion of mental illness, is powerless to stop herself from making the same decisions. I think a lot of people, myself included, can relate to that feeling of helplessness in spite of knowing exactly what led you to this point. So even though I was frustrated with her, I never once rooted against her.

I will say the actions of everyone in this book are absolutely wild though. It goes to great lengths to showcase how truly messy being queer can be. No couple or even individual is immune to the chaos that ensues on this holiday trip. It is really hard to pick a favorite scene because something was always going wrong. In a good way though, it keeps you interested and invested. I never knew what was going to come next in terms of plot.

I really only have two qualms with this book. One is how gross it is at times. I’m kind of a squeamish person and when Sasha talked about how they fed their eye boogies to their dog I threw up a little in my mouth. So I do not recommend if you are the squeamish type. It’s not the entire book but it doesn’t hold back at the gross-out factor. My second “issue” I guess you could say is the fact that two of the characters have J names, Jesse and Jules. So for the first 3 or so chapters, I was taken a little bit out of the story trying to keep the J characters straight. But other than those two minor issues I can’t think of anything that stood out to me as being “bad”.

I gave it three and a half stars because I did enjoy the book. I think it is well-written, the characters have depth and complexity, and the plot kept me gripped. However, I do not see myself re-reading this book. And I don’t mean that in a bad or negative way at all. It’s just one of those books where I recommend reading once because I think a re-read would take a certain magic out of the book. I was a fan of Sasha’s unreliable POV and uncertainty over what she or another character would do next. But knowing those answers would, for me at least, ruin parts of the book I really enjoyed.

All in all, if you’re a fan of unreliable narrators, literary fiction, and messy queer people this book is for you! I would recommend if you do have a slightly higher reading level. And I would also say this book is for you if you aren’t in a fragile place as a few content warnings are listed above. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think. Enjoy!

CW // self-harm, sexual violence, graphic and explicit violence, sexual assault, blood, anti-semitism, profanity, nudity, torture, cheating, depression, emotional abuse, misgendering, religion.

Good, clever, funny. Bristled at these aesthetic gays. Every queer novel seems like an homage to kink, but only as a moment of growth or climax, not as a part of queer life

"Gee, this sure reminds me of that High Femme Camp Antics essay I read a couple years ago!" -- me, an idiot, halfway through the first chapter of this book
I was scrolling through tiktok the other day when I came across a recommendation for a forthcoming debut novel about a group of funny, emotionally fraught lesbians spending the holidays together. I thought to myself, Wait a minute! I've seen that hideous cover before! and promptly requested it from NetGalley (thnx NetGalley!! XOXO). Then I thought, Wait a minute! I've read that hideous, self-absorbed, pathetically cruel attitude about lesbian gender relations before! and promptly scrolled through my digital folder of longform essays and articles.
Full disclosure -- I did not enjoy High Femme Camp Antics, Davis's 2020 essay, parts of which are inserted here wholesale but for the change from first to third person. Or maybe it would be truer to say that I didn't like Davis, as she presented herself in that essay -- she came across, I thought, as simultaneously pathetic and cruel, self-conscious but not at all self-aware. A nasty piece of work, I thought! The worst girl you know! It sounded like something a character in a Torrey Peters story would write. And yet -- I quite liked this and even found myself rooting for Sasha, the central character and presumed author avatar. I'm not sure I can articulate why -- Sasha is just as pretty and mean-spirited as Davis seems in HFCA, if not more so. But, my god, I just felt so bad for her! Everyone, from her partner to the universe at large, seems so determined to misunderstand her and frustrate her desires, awful as those desires may be. It's like she's stuck in kind of moral-emotional America's Funniest Home Videos, sometimes actually funny but more often painfully cringe-inducing.
All of that is to say that I liked this way more than I thought I would, and expect a lot of people -- especially the Otessa Moshfegh dark comedy set, or the lesbian auto-fiction set -- would like it as well, or at the very least have a lot of thoughts about it.

Very new age and self deprecating feminist novel. It’s definitely very progressive and there were a lot of intellectual discussions throughout, but maybe I’m not smart enough to understand all of it and it left me confused a lot of times.

I still think you should give it a try if you are interested in feminist YA. Maybe it just wasn’t exactly for me.

Flora is a very bright student, a feminist, a fan of fashion and she's fallen in love for the first time with Elijah. This leads her to enroll in a "radically inclusive" school. I'm glad the author used those words, I'd have had a hard time describing it.

This is a school that helps teach its students to be inclusive to everyone.
Great plan but sometimes it results in some really over the top ideas that would drive even the most "radically inclusive" a bit crazy. For example, there's a teenager that pees in her yard.

When Flora moves into one of the little shacks on campus, she feels like she's sticking out like a sore thumb. If you're someone that loves fashion, how do you define yourself in an environment where compliments about physical appearance and clothing is actually discouraged. (Again, a nice enough concept, but when it actually results in making someone uncomfortable it's not totally working)

I loved the epistolary style of writing. When I heard that was the book's format, I ordered it asap. I really enjoy that style of writing.
This book was told through letters, diary entries and the occasional emails.

I found this book to be super unique. I didn't actually know it was about a teenager when I bought it, I misunderstood at first that it was about two teachers who meet at school. But I'm glad I didn't know. It's really more of a universal story about someone trying to understand themselves and find their place in the world.
It got a little off course after Elijah's reappearance but maybe it's something that needed to happen to help Flora realize she shouldn't let anyone else define her.

So not what I was expecting! At first glance, I didn't think I could like a story about a privileged girl in a school where they talk about social constructs, feminism, and the like but I really got into Flora's life. She was this smart rich girl that loved fashion and was infatuated with an older boy. She learned so much about herself that she moved beyond that image. Very unexpectedly lovely and some phenomenal writing.

Flora becomes a fashion icon when she meets this older boy who's tutoring her and happens to be popular online for his photography. ... An older boy taking pictures of a girl that's younger than him and highly impressionable... yeah if that isn't a bad sign for what's to come for Flora, I don't know what is... Anyways, she's so enamored by his charm that she decides it's a good idea to follow him to a new school she really doesn't know too much about because if she did, she would have never gone there. The boarding school is basically like living Amish, very progressive, independent, but not down with anything that makes Flora, Flora. Needless to say, she has a tough time fitting in and worse of all, Elijah, our charming photographer, never shows up. Ah, how she learns so much about Elijah and his ways. Oh, how I wanted to strangle that man child.

I enjoyed that the writing was comprised of emails, journal entries, letters, and website articles. It's not something you read everyday. Actually, nothing about this story was anything like I've ever read or have ever seen being marketed for YA before. There's something about this unique story that drew me in. The characters, Flora's conflicts, and the way Flora learned so much about herself or at least started to explore who she is surprised me. It's a very unexpectedly likable read. Honestly, I've been so tired of the same old thing in YA where the mysterious boy turns up and is the only one the MC can talk to and blah, blah, blah. Everything Must Go was funny and refreshing. It did end strangely but I felt like I went on a journey with Flora and that's kind of what you want when you read a book. This is Davis' first book so I'm expecting a lot more great reads from her in the future.

Thanks to Goodreads and the publisher for a free copy of Everything Must Go!

In an effort to make a boy fall in love with her, Flora transfers from her high school to a small Quaker school. Fashion savvy, and model behind a popular fashion blog, she's suddenly in a world where comments on physical appearance are disallowed, lentil loaf is a common meal, and professors send emails about the experience of giving birth in a garden. Culture shock, to say the last.

As she makes her way through her first year, she comes up hard against issues of identity, authenticity, materialism, friendship, and consent. Readers piece together her story through emails, journal entries, letters, assignments, and more.

This is one of my favourite kinds of books -- serious issues told with much humour and snark. (The Marxist roommate/Planned Parenthood line, anyone?) There's a lot of thought-provoking content, too. A skewering of the idea that authenticity and fashion are somehow natural enemies to each other. A critique of apparently feminist publications that don't actually respect people's boundaries. And the author clearly knows her stuff when it comes to gender issues and alternative private schools.

There are a couple of things that didn't sit as well with me -- an infuriatingly neglectful lesbian mom, throwaway jokes about reusable menstrual products, jabs at gender-neutral childraising. These caught me a bit by surprise in a book that otherwise seemed very feminist. Having said that, were they consistent for Flora's narrative? Of a relatively privileged girl who probably has never seen a cloth pad in her life? Absolutely.

So, I guess the overall point is, if you're into Jane Eyre, books told in letters, feminism, and fashion, give this one a shot.

A young adult novel geared to a high school aged (girls) crowd. The heroine (Flora) is smitten by an artist friend to the point that she attends a smell prep school that he went to years before. They he meet when he chooses her as a clothes model for fashion website that goes viral. At the new school she is an outcast at first but later through her own creativity she becomes an artist in her own right. The book has lots of emails, letters and excerpts from other media. I think that the book will be quite popular with the audience for which it was intended.

This is yet another entry into the rich-teens-in-boarding-schools-have-issues category. This young adult novel is made up of letters, press clippings, and other documents assembled by the fictional narrator, Flora Goldwasser, to tell what happened when she first had her heart broken.

When she was 16, Flora had a crush on a teacher, Elijah Huck, at her elite school in New York. Elijah was not only a history teacher but also a photographer, and admired Flora’s style. Flora was into vintage clothes and crafting her image as a “stylista." Flora agreed to pose for him in her chic retro outfits all around the city, but with her face obscured. Elijah started a blog featuring the photos, identifying Flora as “Miss Tulip.” The blog went viral, with many fan girls trying to imitate Flora’s fashion choices.

Meanwhile, Elijah encouraged Flora to transfer to Quare Academy, a hippie Quaker school he attended in the Hudson Valley, and where he planned to teach the following year. Flora, thinking this was her chance to ensnare Elijah, transferred to the school. Immediately though, she felt like an outsider, judged negatively by the others in this place where paying attention to the “shell” of a person was not only discouraged but considered anathema. She was all about channeling the looks of Jackie Kennedy, while her small group of classmates were focused on their inner selves. To make matters worse, Elijah changed his plans and went elsewhere.

The rest of the story details Flora’s adjustment, and her eventual confrontation with Elijah.

The author has said in an interview that the story largely came from her own life; she too transferred from a posh school in Manhattan to an “alternative, farm, social-justice boarding school…. [with] people who wore tattered shirts and ate a lot of lentils and stuff like that.”

While some of the commentary in the book is wickedly funny (reminding one of Maria Semple skewering Seattle in Where’d You Go Bernadette) it is unclear if the author is making satirical meta-observations about attempts by rich liberals to identify with those who have less, or if the "satire" was my own projection, with the author actually identifying with her protagonist.

Either way, the angst and self-absorption of the 1% can be off-putting. The story is witty enough, but in the end, there doesn’t seem like there is much there there. And I was never convinced Flora was a very sympathetic character.

Thanks to Goodreads and Wednesday Books for this ARC.

I have to admit I usually don't read Young Adult but this book was adorable and charming like Flora Goldwasser. Full of emails, letters, and other conversations, it was sort of a fast read considering it was over 400 pages and took my time reading it.

I thought Flora was crazy for going to a small upstate NY junior and senior grade only school because of her tutor at her private school in Manhattan. I wouldn't say she was materialistic but I guess she was sort of until she got to Quare. The school itself was very different and she found her place there w/her plays, friends etc. She and the book was very quirky to say the least with her friends in Manhattan, her sister and her eccentric mother.