Ann Scott (1)

2000. Really hate-read this. I thought all the characters were vapid and useless. Centers around Louise an utterly unlikable dipshit with a record deal. She does massive amounts of drugs and sleeps around with men and women. Though she’s at least 30, she falls hard for a seventeen year-old, her ex-girlfriend’s new girlfriend. Everyone in the book treats each other like shit and acts in the most selfish and self-defeating ways possible. They do herion, coke, ecstasy, and ketamine. Louise show more is always miserable. It’s impossible to imagine she’ll succeed at making a record before she blows her advance on drugs. She expresses basic contempt for lesbians, declaring herself straight again and again, while admitting she’s more into women. Loathsome people with their pathetic scene, that can’t possibly fulfill their empty lives. show less

LARB quarterly book club pick.

I thought this book was going to be about the rave scene in Paris in the 1990s (a music novel like Daisy Jones and the Six or Utopia Avenue). I was looking forward to it. It turned out to barely be about music or the rave scene. Instead, it is a coming of age story for a 31 year old.

Louise was into rock and men, then she switched to electronic music and women. Now she has gotten a contract. So she considers doing back to rock and her ex-boyfriend. Instead she show more hooks up with her (more successful) ex's 17-yo girlfriend who is still in high school. Louise is 31, is afraid of success, and does way too many drugs.

This was not good. It definitely was "a different time" but that is not always a good thing. show less