 Thanks to partners NetGalley and Penguin for the digital ARC of Ivy Pochoda’s Ecstasy. The book will be published on June 17!
I’ve seen many reviewers calling Ivy Pochoda’s Ecstasy a fever dream, and that feels exactly right. This loose retelling of The Bacchae (which I’ve read about but haven’t read) immerses the reader in a world of entitlement and luxury and oppression, in a battle between masculine and feminine forces, in a power struggle whose fate feels pre-determined. It was a one-sitting read for me. The book begins with a quartet of travelers (not “vacationers”—they’re too cultured to “vacation”) to the island of Naxos where Lena, her best friend Hedy, Lena’s son Drew, and Drew’s pregnant wife Jordan will stay at the family’s luxe hotel, which is in the last stages before its grand opening. Some of the dynamics become immediately clear. Lena and Hedy were dancers together until Lena married Stavros, who swept her away from the excitement of that life into an existence driven by an obsession with class and wealth and putting forth the right facade. It’s a world centered on Stavros in which Lena is a type of prop. Drew has clearly taken it upon himself to continue the dominant role of his father, who recently died on the island’s beach. When the group arrives, they find that there’s a major hiccup with the preparations: there’s a group of women who are refusing to leave the beach. They assert that it’s a cultural and historical landmark that belongs to the island, not to the hotel. Drew, of course, disagrees and is willing to do whatever it takes to eject them from the property. Legally, though, that’s a more complex proposition than he’s willing to accept. That’s the setup. What seems a fairly straightforward tale of class and misogyny quickly, however, shifts because of Luz, the leader of the women on the beach. As Lena is drawn into her circle—into drugs and dancing and unfettered self-expression—she begins to push back against the relationship dynamics that have controlled her life for so long. So much about this book worked for me. I appreciated the shifts in narrative perspective, which allow the reader a glimpse into the group’s slow immersion into surreality, and Pochoda’s writing is undeniably gorgeous. I thought that the changing group dynamics beautifully illuminated the messages of the book: the despicable Drew’s entitled, brought about by his wealth and his gender; the ways that Hedy served as a grounding influence for Lena; Jordan’s attempts to maintain her own agency in the face of Drew’s micromanaging and close-mindedness. I did wish, however, that parts of the book’s message were more subtle, some of the plot elements less predictable. Still, Ecstasy is an absorbing tale that is compelling and thought provoking.
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 Thanks to partners NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the digital ARC of Amanda Quain’s Dashed. The book will be published on July 16!
I have great, great affection for Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and I thoroughly enjoyed Amanda Quain’s Ghosted, a retelling of Northanger Abbey. That made Dashed, Quain’s retelling/modern continuation of Sense and Sensibility an easy pick for my TBR. Dashed focuses on Margaret Dashwood, the youngest sister in her family. In Austen’s book, she’s a sort of afterthought to Elinor and Marianne (the “sense” and “sensibility” of the title); here, she’s the center. During her childhood, she was more like Marianne—she was impulsive and extroverted and emotional. After Marianne’s yearning for a man she couldn’t have ended in tragedy for Marianne and Margaret, she vowed to be more like Elinor: controlled and independent and organized. That meant putting mental space between her and Marianne. Now, Margaret has graduated from high school and has planned to spend her summer on a cruise ship with Elinor and Elinor’s husband Edward, the chaplain on the ship. Her plans change rapidly when Marianne shows up, boards with the family, and drops the news that Brandon broke up with her. And she’s spending the summer with Elinor and Margaret. Immediately, Margaret panics, convinced that she’s going to fall back into a Marianne pattern . . . unless Margaret can find a new match for Marianne who will distract her and keep her on an even keel. (After all, she thinks, it’s only romantic attachments that anchor Marianne.) In the meantime, Marianne has her own plans for Margaret, who has never succumbed to love after seeing the turmoil it wrought with her sister. Marianne will go along with Margaret’s plans IF Margaret goes on some blind dates of her own. Fortunately, Margaret made a quick—friends-only, she says—connection with Gabe, who runs the soundboard for the ship’s entertainment. He’ll be the perfect, decoy blind date. She just has to convince herself that friendship is all she feels. Dashed is a fun update/retelling that makes full use of Austen’s beautifully developed characters in a modern setting. While I did feel that the polarity of Elinor and Marianne was a bit much—Margaret continually told herself she had to choose between these two models, and I felt she was just too smart to fall into the sort of dichotomy that steers much of the plot—and Margaret’s denial of her feelings for Gabe cycled a bit too long, I still thoroughly enjoyed the time devoted to the youngest member of the Dashwood family. I appreciated the ways that she explored the ways that Margaret would have experienced the love stories of Elinor and Edward, of Marianne and Brandon, and the ways that might have affected a young, impressionable sister. I did feel, however, that it took too long for the book to lean into the complexities that lie beneath the easy characterizations that Austen ultimately resists. There’s great humor in Margaret’s reality show-style attempts to find a match for Marianne, and I loved seeing Elinor and Edward years into a sweet, stable marriage. Gabe is also a fantastic romantic interest, and his years on the cruise ship lead him to be a wonderful tour guide for Margaret. The various stops make for a wonderful setting. Overall, I recommend Dashed to Austen fans and to YA romance readers, and I look forward to reading the next installment in Quain’s series of modern Austen retellings.  Thanks to partners NetGalley and Graydon House Books for the ARC of A. H. Kim’s Relative Strangers. The book will be out tomorrow!
A. H. Kim’s Relative Strangers is a modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility with some big—fun—twists. The focus in this version is on the Marianne character, Amelia Bae-Wood. She’s the unreliable sister, the one who hasn’t seen her family in ages and has to hitchhike back to her childhood home, just as her mother is being evicted from it. The villain? Their father’s illegitimate son, Chong Bae, who is vying to claim his inheritance in an effort that has embroiled them in a lengthy, painful court case. Amelia arrives only to find that her sister, Eleanor, has already moved their mother to a small home at the cancer center where she volunteers. Amelia is still working through her own—secret—trauma and now has to face the resentment of her sister, who is convinced that Amelia’s lack of responsibility is a sign of her selfishness and her inability to be a stable part of her family. The conflicts here abound. First, there’s the class conflict that is part of Austen’s original novel, fueled by one of Amelia’s past relationships, which put her in the media spotlight, and by a potential love match with a new wealthy suitor. Issues in response to Amelia and Eleanor’s heritage also arise: the sisters are half-Korean (their mother is a white Southern belle, and their father immigrated from Seoul). Much of the novel is about recovering from loss: there’s the death of Amelia’s father, which—along with the loss of her home—has left their mother desolate. They’re also still dealing with the shadow of the death of Eleanor’s first husband, a loss that continues to haunt Eleanor and her daughter Maggie. Of course, there’s plenty of romance, though the center of the novel, for me, is the sibling relationship between Amelia and Eleanor, whose approaches to the world vary greatly. Eleanor feels as if she has to keep a firm grasp on everything, fearful that a loss of control will result in chaos. Amelia, in contrast, has to bring herself back from a tendency to embrace the very chaos that her sister so fears. Despite their tensions, there’s a lovely connection between them, along with some fun touches (they often communicate in movie quotes that are perfect for any situation). And watching Amelia strive to figure out who she wants to be and how she wants to share her story and her hidden struggles is a satisfying journey. I loved seeing both the ways that Kim chose to pay tribute to her source material and the places she chose to break away, to put a new spin on the classic tale. Relative Strangers is the best kind of retelling, one that relies on the strong center of the original but shows the ways that its tale is still all too relevant. |
AuthorI'm Jen Moyers, co-host of the Unabridged Podcast and an English teacher. Archives
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