This isn’t my favorite book by Reid (that’s probably still Daisy Jones & The Six, followed closely by The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo) but it’s not my least favorite (One True Loves). That being said, every book of hers is the same: imminently readable, not too frothy/not too froufrou, focusing on the emotional life of a female, and so very fiction forward.
She’s…a very good writer, to put it bluntly, and can weave together stories about fictional events like very few other authors. There’s no gimmick, I suppose. Reid’s books are fiction, but unlike some other more one hit wonder type fiction writers she reinvents herself each time around and manages to find a story that’s compelling in each subgenre of fiction.
That being said I feel like her next book, Carrie Soto Is Back, has vibes of this book given the parallel of sports-women as the lead, but that’s without my having read the second one at all, ofc.
So here we have a massive, annual party hosted by the Riva siblings, who are the product of a single mother and a deadbeat massively successful musician dad. They’ve gone through the wringer but have come out the other side very successful as well, without much help from said deadbeat dad. Over the course of 24 hours, many interweaving plotlines will coalesce into a cathartic, well earned climatic scene which will have you nodding fervently as you furiously flip pages. My personal feeling is that the siblings’ relationship with one another was more interesting than the relationship (or lack thereof) with their father–while ymmv, you’ll definitely enjoy this novel.
