Revisited this one in 2021 after the Anita Hill book bummed me out because I needed a safe place to land and this was it.

Literary love triangles, grief, restaurant politics, and creative struggles? SIGN ME UP. I adored this one.

I do not know why I slept on this novel. It’s been on my TBR for a long time but it never seemed like the right time to read. It is just breathtakingly wonderful. It speaks of love, grief, friendship, and family. I laugh and cried and relished in the gorgeous prose. Perfect for fans of Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, and Elizabeth Strout. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.

UPDATE after Sept 2024 re-read: I loved Writers and Lovers just as much, if not more than the first time.

Writing is so hard and writing about writing is hard to pull off, but she does it with grace and candor. I had to screenshot (kindle) a few observations about gendered responses to success. So true.

While there were incredible passages in this book, it just didn’t move me on a whole. I found myself annoyed with the main character more often than I empathized with her. She chronically self sabotages and then wallows in the consequences. I feel like we don’t get a glimpse of pre-anxiety ridden Casey. Her past is mentioned a lot—living in Spain, her mother leaving and coming back, and being a golf prodigy. But it doesn’t really show us who she was, how she felt, how she’s different now. It feels like she’s supposed to be getting back to herself this entire book, but we don’t really know what this self looks like. The “Lovers” in the book were underwhelming, to say the least. I could go on.
Also, I just have to mention it, that “you have to write the rape scene” was so out of pocket. She talks about how she doesn’t want to, then does, and then it’s over? But it doesn’t really resurface again in the book and doesn’t seem to be a direct correlation to her life at all—just a random scene in the book she’s writing. Unless I totally missed something, it felt like a weird and jarring thing to just throw in there. Anyway, I digress.

i liked the tension, and i liked the intellectual-ness. an interesting and fun book.

Audio book. Having just lost her mother puts the author in a bit of a tailspin. Enjoyable read. Good twists and turns, but a bit predictable at the end.

Wow! I really loved this. It has the softness of an Emma Cline novel but overflowing with much more emotion. Definitely looking forward to more from Lily King.