Resentful. Conceited. Sordid. 

🇺🇸🧠 Set in Washington DC, USA, in our MC’s mind, and online. 

POV: We are deep in the mind of our MC, a once-brilliant literary student now struggling to write full-time. We getting all their thoughts and opinions narrated directly to us in first person narrative. 

 

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✏️ Writing: Focused stream of consciousness. Without being repetitive or lacking suspense. Like watching a trainwreck…so hard to look away even if horrible. 

 

🫣 Characters: If you love cringe and watching people implode and make vapid, self-centered decisions you will love this (I did!). There’s an underlying plot but so much of what we get is a deep-dive into Juniper’s covert narcissism and all her justifications, passive aggressive, self grandiose visions for herself and her life. Yet somehow there are relatable moments (that I hated to admit were relatable) and it was insightful to see how easily toxic people and environments are made and encouraged. 

 

🗺️ Worldbuilding: Although there are locations and settings, we spend so much time in Juniper’s head that they really take the background. Even as an imaginations reader I had no problem with that format. We’re in Juniper’s world but we get to watch all the reactions and consequences in our familiar one. 

 

🔥 Fuel: Scandal, strange trolling, online creepers and stalkers, haunting social media posts, circle jerks. All things that happen every day. There’s suspense from wanting Juniper to be found out, or to know more about Athena…Juniper is always scheming but also short sighted so there’s loads of suspense around all the ways she could be caught for things but also whether or not she even will be. 

 

🐢 Pacing: Slow and steady. I liked the story so I didn’t want it to end and couldn’t imagine where the storyline could go next.  I would be grateful I was only at 40%. I imagine the experience would be the exact opposite if you aren’t a fan of the story or writing style though! 

 

🎬 Scenes: Even though we only see through Juniper’s eyes and get her thoughts and opinions on every scheme and reaction she has, we aren’t unaware of what is going on around her and how people are reacting. From online comments to the reactions of people she meets, the reader can interpret that thing are going well (or aren’t) while Juniper is going off in the other direction. It felt so immersive because of that. 

 

🤔 Random Thoughts: I really enjoyed the overall commentary, insight, and satire on authors, publication, IP, wokeness, racism, and personality. Whether you read purely for enjoyment and escape or deconstruct all the literary prose, I think there’s something here for most to spark discussion. The natural unfolding of consequence and opinion in reaction to what Juniper and Athena did made me briefly consider expanding my introverted book club because I wanted to talk to others about it! 

 

🤷‍♀️ Problematics: Definitely consider whether or not you want to be immersed in the world of covert narcissism, scandals-in-the-making, and toxic work cultures before diving in to this one. It’s a satire with depth and a character study of both white and Asian experiences, and racist undercurrents are there throughout…very much like irl. I feel like people could equally love or be equally offended by the overall commentary. Also, I usually don't want to know too much about the authors and their motivations for writing a book because it takes away from it for me...but as with any story in this narrative style, it could come across as author intrusion? I didn't get that feeling at all, but I also don't have all the context. It didn't feel obviously 'ranty' or like it had an agenda (to me). 

 

🎧 Audio narration was perfection. Juniper is annoying and self-aggrandizing, and the narration keeps that energy going with the pauses and expressiveness of the narrator. 

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-Deep-in-their-heads character studies of narcissistic characters 

-Frenemies energy with eerie undercurrent of haunting 

-Authors behaving badly, social media and online sleuth drama 

-Themes and satire of social media, entitlement, virtue signalling, authorship, ownership, cultural appropriation, woke culture, systemic racism, and hypocrisy 

 

Content Heads-Up: Death (graphic; accidental,

choking

). Stealing (IP, cultural appropriation). Racism (internalized, externalized, systemic). 

 

Format: Everand Audio