There’s SO much going on in this novel. I finished school in 95 so all the 90s nostalgia was fun and I could completely relate to the bewilderment of there being just as much time has passed ‘from 2018 to 1995 as 1995 to 1972’..and I’ve definitely done that reevaluating what should and shouldn’t have been ok. It’s definitely a novel to get that process going! Goodness there’s also power imbalance, #metoo and victim blaming, grooming, racist cops’, cancel culture, misogyny…it’s true ‘sex, power, privilege and the ambient violence of contemporary American life’ like it says on the blurb..the storyline also features a podcast and YouTube true crime channel..I picture this wanting to be the novel that comes to represent the early 2020s..
There’s a school year full of characters; I bet I’ve forgotten lots of names but it was easy to follow the story..it’s just I didn’t particularly like anyone…there was nothing wrong, I just never felt like these were my classmates. I was conscious this was a novel? I’m sure I went in with all the expectations; Yale and his friends were my friends while I was reading The Great Believers, I just didn’t feel that with Bodie.
