A little predictable and dragged on towards the end, but interesting and different narrative.

I would rate it a 3/5 oh my gosh so much going on in the book . Goes down as one of my least fave books I have read this year

Boring and repetitive - how long can one agonize over social media?!?

A brilliant wild ride of a book!

Very clever

great book and well narrated! just a bit drawly (as someone from the UK!)

Possibly the worst character ever. Just couldn't like her even if I tried.

It did get repetitive in the latter stages. Enjoyed the setting out of the conflicts and dilemmas.

Not good. It felt very self indulgent . Too long and miserable . Main character was awful .

This was such an entertaining read! The perspective on race and censorship was refreshing and provocative and left me feeling like I understood even less than I did going in. I ended up listening through the whole book in a day and was updating my partner in real time on how much I was enjoying it. We both enjoy listening to morally grey, thought provoking stories and then digesting them together later and this is one that I can see us coming back to time and time again. Kuang never feels resentful or bitter in her depiction of white girl thought patterns and actually does an amazing job of turning her cynisicm into a dark humour that I loved. The racial themes of the story run deep ( and is very meta ) and it would be hard to find anyone that doesn't relate to this story in some way. Laser brought colour and expression to the text and I really enjoyed her style of reading. There wasn't a huge difference between most of characters voices (aside from the british accent) which I prefer as it gives the feeling that the narrator is telling the story herself. I did notice there were a few mid-sentence pauses, which distracted me and pulled me out of the story. But overall, I enjoyed her caricatures of each of the characters and she brought the perfect energy for Junie's self-gratifying monologuing and selfish nature. A perfect pairing of writer and narrator that was thoroughly enjoyable!

The ending really got me thinking about societal biases, white privilege and human nature. Narrator has done a good job but would have loved a better switch over with different characters. For me the story sort of dragged a bit in the middle and was a bit repetitive but the. everytime I felt it was looping, the pace would pick up again. I loved the deep dive into the publishing world and the hypocrisy of relationships in that space, also really liked how the whole things weighs on the main characters conscience to the point of her beginning to question her reality. that bit was really trippy! would I recommend - definitely yes! Looking forward to other titles by this author too.

Really enjoyed listening to this book

A pretty negative examination of human nature

great book!