Frances and Bobbi, formerly lovers and now best friends, perform spoken word poetry together, mostly of the poems written by Frances. Frances can’t help but admire Bobbi for her extroverted and confident manner, especially as she feels detached and self-conscious most of the time. At one such performance, they meet Melissa, a journalist seeking to write a magazine profile of the two of them. When Melissa invites them to her home and introduces them to her husband, this sparks a journey of romantic entanglements that are both confusing and overwhelming for all of them.
Honestly, I didn’t see the point of this book. Throughout, I kept expecting something more interesting to happen than the banal dialogue, the gratuitous sex, and the empty relationships that were depicted here. Not one of the characters is in the least likable – Frances herself acknowledges that she isn’t a nice person. There is no explanation for the attraction that develops between Frances and Melissa’s husband, Nick, besides a physical one, as they rarely spoke about anything more than skin deep. It is only Frances and Bobbi who seem to ever discuss something of substance, but even that is overly intellectualized and dull, never truly revelatory or personal.
It is also remarkable that the few threads of interest were never developed. Frances has a complicated relationship with her father, who is an alcoholic and struggles with depression and anxiety. There was a potential for this aspect of the story to reach a climax of sorts, but even that goes nowhere. We are, in a sense, left hanging as to his fate and the underlying reasons for his failures as a father.
If I hadn’t been listening to it via audiobook (and trapped in the car for long periods of time), I probably would have given up on it earlier. Alas, I was stuck – and endured the entirety of the novel. Most shocking is that this was apparently made into a television series. I cannot imagine why. Perhaps the series developed the characters more than the book did?
Bottom line: not worth your time, in my opinion…
