Reviews for Making scenes

The average rating for Making scenes based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-04-09 00:00:00 Steven Woodward I bought this book on a whim from Emily Books, and it serves as a testament to the power of curation. I'd never heard of the book or the author, but because Emily Books was carrying it, I was willing to take a chance. It's also an argument for the ebook, in the sense that I bought it, found myself on the bus having just finished a book, and decided to give it a shot. And there it was. If the book hadn't hooked me from the first page, I probably would've shut it down, scanned Twitter and listened to The Replacements the whole way home. And I would've been happy. But I'm happier that I kept reading this book. From page one, I was completely enthralled with the main character. A young woman living in Chicago and trying to play professional beach volleyball. What about that premise doesn't hook you immediately? How about if the main character is also suffering from an eating disorder and is simultaneously incredibly funny and wracked with insecurity? Not doing it for you yet? How about if I throw in some futures trading on the commodity exchange floor? Okay. Enough of this belabored conceit. The point is that Making Scenes has an incredibly odd mix of settings and events happening, and it only serves to make the book feel more real. The main character will be with me for awhile, I think. When I was reading this, I had the feeling of simultaneously knowing the character and also maybe not knowing her at all. She's full of contradictions and not in the bullshit "I contain multitudes" sort of way that we traditionally think of complex characters. Rather, she reacts to events in her life in ways that were amusing, dismaying, disturbing, and ultimately authentic. She makes the kind of irrational, confounding decisions we all make. I loved passages like this: "I wait for the plane to take off. After initial turbulence, I put down the tray to write a list -- People who I wish had died instead of me and Andy breaking up: Everyone." John Cassavete's used to do this impression of someone watching one of his movies for the first time, how they would resist because the experience was so different from watching a Hollywood movie of that era. That was kind of what reading this book was like for me. I had no idea where it was going, and yet it had a narrative drive that made me want to read and read and read (present tense and a shitton of sex scenes probably helped with that). This was a character that felt human, and I couldn't stop reading about her. Highly recommended.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-07-20 00:00:00 Christopher Drake Unapologetic and unashamed accounts of incest and bulimia, so refreshing to read writing like this. I am inspired when people embrace truth and don't whitewash things or hold on to things that don't serve them (like being a victim). I wish she wrote more books.