❝Ms. Straub writes with such verve and sympathetic understanding of her characters. . .[An] entertaining novel. . . deftly and thoughtfully written.❞– Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
❝It’s ‘Friends’ meets ‘Almost Famous’ meets the beach read you’ll be recommending all summer.❞–TheSkimm
❝Straub serves up a perfect slice of the zeitgeist with this entertaining novel about former college bandmates raising their precocious children while grappling with marital tensions and midlife crises.❞–People, Named one of "Summer's Best Books"
Modern Lovers, written by Emma Straub, is a book about a tight-knit friendship among three Oberlin alumni, who were all former Kitty's Mustache rock bandmates. The setting takes place in the borough of Brooklyn in New York. These three friends are in what you might call, coming to grips with adulthood even well after it has set in.
Elizabeth, Andrew and Zoe have all journeyed together--witnessing each other marry, start a business and grow a family, while simultaneously clinging onto their youthful identities. When the trio were in college, Elizabeth was a creative Midwestern gal, Andrew was a hipsterish rich boy, and Zoe was the beautiful lesbian whose aura attracted both straight and lesbian women.
In later years, Elizabeth and Andrew fell in love, got married and had a son named Harry, who is a geeky and reserved, but confused young teenager. Zoe fell in love as well, got married to a chef named Jane, owns a stylish restaurant with her wife while also facing a "divorce," and adopted a daughter Ruby; Ruby, is best described as rude, bitchy, manipulative, and bratty. The trio, living blocks away from each other, are all facing a somewhat "midlife crises" during the summer that their offspring reached "maturity" age--or to be more precisely, it's when their children started sleeping with each other. Throughout this issue, the adults in the book begin to unravel their lives, and secrets and revelations begin to surface about themselves and their prominent and deceased bandmate, Lydia.
To be frank, I thought the book was beyond terrible. In all honesty, I couldn't bear to read another page and chapter any longer--the plot was too pathetic. Maybe I seem to be exaggerating a bit, but I found the whole entire premise of the book to be pointless. This was my first Emma Straub book that I have ever read, and I had high expectations since I have read so many good reviews on her other New York Times Bestseller, The Vacationers (a book I have not read yet, but now I don't plan on ever reading because of this book). This book became a hot summer read, and since most bookworms appeared to have been reading it at the time, I thought I might give it a go as well. My high expectations were quickly diminished after reading the first chapter, and I soon began to detect the idiocy of the whole main concept of the book.
Dull, boring, pointless, and ridiculous are the best adjectives I could think of to describe Modern Lovers. Straub is a very good, stylish and eloquent writer, but her story just sucks! Although, she's a good writer, I must also admit that I felt that she was writing more like a teenager than an experienced author. The book and I just didn't connect and I found the characters problems to be...stupid. Thinking more about it, there really isn't a specific plot either. The character's in the book are typical New York liberals, living in luxurious brownstone homes, thinking that their pathetic problems are equivalent to a midlife crises issue; it is basically about privilege, hipster Brooklynites and teen-love, and it was awfully annoying. I read somewhere that it was Straub's intent in making the characters annoying, and she did a pretty good job in doing so. Each of the adults in the book kept on reminiscing on their younger years and how cool they were back then, but it just made them more insufferable.
I apologize if my review maybe "forward," but I am an honest person that doesn't hold back. At the end, I was left mad and upset that I wasted my money on this junk. Also, I am a bit shocked that I read good reviews on this, it certainly bamboozled me. But I am quite mindful that everyone has different tastes in reading material, so what I might find to be terrible, others might find to be good. Personally, I give it a two star rating, because it just didn't intrigue me and I didn't connect with any of the characters of the book--I couldn't emphasize with them and their so-called problems.
Would I recommend this book? No. If you choose to give it ago, well you were warned.
x, Kayla
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