Sheila Yasmin Marikar

The novel opens with the death of one of the characters at a winery in Napa Valley. There is a cast of six Cornell University alumni who are invited to celebrate the opening of Raj and Rachael Ranjani's ritzy new Napa Valley vineyard for a fun 4-day weekend, all expenses paid. The other characters are Anjali, an editor with a stressed out daughter using the Puff vape to control the symptoms and Raj's almost girlfriend in college who seems to be hitting on her now; David, her husband who was fired from his editing job due to unacceptable Internet posts; Hari, Raj's college roommate who has always felt inferior to Raj, and an entrepreneur who has loved Rachael from afar for many years; Victoria (V), a social-media influencer who also pads her income with questionable online access from admirers. Raj is characterized as a social-climbing jerk who is frequently putting his wife down. He throws around his wealth, so is he really as wealthy as he portrays? The story follows the friends during the 4-day weekend which includes fights (physical and emotional), infidelity, and a plot by three of the guests. The book took a long time to get to the main part which I think was the happenings during the grand opening of the winery, Kismet and then the plot did not go off as planned and the perpetrators were never meted out justice.… (altro)

Browsing my Kindle library this morning, I realized I completely missed recording a book I read at the end of March: The Goddess Effect. I seem to accumulate books on my Kindle between Kindle unlimited and the low cost/no cost emails I get every day. Not sure why I picked this one other than it seemed perfect for a road trip, not too demanding.

I was not disappointed: Sheila Yasmin Marikar has a wicked sense of humor, creating a parody of Los Angeles that has a whiff of reality to it. The narrator, a woman of color with Indian roots, makes the move to LA for a maybe-job-offer and finds herself in a commune-like shared house and at loose ends emotionally and financially. She lives her life in the glare of social media, often never quite posting the picture, bogged down in worries over hashtags. She eventually finds friendship and purpose at a local gym but that quickly turns into obsession and then horror. I laughed out loud at the absurdity only to consider how close to the wind of reality the author was sailing.… (altro)