Starred review from December 11, 2023
In Tanner’s mordant debut, two sisters deal with their anxiety and depression while rooming together. Jules, 28, is less than thrilled when her younger sister, Poppy, moves into her Brooklyn apartment—temporarily, Poppy assures her. The sisters were close while growing up in their Jewish household in South Florida, and Poppy looked up to Jules. After Poppy finished college, however, she sank into a depression and moved back home. Recently, Poppy’s mental health seemed to improve substantially, and she announced plans to settle in New York City. Only Jules knows that before arriving in Brooklyn, Poppy attempted suicide. The pair bicker constantly, in a manner that is both comical and savage (Poppy throws a toenail clipping at Jules during a fight). As things go well for Poppy—she gets along with Jules’s boyfriend, finds a job, and plans to adopt a dog—Jules feels threatened. Anxious about being stuck in her dead-end job as a study guide editor, she soothes herself by “hate-stalk” the “tradfem” mommy bloggers on her Instagram feed (one of whom claims to have a “mom-crush” on her “mini-boyfriend”: her newborn). Though Tanner finds plenty of easy targets for Jules to mock, she never sacrifices the psychological acuity of the character’s sharply portrayed angst and mean-spiritedness. With unflinching honesty, Tanner captures the claustrophobia of 21st-century young adulthood. Agent: Monika Woods, Triangle House.
February 15, 2024
In Tanner's heart-piercing debut novel of sister- and self-hood, twentysomething narrator Jules knows that when her younger sister, Poppy, shows up in Brooklyn for a visit, she won't be leaving anytime soon. As days become weeks become months, the sisters, sure enough, become roommates. Jules experiences a breakup and job woes but prefers to fixate on her sister who, as only Jules knows, recently attempted suicide. Poppy suffers from maladies internal (depression) and external (hives), but mostly she suffers as perpetual younger sister to Jules, a relationship Tanner captures with delirious truth. Fans of Jen Beagin and Melissa Broder will appreciate Tanner's style and her ability to realistically and heartrendingly introduce a character's debilitating sadness as well as her three-legged dog named Amy Klobuchar. (It's 2019, and, for his part, Jules and Poppy's dad thinks Klobuchar, the person, is going all the way in 2020.) This is a stinging yet joyful story about life playing out online or nowhere and the family we can't stand and can't stand the thought of losing, which can also mean ourselves.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from January 15, 2024
A dark millennial comedy starring testy, needy Floridian Jewish sisters who move in together in New York City and drive each other nuts. This is the kind of book you will constantly be reading out loud to others, so forgive the abundance of quotes in the following. "My sister Poppy arrives on a wet Thursday, dressed ugly and covered in hives." Announcing itself with this sardonic opening line, Tanner's debut is narrated by older sister Jules Gold, 28, who will have you laughing/horrified (this book's signature combination) by page 2, where she explains that "to save fifty bucks on airfare, Poppy flew from the Palm Beach airport not to JFK or LaGuardia or even Newark but to MacArthur, on Frontier, then rode a shuttle from the airport to Ronkonkoma to catch the LIRR, then took a two-hour train that ended up taking three hours because someone jumped onto the tracks and died as it was pulling into Jamaica." On the edge of a breakup with a new boyfriend, Jules passive-aggressively both invites and discourages her sister, who not long ago attempted suicide, from staying on. Continually. For months. Jules' life is certainly missing something; her jobs writing literature study guides and cynical horoscopes, her obsession with Mormon mommies on social media, her relationships with her blunt, pyramid-schemer mother and plastic surgeon father--none of these things makes her happy for even a second. Mom to Jules: "I saw your Instagram story the other day--honey--you're a little uneven, your smile on the left side is pulling up a little high still. You need to come in and see your father. I don't want you walking around like that. I'll pay for the plane ticket." Poor, miserable, hive-covered shoplifter Poppy expands their codependent household by adopting a three-legged rescue dog named Amy Klobuchar--and of course they fight about her constantly. Only complaint: Given that we can't help loving all three of these sad sacks, the ending feels a bit dark and unclear. This hilarious, unremittingly jaundiced depiction of modern young adulthood hits rare extremes of both funny and sad.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.