Biting the Apple

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Struggling with a loss of motivation and her growing kleptomania, Olympic athlete-turned-motivational speaker Eve Glass finds herself stalked by a childhood friend and begins a personal search for authenticity that prompts her separation from her husband, her business manager, and the persona that others have forced upon her. Original.

Genres: Fiction, Queer

274 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Preorder Lucy's new novel, TELL THE REST, about love, rage, and redemption, at https://amzn.to/3QRyHXD. The New York Times says Lucy Jane Bledsoe's novel, A THIN BRIGHT LINE, "triumphs." Ms. Magazine calls her novel, THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE, "fabulous feminist fiction." Her 2018 collection of stories, LAVA FALLS, won the Devil's Kitchen Fiction Award. Bledsoe played basketball in both high school and college. As a social justice activist, she's passionate about working for voting rights.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. The back cover made it look promising, but it's pretty much a book where next to nothing happens. (And sometimes that works, but this book is less successful with that theme.) The claim that this book "examines our dearest held postmodern ideas about the existence of a true self" is a bit much. Actually, it's a lot much, given the actual content of the book. It is, at least, a fast read.

[Joanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoyed Bledsoe's "Wild Silence" enough to pick up this book at the library. Unfortunately, it is nothing but a lengthy character study with a cast of completely unsympathetic characters. Little in the way of plot development, and all of the characters are either flat, dull or reprehensible. Or some combination of the three. For a book with a theme of grace, there is none to be found in this read. Making it to the end is a long hard slog, and ultimately an unrewarding one.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

okay, this was an annoying read--about a third of the way into it i wanted to put it down b/c the characters were so irritating. i forced myself to finish it, and it did get better, but it was a struggle not to give up early on.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh.

(And I see I'm not the only one who thought that.)

[Kristen Hovet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Snore. Seriously. The only reason I kept reading was because it was a quick read, and I thought it might get better. Nope!

[Chrissy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I randomly came across BITING THE APPLE at the public library and was intrigued by the premise of a mystery woman from the past, obsessively stalking an innocent Olympic athlete turned self-help guru with a dark skeleton in her closet. I mean, what doesn't sound exciting about that... right?!



Alas.



BITING THE APPLE was one of those books that started out really strong.... really promising... and just fell flat somewhere in the middle. I loved the *idea* of Eve Glass, the human product created by a naive Olympic star who fell in love with her high school and got lost somewhere between 'once upon a time' and 'happily ever after' --- and, maybe it would have helped a bit if I'd gone in with the expectation that BITING THE APPLE was really more of a psychological dilemma of the structure of humanity and the marketing of self -- rather than a stalker thriller that I had come to expect from the description on the back cover.

Don't get me wrong -- for what it is, BITING THE APPLE isn't a bad book. Once I shifted my mindset and set myself some proper expectations, I did find myself enjoying the story a bit more. And, I don't even necessarily mind the sense of unfinishedness at the end of the book --- which really was a realistic and fitting way to 'conclude' the story, given the identity crisis of the main character.

BITING THE APPLE isn't one of those books that I anticipate ever wanting to read again -- and it's definitely not something I'd call a page turner. But, was it worth the read? Sure. I like staying open to all possibilities when I read, so I'm not sorry I read this one.

Just don't go in expecting something exciting...

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book very much after reading it for the first time, and less so after re-reading it several years later. Parts of it were well-written, and parts were very tedious. I think it would have worked much better as a play, given the slow pace of the action and the stylized dialogue. I found none of the characters likable or even really believable, with the possible exception of Joan -- and I've become very tired of literary depictions of women who have an inexplicable "glow," which I've never experienced or witnessed in my life, and basically think is nonsense.

This book could have headed in many directions, and as I read, I found myself nervous about where it was going. But I did like the author's choice to focus on the resolution of the Joan/Eve/Marianne relationship. I liked the final dramatic scenes between Joan and Eve, though I thought they could have used some editing. And I appreciated the emphasis on themes of authenticity and integrity, as well as the need for Marianne to free herself from the past by facing the truth of her story.

I think Lucy Jane Bledsoe is a terrific writer, if a bit uneven, and This Wild Silence is one of my favorite books ever. But I found Biting the Apple to be mediocre in its writing, and not particularly enjoyable to read.

[Faith Reidenbach · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many queer writers dream of "crossing over," of having their books become popular with a general audience. Few have achieved it, especially in the US, except with books that have no or minimal queer content. Even so, good writers like Bledsoe keep trying. I can't fault her for that, but I do fault her for producing a novel in which the lion's share of the action happens offstage or in the past. What's more, we learn about much of that action when the characters muse about it, not even through dialogue. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The 3 main characters of the novel are a straight man, a straight woman, and a bisexual woman. Two of the 3 lesbians are quasi-villains, but they're minor characters and uninteresting villains--just annoying. The third lesbian we hardly ever hear from, but she's so minor that that's unimportant.

I kept reading because I convinced myself that the novel had to be going somewhere, because all the musing does lead to some good observations, and because the main characters live in Portland, Oregon. But my dedication didn't pay off--the ending went off like a wet firecracker, resolving a mystery I didn't realize was a mystery. I ended up skimming the last 50 pages.

Shortlisted for a 2007 Lammy Award.

[Nairne Holtz · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this highly entertaining novel told from alternating points of view, the messy personal life of Eve Glass, a beautiful and charismatic former-Olympic-athlete-cum-motivational-speaker is about to implode. She’s begun a publicity tour for her book on achieving grace, but all she can think about is a reclusive female poet who has insulted her on the pages of the New York Times. Eve is used to getting whatever she wants, but is the life she has what she really, really wants? This is also the question Eve’s new personal manager, Alissa, is asking herself. Meanwhile, Eve’s former personal manager and ex-husband Nick, can’t seem to get over his old life with Eve. A life that may be exposed by investigative reporter Joan, another one of Eve’s exes, who is out for revenge. In this layered exploration of authenticity, Bledsoe explores life’s wrong turns—the moment where winning meant losing a part of yourself or harming someone, the worm at the core of the apple. There’s lots of delicious irony as the characters are revealed—the nice guy who isn’t so nice; the perfect girl who wants to fuck up; the stalker dyke who isn’t scary after all; and the flaky star gifted with insight.

[Alena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing novel by Lucy Jane Bledsoe.

Fun read about self-discovery and identity, analyzed by looking at four people whose lives are connected in a not so healthy way.

The cast of characters is Eve/Marianne, former Olympic athlete, now writer of successful self-help books. She's seemingly just floating in the direction other people push her, fulfilling the roles other people project on her. Nick, her former running coach and ex-husband who can't quite let go of her and the dreams she stands for and Joan, who went to high-school with them, had a crush on Marianne and is now a successful journalist. Add Alissa to the mix who is hired as Eve's manager to promote her new book who carries her bag of problems.

The novel details how each character individually is on the verge of falling apart and how they try to save themselves and, maybe more importantly to them at times, their image.

Very enjoyable and thought-provoking.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise, but I'm not sure I would have finished it if I hadn't been a captive audience (flying home from vacation.) The story begins with Eve, beautiful and athletic, about to begin a book tour to promote her latest motivational book. Her early success as a track star took her to the Olympics when she was just nineteen. After training for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, her dreams are shattered by the U.S. boycott. Central to the book is her complicated relationship with Nick (her coach, ex-husband, and manager)and her new manager, Alissa, who treats her as a product. What I found redeeming in this book was its examination of what really matters, the creation of an image, and whether we can, indeed, start over.

[AshO · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled with either giving this 1 or 2 stars. So I'm settling for 1.5.

There was a time around the middle of the book where I thought the reading was going to get better and more interesting, and it sort of did, but not really, not enough.

I could not connect with any of the characters through the entire book. If I had at least that, I might have enjoyed this book a little bit more, but all of the characters were annoying, phony, or just completely stupid (namely Eve). I wanted to slap Eve about a hundred different times.

And the ending just ruined it completely for me. If the book ended how I was hoping it would end or at least somewhere in that neighborhood, I would have happily given it 2 or 3 stars, but the ending just... sucked.

[Julia Plale · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would've given this book 3 stars, but the ending dragged. It felt as if Bledsoe didn't know how to tie everything together and just let the characters ramble for a dozen pages. She set Eve and her high school lover Joan up for a major confrontation at the end--I wanted them to have a major confrontation. But it didn't happen. At all. It's anticlimactic and disappointing because the beginning section (written from the POV of Nick Cappelli, Eve's manager/ex-husband) had a solid emotional arc to it. By the end, Bledsoe lost view of what was at stake for her characters, and I lost my interest.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book I grabbed from the library just because it looked fun. And it's short.

Update: Not bad, not amazing - I wouldn't rush out to read more by her.

[AJ LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a random pick while I was at the library. I'm loving it and only have about 20 pages left. I really like books that switch point of view for each chapter/section.

[Ulla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating!