Big Swiss

by Jen Beagin, Eva Kemper (Translator)

Hudson, eine Kleinstadt nördlich von New York. Dort lebt Greta, die als Schreibkraft für den Sex-Coach Om arbeitet. Und Big Swiss, die eigentlich Flavia heißt und bei Om in Therapie ist, weil sie noch nie einen Orgasmus hatte. Als Greta und Big Swiss sich zufällig im Park begegnen, weiß Greta schon fast alles über Big Swiss, weil sie die Tonaufnahmen ihrer Therapiesitzungen kennt. Big Swiss hingegen trifft mit Greta einen fremden Menschen, der sie vom ersten Augenblick an fasziniert. So unterschiedlich Greta und Big Swiss auch sind, eines wissen sie sofort: Sie sind seelenverwandt – und schon bald gerät ihr Leben völlig aus den Fugen.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Queer, LGBT, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, Romance

448 pages, Hardcover

First published February 7, 2023

About the author

Jen Beagin holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine, and is a recipient of a 2017 Whiting Award in fiction. She is the author of Pretend I'm Dead and Vacuum in the Dark. A former cleaning lady, she lives in Hudson, New York.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 really, I'm being slightly stingy.

This was everything I ever hope an Ottessa Moshfegh novel will be but never is. The strange, the grotesque, and the ridiculous are all here in spades, but it's all done with such a tongue-in-cheek approach and in such good humor that it's impossible not to love it. Big Swiss never takes itself too seriously, nor do its characters (much to their own detriment at times) which makes all the small missteps excusable and even endearing. Beagin has managed to create characters whose quirkiness stops just short of being obnoxious or try-hard, and a story that's so fast-paced and bizarrely fun that it leaves the reader with a sense of exhilaration by the end.

(Real talk: I requested this because I saw Jodie Comer had signed on as Flavia for the HBO adaptation and to say I'm here for THAT is an understatement. After finishing the book, I feel convinced that's pretty solid casting and I've been wracking my brain for who could play Greta. I'm nearly settled on Kate Winslet, but I doubt the gays (of which I am admittedly one) would get so lucky.)

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

my favorite genre is literary fiction about messed up women doing crazy sh*t

https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...

this was one of the only books i packed for a very beach- and flight-heavy trip, meaning, you know, i could not spend all of my time reading it, ignoring my loved ones and skipping itineraries, because i had to ration it.

i had to constantly negotiate with myself to put it down.

this is so consuming and so funny and so clever. the setting was bizarre and atmospheric and i felt like i lived in this too-cold buggy house with these freaks.

and i loved every second of it!

bottom line: witty gross lit fic forever.

(thanks to the publisher for the copy)

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Ottessa Moshfegh tradition of severely messed-up female protagonists, Beagin gives us 45-year-old Greta, a former pharm tech with a recently broken engagement whose current job it is to transcribe the sessions of a sex coach - and we're not talking about a serious therapist here: Om is, as the name suggests, a New Age amateur who is still consulted by lots of folk, thus granting Greta access to numerous potentially compromising secrets of the people living around her in Hudson, New York. Listening to a series of recordings, Greta is increasingly fascinated by Om's new patient Flavia, whom she privately calls "Big Swiss" (as Flavia is a tall Swiss woman), a 28-year-old married gynecologist who never had an orgasm. When the two meet at the dog park and Greta recognizes Flavia's voice, the women start an affair - but of course, Flavia can't know that Greta is aware of all of her trauma due to her being the one transcribing Om's sessions...

The women at the center of the text are both hanging on by a thread due to past trauma they haven't overcome: Flavia was severely assaulted by a man, and Greta has repressed memories relating to her mother's suicide that occurred when she was only 13 years old. Their relationship is doomed for several reasons, and what propels the story forward is the question when the women will reach the point at which they will finally be unable to escape their demons. The witty dialogue (quite a few chapters mainly consist of transcribed therapy sessions) and quirky characters take away from the heavy subject matter and give the text a light-hearted feel that was probably the main reason for the novel being turned into an HBO series that is supposed to premier this year.

Still, the fact that the serious themes are often released with a copious amount of gallows humor does not render the text harmless: Flavia and Greta suffer, and while we learn about Flavia's past very early on, the details of Greta's backstory are only revealed at the very end. The fact that she decides to live in a decrepit old Dutch house with her roommate Sabine is a clear gothic hint at her inner world though: Her mind is crumbling, she lives devoid of comfort. The women mirror each other in certain respects and take different roles, the ghosts they haunt start to appear inside and outside their minds.

I have to admit though that the ending felt slightly anticlimactic, and it came too abruptly. Sure, some metaphors are heavy-handed (a shard of glass in a foot? come on), some twists appear far-fetched. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the smart writing, the fast one-liners, the overall concept, as well as the unusual female characters.

[Janelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why does Jen Beagin hate Asian people?

From the novel’s outset, literally in the first chapter, Beagin includes casually racist comments about “ghost slaves” and “Japanese-y” bees while also making glib jokes about anorexia and suicide. I kept reading, even though these comments made me deeply uncomfortable. I wanted to give the book the benefit of the doubt, since I had been hearing good things about it online. I thought, maybe the snide and insensitive nature is part of a character arc that would be reconciled at the end. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I actually found myself getting somewhat invested in the story until I reached the 82% mark, where an incredibly racist comment was made, making me DNF the book. Greta compares her swollen face and eyes to “turning Chinese.” Like... what the actual f*ck?

I’m all on board for messy characters and “supporting women’s rights AND wrongs,” but not when they come at the expense of marginalized communities. There is a very fine line between satire and ridicule and we need to be vigilant about media that leans in the wrong direction.

I know Greta (MC) is not meant to be a likable character, but I strongly believe that you can create an unlikable protagonist without including language that reinforces negative stereotypes or blatantly offensive opinions (racism, ableism, homophobia, etc.). Too often we excuse this type of character simply because they are unhinged and that is not acceptable.

I understand the use of satire as a form of criticism, but in Big Swiss, the hateful commentary just sits there and goes unchecked. Satire without criticism = hate speech. Greta's racism does not qualify as satire because it is never criticized or made to be a part of the plot. The casual racist marks peppered throughout the novel lend the reader to believe that this is just the nature of the author (who unsurprisngly also gives off strong boomer/Karen vibes with how much she likes to drag "you millennials") .

I'm really disappointed that I haven't been hearing more people discuss the casual racism in this novel. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though because often microaggressive comments can go over one's head, especially if they've never had to experience them before. We need to hold authors, editors, and publishers accountable to 1) be/do better 2) employ sensitivity readers so we don't continue to spread micro/macroaggressive commentary. I really hope the HBO adaptation does better and doesn't make jokes about people's identities or things as sensitive as eating disorders or suicide like Beagin does in the novel.

I hear Ottessa Moshfegh's books are equally as racist, fatphobic, homophobic/problematic so I guess I've learned my lesson to stay away from stories of unhinged characters by white women.

[trick · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know those comments about how movies and tv shows are being written as if they were tweets? This is exactly that but in book form.

What a weird ass story. Literally no part of it made any sense. The reason why Big Swiss was in “”therapy”” was not compelling enough to actually maintain her there when she clearly hated every single part of it. Instead of the emotional detachment of every character working in favor of the story, it made me also not engage emotionally with the story at all. Why would Big Swiss even be interested in Greta? She’s clearly a no-nonsense, very accomplished woman, and Greta is… pathetic? The sex also sounded really fucking pathetic and just… bad??? Why were they even having sex it sounded awful??? And don’t even get me started on the casual bigotry and the “I’m a gen x white woman” humor that permeated the entire book and made it absolutely insufferable. There was not an ounce of creativity in this and it was fucking painful.

tbh i only finished this so i could be 100% certain it sucked. and it fucking did.

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 5 out of 5]

ew … I loved it

[Lea · Rating 1 out of 5]

I do not understand the great reviews this book is getting. It’s terrible. The story is about a woman, Greta, (who is a hot mess) taking a job transcribing a weird wanna-be therapist’s, Om’s, Client sessions in a small town. As she listens to one woman describe her traumatic abuse she becomes fixated on her, nick names her “Big Swiss” and stalks her until they start having a lesbian affair. Big Swiss is married and has zero emotions. They have weird/ awkward sex a few times, are super condescending and mean to each other, have zero in common and don’t really get along at all but yet they fall in love. Then a few other characters have things happen to them, bees and donkeys are discussed because they live at Greta’s house and the story is over. The writing is not great, the love story is bizarre and there really were no great life lessons. How people are raving about this book is beyond me.

[Morelia (Strandedinbooks)]

It was definitely a book that I read

[nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

if your b+ ninth grade creative writing assignment you were really proud of got leaked to a bunch of interns who were told they needed to find at least one sapphic manuscript at the end of the year and all other standards could be eliminated! praying that 2023 brings a year where chelsea g summers and jen beagin get together and have $26 eggs florentine at a place closed on tuesdays somewhere between chelsea and hudson and take out all their sadistic joke telling desires on each other so i never have to read something this unbearably atrocious again. good luck jodie comer

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars


I suspect that this is one of those books that will have people either building a shrine (complete with accompanying vagina sculpture), or wishing for the reinstatement of book burnings.

Fortunately, I fall into the former category.

This book is about a lot of things, but mostly about trauma and accountability.

"If everything can be explained by your trauma, then nothing is really your fault, right?"

It pitches a protagonist who has never even remotely processed her traumatic past against a character who believes that trauma shouldn't influence your life at all.

A very interesting theme, explored in sharp, observant writing.
Big Swiss can be kind of gross in its hyper-specificity, with everything, even the sex scenes, dissected under the stylistic microscope (I have never read such detailed descriptions of genitalia before).
But this obsession with detail is exactly what makes this book so great, like a hyper-realistic nightmare which, upon waking, leaves you shaken and confused about what even is reality.

The language is so witty and hilarious, I genuinely laughed out loud a few times, which doesn't usually happen to me (you are correct in that I am indeed no fun at parties).

So yeah, would highly recommend to anyone who likes their deep examinations of dark themes with a big side of weird.

[Brooke Averick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I usually like weird and unsettling books but this one felt pointless. I couldn’t wrap my head around Greta and big Swiss’s relationship- I found them both unappealing and couldn’t understand why they were addicted to one another. They also seemed to hate each other which was confusing? I also hated the overt character analysis. I liked reading the therapy transcriptions, I would have read a full book of those. Overall this book was a neat concept but fell flat for me.

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

The more I think about this book, the angrier I get. This is less a novel and more a collection of weird and gross details. We get it, you have an MFA.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having already acquainted myself with Jen Beagin’s absurd realism and fucked up humor in Pretend I'm Dead, I knew what to expect from Big Swiss. Even so, I was surprised by just how unhinged a read Big Swiss is: it is bizarre, gross, offensive, hysterical, and over-the-top. This is the type of narrative that is difficult to pull off. But Beagin does. She doesn’t try to make her central character more palatable to the audience, she doesn’t sanitize Greta’s internal and external monologues, nor does she try to excuse or provide reasons behind her most deranged actions. A lot of books try to pull off this type of character but few authors commit to really writing about a woman, in this case, a woman in her 40s, who is able to be so convincingly and unapologetically gross, pathetic, horrible, and inappropriate. Thankfully, Beagin doesn’t try to make her central character edgy, *looking at you boy parts*, instead we are presented with an uncompromising yet ultimately compelling narrative about a woman’s outlandish, selfish, and delusional antics as she searches for love, meaning, physical and emotional connection in some very questionable places.

Big Swiss is an outré romp populated by bizarre characters and ridiculous, surreal even, interactions, that manages, despite its freewheeling humor, to be surprisingly endearing and emotional. Thematically and stylistically reminiscent of the work of Mona Awad and Ottessa Moshfegh, the central character in Big Swiss, Greta, also brought to mind Sabina Murray’s awful yet fascinating narrator in A Carnivore's Inquiry, and, surprisingly, Emerence from The Door, an unreliable housekeeper apt to behave irrational (fairly sure she regularly gets her employer’s dog drunk).

Greta, our main character, is a woman in her 40s who is living with her friend Sabine in a rundown Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. She transcribes the sessions of a sex therapist who calls himself ‘Om’ and soon grows deeply obsessed with one of his clients. This client, a Swiss married woman in her 20s, is dismissive of wellness culture and despite having been assaulted some years before, she abhors terminology such as ‘trauma’, ‘victim’, and ‘survivor’. Stoic and blunt, this woman fascinates Greta. Eventually, the two meet while out with their respective dogs, but Greta avoids revealing who she really is. The woman, who Greta refers to as ‘Big Swiss’, is very much unlike Greta, both in her outlook on life and in her present circumstances.
Greta uses the knowledge she has accumulated through Big Swiss’ therapy session, about her personal life and beliefs, to give the idea that she is far more perceptive and in tune with Big Swiss than she really is. Despite the little in common they have, Big Swiss is serious, restrained, repressed, and even, humorless, whereas Greta is uninhibited, frenzied, and a bit of a slob, they are both very intense. Their electrifying affair seems to hinge on their mutual feelings of attraction and repulsion, which results in a very, to use a word they would both hate, toxic dynamic. The knowledge that the man who attacked Big Swiss has just been released exacerbates Greta’s paranoia, as she believes that he is following them.

The novel comprises a lot of weird, unlikely, and puzzling, interactions as every single character who populates this book is strange. There are a lot of running gags almost, and much of what Greta does or thinks is tinged with a note of hysteria so that we never quite predict what she will do and what she is capable of. Far from condoning her behavior, the author makes Greta into a rather pathetic character who is not particularly self-aware, the opposite really. Not only does she disregard social norms and pc-language but she is very neglectful towards herself and has no qualms about crossing people’s boundaries. There are so many elements that give her story an absurdist quality: the farmhouse Greta lives in is also home to a dyeing beehive, Greta's codependent relationship with her dog, the fact that Greta almost never uses Big Swiss’ real name, Om's practices, his patients, Greta’s ex (that whole section really reminded me of pretend i'm dead) , and Big Swiss herself. No one acts really ‘sane’, or how you would expect them to, which gives the narrative a rather boisterous energy.

As we learn of Greta’s childhood and her fraught relationship with her mother we gain an understanding of the possible roots of her oddness, from her lack of self-preservation to her inappropriate behavior, yet, learning this will no means make her into less of a terrible person in our eyes. I appreciated how Beagin manages to capture the resentment and sadness that are specific to a child or young person who is living with a suicidal parent.

The fucked up sense of humor sometimes wasn’t always effective, and there were some instances where Greta’s remarks about the ‘woke’ youth of today or her diagnosing her dog with ‘“trans-breed dysmorphia of the soul ” or thinking that Sabine was “anorexic—both traditionally and sexually”, that tried to be provocative but struck me as obvious. Still, Greta’s unpleasant commentary about the people around her is certainly captivating. She’s childish, sordid, selfish, and impossible, yet also strangely magnetic and certainly very entertaining. Although the people around her could be seen as caricatures, they fitted with the narrative’s absurd tone. I liked her strange yet touching bond with her dog, Piñon, and the baffling yet comical discussions/interactions with the people around her (om, his patients, sabine).

The one character who I wasn’t particularly fascinated/amused by was Big Swiss herself. If she did appear interesting, to begin with, it was only because she was the object of Greta’s desire. You want to know why Greta would become so fixated on this younger woman who sure is physically attractive but is certainly not particularly charming or intelligent. I think we are meant to find her aloof, but to me, her bluntness and stoicism did not make for a particularly gripping character. Especially when Greta often attributes her more 'surprising' responses to her being Swiss.

The novel’s portrayal and exploration of sex and sexuality brought to mind Melissa Broder's Milk Fed and Susan Choi's My Education, both of them also revolve around the affair or secret relationship between two women. Similarly to them, Beagin opts for these very unsexy scenes that often rely on turgid imagery. Yet, Beagin succeeds in making Great and Big Swiss’ sexual exploits funny, and those scenes give us an idea of the dynamic between the two of them. Given the secretive nature of their relationship, the narrative also plays around with themes like infidelity, jealousy, and obsession. Beagin’s discussions around grief, loneliness, self-destructiveness and depression are often unconventional yet ultimately affecting.

I found myself both deeply relating to Greta and feeling very much alienated by her. She rarely thinks things through, and tends to think only in terms of 'now'. Yes, she's awful, but she is also very funny and all too human. While I now that there are plenty of contemporary books focused on women who are not feeling good at all, they usually tend to focus on younger women (perhaps their youth is meant to make their flaws, their directionless, their solipsism, their numbness more 'palatable'). Here instead we have an older character who just keeps making mistakes and questionable choices but doesn't seem to particularly care about how the rest of the world sees her. Greta may be a looser but she's my kind of looser. Anyway, all of this to say is that she has the best lines in this book.

Big Swiss is a madcap read. While I wouldn't recommend it to everyone if you are a fan of authors like Awad, Moshfegh, Broder, Choi, and Sam Cohen chances are you will find it to be a blast. If you also happen to be into female-orientated cringe comedy shows like Fleabag and Bubblegum, chances are this will be up your street.
It's kinky, irreverent, silly. While Beagin's satire is by no means subtle I ended up buying into how preposterous her characters were and the weird scenarios and shoddy circumstances they find themselves in. Playful yet dismal Big Swiss makes for a candid read exploring love, sex, and obsession.

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

funny sexy and unhinged af

[Michelle Curie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this was such a weird experience – it's an addicting page-turner, but at the same time grows more and more annoying to read. The things that define it are also those eventually becoming the novel's biggest weakness.



Big Swiss feels like both hyper-realistic and far removed from our world. It's centred around Greta, a woman in her mid-forties who transcribes a sex therapist's sessions for a living. Without wanting to, she falls in love with one of the patients, whom she refers to as Big Swiss (for she is tall and Swiss). The neurotic blonde is a gynaecologist who was brutally attacked by a man eight years ago who is about to be released from prison. While the 28 year old is living with her husband, she's never had an orgasm, but also feels different to all other people who seek therapy, not letting her trauma define her (or even be called trauma. She prefers beating). Well, when Greta meets Flavia in real life at the dog park, a wild affair begins.

Beagin's characters are deeply flawed, full of problems and loose cannons all at once. This is my first novel of hers, but I totally get why she gets compared to Ottessa Moshfegh a lot. Both authors seem to have an interest in how our experiences and pasts make weirdos out of us all. The two protagonists in here, Flavia and Greta respectively, are a handful to say the least, which makes reading about them interesting, but also kind of hard. They seem to full of – I don't want to say trauma, because neither character would appreciate it, but there's really no other way to call it. Neither wants to really get to the bottom of their problems, but instead they let all their social interactions be messed up, because their pasts clearly influence their present.

It leads to the relationship between Greta and Flavia to be frustrating. It all starts with Greta obviously not telling that she knows Big Swiss (and her darkest secrets) before getting to know her in real life, but their dynamic is mysterious enough, anyway. They don't have much in common, after all: Big Swiss is serious and restrained, while Greta is of a more unhinged and frantic nature. Their affair ends up being fuelled by equal measures of attraction and disgust, obsession and repulsion. As the plot thickens, the whole story gets more surreal and absurd and it's a type of humour that makes this entire thing fascinating and memorable, but also exhausting. I enjoyed this, but also felt a sense of relief when I was able to leave these characters behind.

[Ashley (semi-ia, exam szn) · Rating 3 out of 5]

huh. rtc

-

big swiss better be a big serve

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the fuck

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Know why I liked this?

Besides the clever humour, the surprising language, the colourful array of characters, and the naughty and compulsive premise (a transcriber for a sex therapist becomes close with one of his patients under false pretenses while she continues to listen in on their sessions)...

It's that the main character, Greta, is 45. For once I'm not reading about a cupcake millennial floating around in a hot mess, trying to figure out who she is. Instead, I'm reading about a perimenopausal shit-show 45 year old floating around in a hot mess, trying to figure out who she is. And, I think, that's some pretty interesting stuff. Why? Cuz a 45 year old has earned her hot mess, she's got experience and she's got significant baggage, and she knows 80s references because she lived it, not because she's being ironic or interested in all things "vintage". She's likely got a kid and at least one dead parent, and a dead marriage, or two, or not, which is all pretty interesting to me.

I think that's what I liked about Miranda July's All Fours - her main character wakes up and she's sliding towards 50 and holy fuck what's she doing, what does she want, is she gay, who is she, anyway? She knows one thing: she sure as hell doesn't want to be some dried up old woman who isn't excited or exciting to people, and who isn't completely and totally herself, and she has to figure out how that's going to look. Despite the book being a mixed and problematic and kinda icky bag at times, I loved that.

(I'm sort of off on a weird Miranda July tangent now, but bear with me. She's all I've got, Ottessa Moshfegh still has a few years to go.)

Anyhoo. Let's lift our glasses to the hot mess continuing into mid-life. Let's be honest, we're all still trying to figure it out, or at least, the best of us are, right until the end. Some of us have to live in a house infested with bees and maggots before we get there, but at least we've had some good sex and petted some adorable miniature donkeys first.

Thank you James and Bonnie for convincing me to read this! You're wonderful friends.

[Cortney - Bookworm & Vine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2023 and it is my biggest disappointment.

None of it worked for me. Greta was all over the place... I had no idea what she was saying or where she was going next. I didn't like or care about any of the characters, their lives, or their stories, except for Pinon the dog.

*sigh*

[Mark Porton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin is big, bold, wicked, funny, and totally engaging.

Beagin’s offering is certainly in my top three reads of this year, I loved it.

Greta is a transcriber for a sex therapist in a small town. The audio files are sent to Greta, and she performs her work, usually in her underwear, at home. She takes a particular interest in one of the therapist’s clients – a woman Greta calls “Big Swiss”. Greta imagines Big Swiss (she is from Switzerland) as a stunning woman with a massive presence. Big Swiss is a 28-year-old gynaecologist, she loves dogs but has never had an orgasm, she is married to a wealthy man in town.

Greta is forty-five, she is also a dog lover and lives in a shared home which is a bit of a shambles. For example, there is a bee hive inside the house and the old place is falling apart. Her mother suicided when Greta was a girl. Greta has also shed as many responsibilities as possible – she yearns for a simple life.

Anyone can see that Greta was not a horse person. Her hair was not long enough, and neither were her teeth, and as a child, she had not been mistreated by other children

I found myself constantly surprised by the acerbic humour littered throughout this book, it made me laugh and often shocked me, not in a bad way – but in a guffawing, losing my nasal contents type of way.

People age horrible. They suffer strokes. Their bodies and brains fall apart. But the male ego? Firmly intact until the bitter end.

The transcripts of the sessions between the therapist and Big Swiss are fascinating, explicit, and often funny. I could not get enough of being a fly on the wall here – that is terrible isn’t it? But I loved it.

Big Swiss and Greta meet at a dog park – and things kick off. This is an ideal group or buddy read book – I can imagine pro-Big Swiss readers, throwing muffins at Greta fans, and vice versa. There is a lot to digest here, lots of sides to take.

Okay, this is important, this book is not all beer and skittles. It has some horrible violence and covers control and power in relationships.

This book really is the finished article, one of the best. I will hunt down other books from this author right now. Oh, HBO are making a movie based on this book – starring Jodie Comer as Big Swiss, I cannot wait.

5 Stars

[mj · Rating 2 out of 5]

started off so strong and just completely lost me. it takes forever for greta and big swiss to actually meet, and the excitement - for lack of a better word - wears off very quickly. the plot was completely lost.

i love an unhinged lady as much as the next, and she’s certainly unhinged, but she was painful to read. there were a few good jokes, but most of the time i was cringing. i can’t tell if the author did this on purpose to stress what a mess greta is, but it wasn’t cringe-funny, it was just brutal and gave me a serious case of second hand embarrassment. if she did it on purpose, good job i guess?

still will absolutely watch the adaptation (for jodie obviously), but it just left so much to be desired. this was one of my most anticipated reads of the year so i’m fairly disappointed.

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 stars. Add this to the list of literary novels I don't get all the fuss about. I liked Greta and Big Swiss individually as characters, but didn't feel any chemistry between them whatsoever. The plot also went completely off the rails.

Click here to hear more of my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive.

[Sally Darr Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

give me a book with a female protagonist who is just floating through life with zero direction and I will read it!!!!

I looooved the first half of this book. The second half wasn’t as good, but I still liked it.

Is this book weird? Yes. Does it have overly descriptive and crass lines? Yep!!! Sign me up. I can absolutely match Greta’s freak.

[Carlynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, to set the scene, Greta is 45 years old and becomes infatuated with a 28 year-old (Big Swiss) after transcribing her therapy sessions. Greta, once again, a 45-year-old woman, finally meets Big Swiss at a dog park and they start an affair. Mind you, Greta knows of the horrific trauma Big Swiss has endured from an older man, Keith, from years ago. Big Swiss is also married. Ok, now onto my thoughts...

The pacing of this book is awful. By the time Greta and Big Swiss AKA Flavia meet, I stopped caring. I almost was like "Oh yeah, this is what's supposed to happen for the plot." It meant nothing to me. This is really just a book where stuff happens but really nothing happens and then it ends. I was annoyed with all of it. Truly all of it. I don't even want to ask what this book was really about because quite frankly... I don't care.

As for these two characters, they start their affair and I genuinely wonder what attracts them to each other. I felt absolutely no chemistry between these two and every sex scene between them was cringe and in a way clinical. Which is funny (not funny ha ha, funny weird) because Flavia is a gynecoloist. At one point, Greta is at a dinner at Flavia's house, Flavia's husband is there, and they're just hurling insults at each other at the dinner table. Again, why do you like each other? Flavia even describes it later on that Greta is a pathetic human being and describes all the ways in which she sucks. At one point, Greta, again, a 45 year-old woman, makes a fake AirBnB profile with Javier Bardem as the profile photo and catfishes Big Swiss just to prove that Big Swiss is a 20-something who doesn't know celebrities. Need I remind you, Greta knows of the trauma Big Swiss has gone through and also knows that she's been feeling paranoid that she's being followed by this man Keith, etc. And of course Greta's answer was that it was a joke and she was just fucking with her. I mean... I'm supposed to be into these two together?

Now, the house Greta lives in with her friend Sabine. It was interesting and weird at first (house, infested with bees, dilapidated, freezing cold, etc), but then it got to a point where I was essentially the meme that's like "Bitch, you live like this?" It was no longer interesting and it moved past weird. You lost me when they were spraying Raid at maggots.

All in all, I actually truly hated this book when I thought I was going to enjoy it because everyone was giving it great reviews. Did we read the same book?

[Jordan (Jordy’s Book Club) · Rating 5 out of 5]

QUICK TAKE: I’ve had a surprising number of people reach out asking for my review on BIG SWISS, and all I can tell you is I loved every second of it. BIG SWISS is WILD, ya’ll, and it is 100% not going to be for a lot of you. But if you like weird, complex (and somewhat unlikable) characters and left-of-center humor, this one is worth it. This is for sure going to be a polarizing book, but fans of VLADIMIR (a JBC Top Ten fave of 2022) should run -not walk- to get their hands on a copy. All the stars.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh boy did I enjoy this book. On paper it sounds like it might drive me up the wall, like the kind of weird that veers towards quirky and maybe even twee. And Greta sounds like she could be the most annoying kind of mess, one who isn't so messy that you can't look away but just messy enough to constantly irk you with her bad decisions. But no. Somehow it all worked for me spectacularly.

The reason it works is that it's all there for a reason. The 300 year old farmhouse Greta lives in has a new horror every page. And not just the horrors of the lack of insulation in upstate NY. These are horrors like an entire beehive living in the structure of the house. You keep stumbling on more and more of these, and eventually you want to scream. How can anyone live like this? It is the same with Sabine, Greta's friend and quasi-landlord, who sees all of this as either entirely normal or completely delightful. But this isn't just all there to be set dressing. It isn't just the cute small town vibes. Greta is here because of who Greta is and Greta tolerates it, even welcomes it, for reasons we gradually discover over the course of the book. That's the real genius of it. Not all the quirk, but the Greta of it all, the peeling back of layer after layer.

Sometimes protagonists who constantly make bad choices give me so much anxiety I can't keep reading. Somehow Greta never did that to me. Even though her choices are absolutely misguided and destined for disaster. Maybe because it was so enjoyable to watch Greta fall in love/become obsessed with the titular character whose actual name is Flavia but who you only ever think of as Big Swiss.

Greta and Big Swiss are a classic case of opposites attract. Different ages, different backgrounds, different temperaments. Big Swiss has herself entirely together while Greta is the aforementioned mess. But something about them--Big Swiss perpetually frank, Greta perpetually unexpected--works. Of course it isn't simple. Big Swiss is married. Oh and there's the part where Greta hasn't told her that she is Big Swiss's therapist's transcriber and thus has heard all of her most intimate secrets.

At first I wondered how Greta could be in her late 40's and still be such a mess. By the end I didn't wonder anymore, I understood. And we start to see the possibility that maybe Greta could be a better version of herself if she wants to be. The question is, does she want to be?

Somehow I have not yet mentioned how darkly funny this book is. The prose is punchy and delightful.

And I absolutely must say how enjoyable I found the writing about sex and bodies. The only downside of listening to it on audio instead of reading in print was that I can't just flip to a page and quote to you a perfect little example.

The audio is particularly good, an excellent use of multiple readers which works very well in the transcription sections. The primary narrator really gets Beagin's humor, you don't always have readers helping a book be even more funny but this time you do. Lucky us.

[Cameron Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I have not been disappointed!!!! This is my kind of book babyyyy!!!!!
~
Forty-something Greta is without lust for life after the end of her decade long engagement. She’s moved into the bee-infested old house of a drug dealer, is working as a transcriptionist for the local sex therapist and has become infatuated with one of the clients whom she calls Big Swiss.
~
This sexy queer weirdo book is perfectly “what the f*ck”. An excellent balance of whacko storylines, a flawlessly paced unfolding of strange events and just the right amount of unhinged characters. I could not give this book anything less than five stars. I did find it difficult to picture the characters, I haven’t read an older protagonist in a long time and I often forgot Greta was in her forties, then found it difficult to remember Big Swiss was 28. Sex therapist Om was funny as f*ck, he felt like a Moshfegh character, and while I couldn’t picture him either it didn’t even matter.
My third five star book of the year and I’m so relieved that this hyped up little novel exceeded my expectations. This is a great year for books people!!!!! [This is me placing my bet that this book will be adapted to the screen. (🤞)]

[Bri Little · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book would’ve been much better with more developmental editing and less anti-Asian racism.

[Elise · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book made me wish I couldn’t read.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

this did for me what "my year of rest and relaxation" did for other people.