Ask Me Again

by Clare Sestanovich

From the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize finalist, whose short stories received instant acclaim (“Sparingly told, evoked with lacerating intimacy . . . Extraordinary”—Esquire), a debut novel about a young woman’s coming of age, and the singular friendship that challenges her values, her beliefs, and the course of her life

At sixteen, Eva meets Jamie by chance. She lives in middle-class south Brooklyn; he comes from the super rich of upper Manhattan. She’s observant, cautious, often insecure; he’s curious, bold, full of mysteries. These two questers are drawn together in a strange and profound friendship, tested by forces larger than themselves. As Eva follows a path of conventional achievement—a prestigious degree, a classic romance, the start of an ambitious career—Jamie seeks out more radical experiments in finding renouncing his family, joining a political movement, and eventually even talking to God.

Carried forcefully along by Clare Sestanovich’s exquisite prose, these two characters are pulled into separate spheres but circle the same how to define their values and find their purpose, how to create a sense of self while discovering what they owe to society and to the cause of justice. These reckonings propel a surprising story of intimacy across time, exploring the alchemy of identity, the mystery of destiny, and the difficult journey of finding faith—in yourself, and in the world.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook, Novels, Adult, Literary Fiction, New York

321 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 11, 2024

Reviews

[Amy Kaufman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I need to stop doing this -- forcing myself to finish books because I'm sure they'll get better, because some supposedly important voice has deemed it worthy. I connected to none of the characters. The decade-spanning connection between the two apparent best friends was barely forged in the beginning, so I never bought it. And just so painfully slow. Sigh.

[Stitching Ghost]

DNF at 64%. Theres a lot of beautiful lines but other than that it feels like a nothing burger of a story and I couldn't make myself read anymore of it.

No rating because I don't rate DNFs.

[ana (ananascanread) · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book started strong but then just... lost the plot, leaving me wondering if i was even reading the same story by the end. still, i couldn't help but love the pacing and those gorgeous quotes.

huge thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy—i really appreciate it! <3

[Alessia | Talee Letterarie]

Buone le prime 80 pagine circa, poi parte una serie di cose nonsense intramezzate da dialoghi nonsense. Boh.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ask Me Again is a gorgeously written account of asking for more from life. More is not a cliched stand-in for typical aspirations like financial/career success, world travel, or even passionate romances. Here, ‘more’ represents a quieter desire to remain porous enough to receive life. It’s reckoning the rawness of adolescence – a time when you wanted to feel the rattle of life’s extremes in your bones – with the slow shedding of that openness as life transitions into a series of mundane tasks.

At 16, Eva exists on the sidelines of her life. She notices everything but does not always know what to make of it. When she meets Jamie (also 16), she is instantly enamored with his strong convictions and philosophical worldview. They are opposites in many ways – she is the child of artists in middle-class Brooklyn while he is the neglected son of extreme wealth on the Upper East Side. Their connection is not romantic or sexual. To call it friendship feels somehow both more and less than what it is, which is more like blood or (in the words of T. Swift) an invisible string tying them together.

Their lives go in different directions after high school, as Eva takes the sensible linear steps: going to college, moving to a new city, and getting an entry-level job at a prestigious company in the field she’s interested in. Jamie denounces his wealth, moves in with Eva’s parents, and follows his feelings to extremes, which rarely land him in positive situations. While I cared about Jamie, this book is very much about Eva, and every experience is another opportunity to explore her perspective.

Her voice is like a toothache as she marches through life in step with (as opposed to against) the subtle throbbing of pain. This book took me places I wasn’t expecting, like explorations of the shady underworlds of young politicians and new-age organized religious groups, but it was so gorgeously written I would have followed Eva anywhere!

[suzannah ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

thank you to the publishers for my review copy, i am very grateful!

unfortunately i didnt gel with this book at all. i found it really slow and uneventful, the characters flat and i struggled to actually understand what the storyline was and what the book was trying to achieve. there is potential, but the execution just wasn’t the best.

[Jacob Lietz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had really high hopes for this because of Sestanovich’s story collection, my main critic of it being that she didn’t dive as deeply into the characters as I thought she should have, assuming that a novel would give her the room she needed to develop her characters.

And yet…here we are.

The sentences were clear and picturesque in parts, but whatever joy can be found in the syntax is overshadowed by the shallowness of the characters. It makes me a little apathetic towards everything else, you know.

Some great questions are asked in these pages, yet I never get the sense that the main character ever really grapples with them, opting instead to shrug and never think about them again—the book never suggesting that this behavior contributes to anything.

But! I enjoyed the scope. I think Sestanovich shoots for the sky and, though she misses, demonstrates what she is capable of doing. I hope the next book, the daunting future book, can have both Sestanovich’s elegant prose and a cast of characters who breathe on the page.

[Olivia Mill]

I didn't get it

[Val · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of a let down? The book starts off really intense with Eva and Jamie, who have a typical teenage dynamic: Eva is an insecure young woman who sees something in Jamie that he isn't, as he just hides behind pretentious phrases. Then, suddenly, they grow apart, but process gets pictured is so incidental and unimportant that the story is no longer about them both, but only about her. It's about all her developments, decisions, and guilt. I think I can only agree with most people here, and I'm reassured that it wasn't just me: I really didn't get the point? There are many good ideas in this book, but none of them are fully explored – only philosophical questions are asked, but no answers are provided. Kinda disappointing.

[annatheworstbanana · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was kind of crazy to read and made me miss philosophy tutes so much

[Caitlin Holloway · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book that is all about searching for meaning and belonging, the narrative tone of this book is very shallow and unemotional. It hooked me in pretty well at first, but it didn’t really keep me in its grasp for the entire novel.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

[Flynn Gilmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh

[Jonathan Newton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ask Me Again is a book that tries very hard to be smart. It should not try so hard to be smart. What it needs is a heartbeat. There's a lot of moments packaged as profound-- tons of 'let that sink in's-- but none of them have teeth. I didn't learn anything. The teeth Ask Me Again are in the parts that Claire neglected.

Eva (narrator) and the world she navigates are detached and gray. Passion, care, love, wonder, excitement, grief, sadness, and devastation are all alluded to. But they're rarely shown and they're never dwelled upon. There's a sensory, emotional *thump* missing. Eva doesn't have many passions, she doesn't have many friends. She allegedly falls in love, but it feels transactional. When she has sex it's to scratch an itch. These are sort of themes but they're minor ones. I can't quite fit myself in Eva's head.

I loved the scope and pace of the book. Seeing Evas life change was honest and refreshing. The time covered feels substantial. People & problems come and go. Jamie is the only constant but his relevance varies. It reflects life in a way traditional story structures can't. That made me happy.

If you like deep quotes then you will find plenty. If you tend to find the 'deep quote' aesthetic offsetting, then there might not be much for you here.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gonna need a few days to think on this one (or for a friend to read it so we can discuss) as I'm not quite sure what to make of it. The middle section, which becomes very much about progressive politics and churches, felt quite directionless when I was in it, which frustrated me. By the end, though, I think perhaps the whole book is exploring the ways in which we make meaning of the world (through our relationships, our upbringing, our academic experiences, politics, religion, advice columns) and how, even with all of those things, we often end up coming up short (but also is that just the theme of my own life at the moment? Do books have themes and meanings independent to those that we bring to the reading experience?). Sestanovich's sentence by sentence level writing continues to be beautiful though (really loved her debut short story collection Objects of Desire: Stories) and I'm eager to see what she does next.

[Vera Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I completely loved this. Sestanovich is such a strong and technical writer.

We meet Eva, at 16, when she meets Jamie. They’re both New York City kids, though Jamie wealthier, with less stable roots. We follow them through the end of high school, into college and their early twenties. They’re precocious, irritating, and always searching. They ask big questions, look for “truth,” purpose, and belonging.

I really believe the writing here ensures this story and these characters feel earnest and new. I found myself totally consumed by this from the first page. And was impressed by my interest in the side characters introduced throughout. The central friendship, while vexing and unstable, was, for me, full of heart.

There’s also a lot going on beneath the surface, a lot to glean on a reread or in discussion. The ending!?

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75/5 (rounded)
everyone seems to be on the same consensus that nothing really happened in this, to which I agree, but I think that added to its charm. The characters were very eye-roll-worthy at times, but again that gave them some charm. The writing was beautiful, but it seemed to introduce ideas and characters with little to no reasoning (perhaps I didn’t pick up on it) and then just carried on like nothing happened. It’s certainly not a bad book and would appeal to those who like character stories but something was just missing !!!

[tori · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

This book didn't actually follow through on the synopsis and somewhat just stopped talking about Jamie. It dragged and didn't have much of a plot, but rather than focusing on character development, it felt like it was just random little things from the main character (but she didn't really show development in my opinion).

[Sanjana Rajagopal · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was such a disappointment. It started off good and was well-written, but then quickly lost its focus. For the back half, Jamie wasn't even really an important character anymore. I made myself skim to the end because I spent so much time reading this book, but I would not reccomend it. Absolutely no cohesive through line at all.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exception that proves the rule! (The rule: blurbs commending prose in contemporary fiction are full of shit)

What a relief to find a new book full of good sentences! It's also very thoughtful about friendship and human relationships generally. I read it in like 24 hours.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ask Me Again is a coming-of-age story with a difference. The whole way through it was following Eva and Jamie's lives, wondering when they would come back together and the answer to my questions astounded me.

The writing is very engaging and thought-provoking, and that is the true beauty of this novel. It captures your attention and makes you ask the same questions as Eva and Jamie are facing themselves. You can't help but feel connected to the characters and relate to how they handle the life they find themselves in.

It's a novel that sits with you long after you've finished reading, leaving you constantly wondering and questioning what happens next.

[Rebecca Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a coming of age novel about Eva and Jamie who meet by chance at a hospital and develop a strong friendship. We follow their development through teens and into adulthood.

If you are hoping for a One Day vibe then you'll be sadly disappointed. In fact nothing big really happens at all throughout but I felt myself compelled to keep reading.

I can't really say why I enjoyed it - perhaps the well rounded characters meant you really got to know Eva and never quite knowing Jamie - just how it's supposed to be.

[Sophie Stingelin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow pace but I think she does a great job at capturing mundane experiences and depicting them as the sort of essence of life. Not a super uplifting read but lots of moments that I find myself still turning over in my head.
This is the kind of book that I should read again...!

[Sean Kinch]

Freshman year, Eva gets good advice from new friend Lorrie: “Flirt with grad students, fuck grad students, but don’t make the mistake of actually talking to them. They sound ridiculous when they talk.”

[Sonia Menken · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was like eating candy! So beautifully written

[Alice Palace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a coming of age story following a girl over the course of 10 years or so. The entire plot is inconsequential. The author uses no foreshadowing or references anything else that has happened throughout the book almost ever. Almost like an anthropological diary of the girl’s life.

The main character has terribly low self-esteem and remains quite juvenile despite her aging and having new experiences.

The book is incredibly descriptive and perceptive when describing every interaction between characters. The side characters are all interesting but it doesn’t quite make sense why they continue to engage with the main character. Her life-long best friend’s side story is captivating then devastating.

I read this book in three days. It was a strange nostalgic and introspective escape but left me feeling sad for everyone involved. Very teenage-girl philosophical and at times meta.

[Sarah Rubin · Rating 2 out of 5]

As soon as I learned that the author has previously published mainly short stories, it was a clear aha! moment. I will first admit that it took me forever to read this book (3 months!) I kept putting it down and reading other things, but eventually picking it back up because I did enjoy the writing. The way I finally got through it was to treat each chapter as a standalone short story. That was quite easy to do, as the author spent zero time cultivating the central "best friendship" of the two "main" characters. The entire novel is written from one character's point of view and the other "main" character ambles in and out of chapters but you learn literally nothing about his personality or desires. This story is supposed to follow two best friends as they grow up and move through life; I would say that this story depicts acquaintances, at best, who seem to kind of tolerate each other. Even the narrator is an enigma. She seems disenchanted with all aspects of life; it's hard to root for her when she doesn't seem to have any depth or substance. All of the other characters - her parents, her on and off boyfriend, her best friend, a random politician she befriends - are the broadest of sketches and seem to have no inner life.

So why did I keep reading this book until the end? The prose is good. The words flow in an almost lyrical way at times. I think this is the book equivalent of an art house film that you see at the local art museum, tell everyone you loved it to sound smart and artistic, but actually can't remember any of the plot the minute you leave the theater.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for an advanced copy of this story.

[kathryn (le livre en rose) · Rating 2 out of 5]

1/3 of the way into this book, Sestanovich titles a chapter “What’s the Point?” and yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.

Sestanovich is a talented writer at the sentence level, but the entire novel collapses into nothingness. this is the kind of novel I fear the most: people who are ordinary but never too ordinary (the outrage!), existing in worlds that are ugly but always in a beautiful way. The protagonist has no tactile involvement with the world around her, which enables her to exist in a register that is—unintentionally but functionally—privileged and uninteresting. This would not be such a crime if the book were content to be privileged and uninteresting (sallyrooneysallyrooneysallyrooney) but instead the book aspires to something like a impotent social and political critique. Also Sestanovich invests heavily in the rare specimen of the manic pixie dream boy and like, What’s the Point?

[Marti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mi trovo combattuta.
Da un lato "Chiedimelo ancora" mi ha coinvolto pochissimo. Si muove in superficie, vaga senza mai voler arrivare da nessuna parte, come la sua protagonista. A dirla tutta, è popolato da coincidenze anche un po' improbabili. Piaciuto? Difficile dirlo.
Perché dall'altro lato è un libro che ha tantissimo da dire. E lo fa nell'unico modo possibile: proprio quel vagare in superficie, quel non fissarsi in nessun posto, non abitare, non perdersi mai davvero ma nemmeno arrivare. C'è un punto preciso in cui l'ho capito, che sarebbe stato un coming of age un po' stagnante e anomalo, che a tratti mi ha ricordato la Selin di Elif Batuman.
Che in realtà ha tantissimo da dire. E che l'ha fatto nel modo più coerente possibile.

[Luu · Rating 2 out of 5]

La quarta di copertina aveva delle buone premesse: lui un ragazzo ignorato dai genitori dell'Upper East Side, lei figlia di artisti della classe media. "Jamie è curioso esperto audace". Boh a me è sembrato più che altro depresso. "La loro intesa si trasforma subito in un'amicizia profonda". Anche qui, non ho visto questa trasformazione e nemmeno questa profondità. "Jamie resta una bussola che orienta la sua vita" Nulla di tutto ciò, lei mi sembra persa quanto lui, e cosa ancora più assurda, quasi non si parlano.
Troppe scene senza uno scopo, la trama si perde. Sono arrivata a poco più di metà.

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ably written, ultimately uninteresting.