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Medium Rare
From the author of The Portrait of a Mirror, a modern tragicomedy transforms the myth of Icarus into a blazing romp through bureaucracy, B-list fame, and college basketball…
Phil is ordinary. A mid-level Washington lobbyist for a decidedly unsexy organization, unhappy in the way all mildly successful, minimally influential men are. That is until the spring of 2019, when Phil’s picks for the NCAA March Madness Tournament start panning out, and heads begin to turn his way. He really may do it: predict a perfect bracket, for a billion-dollar prize.
At first, Cassandra is just along for Phil’s soaring rise—she had foreseen it happening, after all. Despite moving in different circles since their shared university days and Cassandra never much liking him, she recognizes in Phil the making of a legend worthy of the highest art. What Cassandra fails to predict, though, is just how much she’d grow to care about Phil’s wife, Raleigh—and that the grandest narrative arcs sometimes unfold at the steepest of personal costs.
Dazzling in its absurd comedy, Medium Rare is not only a gambol through the upper echelon, but also a shrewd examination of madness, desire, and credibility—why don’t we listen when prophetic women speak? A. Natasha Joukovsky delivers a story as layered and incisive as it is high-flying fun.
Phil is ordinary. A mid-level Washington lobbyist for a decidedly unsexy organization, unhappy in the way all mildly successful, minimally influential men are. That is until the spring of 2019, when Phil’s picks for the NCAA March Madness Tournament start panning out, and heads begin to turn his way. He really may do it: predict a perfect bracket, for a billion-dollar prize.
At first, Cassandra is just along for Phil’s soaring rise—she had foreseen it happening, after all. Despite moving in different circles since their shared university days and Cassandra never much liking him, she recognizes in Phil the making of a legend worthy of the highest art. What Cassandra fails to predict, though, is just how much she’d grow to care about Phil’s wife, Raleigh—and that the grandest narrative arcs sometimes unfold at the steepest of personal costs.
Dazzling in its absurd comedy, Medium Rare is not only a gambol through the upper echelon, but also a shrewd examination of madness, desire, and credibility—why don’t we listen when prophetic women speak? A. Natasha Joukovsky delivers a story as layered and incisive as it is high-flying fun.
304 pages, Paperback
Published March 3, 2026
47 people are currently reading
6196 people want to read
About the author
A. Natasha Joukovsky
3 books267 followersA. Natasha Joukovsky holds a BA in English from the University of Virginia and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She spent five years in the art world, working at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York before pivoting into management consulting. The Portrait of a Mirror is her debut novel. You can find her on Instagram @joukovsky and on Substack. She lives in Washington, DC.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
December 24, 2025
An extremely fun read that combines a sports narrative (that feels like an adventure story) with a relatable and witty Beltway commentary. I read it over holiday break when there wasn’t much college basketball on, which added to the charm. I could see this being particularly popular that appeals to the sportbro who reads a couple books a year and would make a good couple read.
Phil’s story about having a perfect bracket offers wish fulfillment and becomes a plot device to situate his relatable dorkiness (he’s a “medium rare bird”)in situations where Jokavsky can let her main character Cassandra and some thinly veiled politicians solve political problems. His is all background for the novel’s main theme which is what makes antagonizes Cassandra about Phil’s personality. Through her psychoanalysis, Joukavsky suggests their animosity is more about misperception and contrived competition than it is about substantively different paradigms. This feels true, although there’s some political cherry picking going on here because Phil is a moderate conservative and Cassandra is a pragmatist. How much that can be extrapolated to the rest their political society is questionable—but it feels good.
The novel works because it fun and Joukavsky’s style is sharp and witty and has an eye for social irony. It would be even better if she had avoided stretching her humor too far (she’s more of a Michgoose than a Michigander was one of a handful of duds; “he was humbled by my power, even as he dismissed my ways and means” is slightly better ).
The brackets could be also be paired down to make it easier on the reader (the second half of the novel is basketball free), UVa fans might also enjoy the nostalgia for the 2019 team.
Phil’s story about having a perfect bracket offers wish fulfillment and becomes a plot device to situate his relatable dorkiness (he’s a “medium rare bird”)in situations where Jokavsky can let her main character Cassandra and some thinly veiled politicians solve political problems. His is all background for the novel’s main theme which is what makes antagonizes Cassandra about Phil’s personality. Through her psychoanalysis, Joukavsky suggests their animosity is more about misperception and contrived competition than it is about substantively different paradigms. This feels true, although there’s some political cherry picking going on here because Phil is a moderate conservative and Cassandra is a pragmatist. How much that can be extrapolated to the rest their political society is questionable—but it feels good.
The novel works because it fun and Joukavsky’s style is sharp and witty and has an eye for social irony. It would be even better if she had avoided stretching her humor too far (she’s more of a Michgoose than a Michigander was one of a handful of duds; “he was humbled by my power, even as he dismissed my ways and means” is slightly better ).
The brackets could be also be paired down to make it easier on the reader (the second half of the novel is basketball free), UVa fans might also enjoy the nostalgia for the 2019 team.
April 7, 2026
Clever and funny. Thought provoking. Love the creativity the author put in to this one!
March 29, 2026
Had a ball reading this novel (sorry), which somehow included all my favorite things (March Madness being the most predominant of course, but I almost lost it by the point Cassandra was recommending Nothing to See Here); funny, charming, & so original
March 22, 2026
My first time reading an ARC! I feel so important! Of course this book is very topical and I think it’s a great premise that I’ve never seen in books or shows before. I struggled a bit with the narrative voice and the omniscient inserts but overall I enjoyed it. And I can’t believe I’m saying this. But this is the one case where the Covid insert made sense narratively.
April 17, 2026
4.5
this was SOOOOOOOO for me!!!!! politics! basketball! the hubris of man!
I have to think that in her development of premise and extremely literary writing style, joukovsky did not care at all if this book was widely marketable. which is quickly becoming my favorite type of book. but I really do think there are nuggets of wisdom and flashes of humor and beautiful lines in here for everyone. It took a bit of getting used to, but now I'm eagerly anticipating whatever she does next
this was SOOOOOOOO for me!!!!! politics! basketball! the hubris of man!
I have to think that in her development of premise and extremely literary writing style, joukovsky did not care at all if this book was widely marketable. which is quickly becoming my favorite type of book. but I really do think there are nuggets of wisdom and flashes of humor and beautiful lines in here for everyone. It took a bit of getting used to, but now I'm eagerly anticipating whatever she does next
March 11, 2026
This was a really enjoyable read but the basketball was so heavy at first for me (the second half has no basketball btw). I adored our narrator and Raleigh and the many incredible takes on society Joukovsky always has! This book was funny and full of social ironies I love hearing pointed out.
Thank you NetGalley and Melville House for the eARC
Thank you NetGalley and Melville House for the eARC
April 9, 2026
Last time back East, the night before a return to Vegas, I found myself on the outskirts of a bonfire, dozens of Dolans ringed front. Next to me stood the only published novelist I've ever met: Uncle Mike. We watched our family from this remove for some time- something I've only become accustomed to since moving away but which I suspect he has been doing all his life.
We talk, a bit about writing, more about reading. His list these days is entirely non-fiction and I ask him why. He says he feels a level of guilt, of impending waste, when reading fiction. He should be writing this, not reading it.
I commiserate. I point out that Woolf seems to convey a feeling similar to his own in Lighthouse, which is reassuring, if not inspiring.
But still, I point out, we can't be writing all the time and anyways how else can you grow? There's a balance, a limit to how much writing alone can improve upon itself.
My problem, addressed head-on in the reading of this book, is a similar one. I fear reading modern authors. I like my authors dead, preferably sealed and enstoned well before the Bicentennial.
That shadowy figures in the past managed to put pen to paper and produce work which leaves me dizzied and delighted - or depressed - is one thing. They are gone and done and comparison to them would be ridiculous. That high definition figures with LinkedIn profiles can do the same yanks from under me that comfortable remove of decades, spinning out my ego perilously close to a precipitous cliff.
---
If ever you've longed for a book which rolls together Greek mythology, the Old Masters, College Basketball, and a glimpse into the pre-pandemic lives of minor Capitol Hill functionaries, look no further.
If you'd asked me a month ago whether a literary college basketball book was likely to be published, I would've given it the odds of a generic 13 seed in round one. You can be Lupica or you can be Pynchon.
Another bad take by me. If baseball can, through combination of it's languorous nature and former status as our nation's game, be the thread which winds through a half dozen great novels, then it stands to reason no reason that basketball, with rapid pace, hards cuts, and celebrity-dominated branding, can not wind similarly through a more modern set of books, can not hold up a great mirror to today's culture.
The reflection found in Joukovsky's book is pleasantly revolting, a fun house mirror that elongates and distorts at times, but doesn’t squash our defining attributes. Unfortunately, she is not holding a fun house mirror but a standard one, slightly tinted, and any distortions we see are the realities of our current body politic. It is a testament to her storytelling that she balances the weight of this mirror without tipping into outright political grandstanding.
The writing itself is very good. It tiptoes the baseline between elevated an approachable, with enough high life gilding to tickle the smarter and the richer, intertwined well enough as to not piss off the crankier, who value the stylistic insertion of such references more than the insertion itself.
There are a few moments, most found in the second half, where the writing falters. The jumble of mimetic figures which opens this section rang some alarm bells for me, and Joukovsky's level- weary after 170 pages of a full court press- dips slightly, though never enough to make the reading unenjoyable.
The biggest shortcoming here is the central relationship of the book, the one between our narrator and Raleigh, which is supposed to supplant Phil’s story as the “true” one here. I wanted to care about their relationship. I did, too, to an extent. But not enough to be moved by the relationship’s crumbling and reconstruction, or to make the last 10 pages of post-Phil philosophizing interesting.
I also have a few qualms with the book's presentation of college basketball. Of course I do. It would be nigh unimaginable for a college basketball fan to not have qualms with another college basketball fan’s interpretation and delivery of college basketball. And Joukovsky is a fan of college basketball; that shines through. Some thoughts:
- College basketball as we knew it then, in 2019, is dead. There is no mention of this tectonic shift, one which saw figures like Jay Wright and Tony Bennett quickly send themselves the way of the dodo. As is, this story is a nice requiem for a different era, both in basketball and politics.
- I found Jourkovsky’s decision to stylize the broadcast audio an interesting one. She seems to keep sixty to seventy percent of the play-by-play, cutting where needed and adding where… well, not. Here’s one example that jumped out, from the Purdue game: “A scramble in the backcourt! Little Kihei Clark has it, all of five foot ten! Virginia has a final chance here- Clark to Diakite- to win it - yes! No, to tie!” Our author wisely cuts down on a bit of mangled score tallying by Brian Anderson; it’s the Little Kihei Clark comment that irks me. There’s no time there to be listing off player heights. And it reads as if delivered by a radio announcer with a transatlantic accent. This happens a few times throughout, and I think Jourkovsky is working to make the basketball jargon digestible by a target audience which might not be able to differentiate a gather step from a travel.
- This isn’t a basketball qualm but tossing it in here since I just remembered it and don’t want to bother with finding a way to get it to flow up above. I now swing onto my middle class high horse, upon which I feel secure in casting stones in all directions. Phil, with his UVA degree, Beltway job, and combined household income of well over 200,000$ a year, is an everyman only in a very specific, very insulated, world. That might be part of the author’s point, now that I type this all out.
- There is no world in which Tony Bennett’s style of play is inherently “entertaining”. It led to some wild finishes, sure, but the road to the final minute and a half is inevitably filled with a half dozen shot clock violations, hapless offensive possessions, and clock-killing top-of-the-key handoffs. You can play team ball without being boring as hell. Just look at Villanova’s run in the same years covered by this book.
- Diakite’s shot to send home Carsen Edwards and Purdue was not MJ-esque. It was a stiff-limbed imitation of Laettner. Still incredible, but it lacked all the fluidity and majesty of MJ.
---
Last week I spoke again to Uncle Mike. He’s just finished McCarthy’s The Road and, having enjoyed it, will be on to the rest of those bleak sojourns through the western outs in due time.
Avoiding fiction - be it in general or just those titles written by people still capable of walking and talking and writing - is a bad idea. It is an especially bad idea for anyone who wishes to write for a living.
Whatever else I might remember about this book down the line, I hope it will mark a deviation in my reading habits, a setting aside, if not a ridding altogether, of the jealousies and insecurities which, up to this point, have kept stuck my reading in decades and centuries gone by. For that, I think, I will be grateful.
We talk, a bit about writing, more about reading. His list these days is entirely non-fiction and I ask him why. He says he feels a level of guilt, of impending waste, when reading fiction. He should be writing this, not reading it.
I commiserate. I point out that Woolf seems to convey a feeling similar to his own in Lighthouse, which is reassuring, if not inspiring.
But still, I point out, we can't be writing all the time and anyways how else can you grow? There's a balance, a limit to how much writing alone can improve upon itself.
My problem, addressed head-on in the reading of this book, is a similar one. I fear reading modern authors. I like my authors dead, preferably sealed and enstoned well before the Bicentennial.
That shadowy figures in the past managed to put pen to paper and produce work which leaves me dizzied and delighted - or depressed - is one thing. They are gone and done and comparison to them would be ridiculous. That high definition figures with LinkedIn profiles can do the same yanks from under me that comfortable remove of decades, spinning out my ego perilously close to a precipitous cliff.
---
If ever you've longed for a book which rolls together Greek mythology, the Old Masters, College Basketball, and a glimpse into the pre-pandemic lives of minor Capitol Hill functionaries, look no further.
If you'd asked me a month ago whether a literary college basketball book was likely to be published, I would've given it the odds of a generic 13 seed in round one. You can be Lupica or you can be Pynchon.
Another bad take by me. If baseball can, through combination of it's languorous nature and former status as our nation's game, be the thread which winds through a half dozen great novels, then it stands to reason no reason that basketball, with rapid pace, hards cuts, and celebrity-dominated branding, can not wind similarly through a more modern set of books, can not hold up a great mirror to today's culture.
The reflection found in Joukovsky's book is pleasantly revolting, a fun house mirror that elongates and distorts at times, but doesn’t squash our defining attributes. Unfortunately, she is not holding a fun house mirror but a standard one, slightly tinted, and any distortions we see are the realities of our current body politic. It is a testament to her storytelling that she balances the weight of this mirror without tipping into outright political grandstanding.
The writing itself is very good. It tiptoes the baseline between elevated an approachable, with enough high life gilding to tickle the smarter and the richer, intertwined well enough as to not piss off the crankier, who value the stylistic insertion of such references more than the insertion itself.
There are a few moments, most found in the second half, where the writing falters. The jumble of mimetic figures which opens this section rang some alarm bells for me, and Joukovsky's level- weary after 170 pages of a full court press- dips slightly, though never enough to make the reading unenjoyable.
The biggest shortcoming here is the central relationship of the book, the one between our narrator and Raleigh, which is supposed to supplant Phil’s story as the “true” one here. I wanted to care about their relationship. I did, too, to an extent. But not enough to be moved by the relationship’s crumbling and reconstruction, or to make the last 10 pages of post-Phil philosophizing interesting.
I also have a few qualms with the book's presentation of college basketball. Of course I do. It would be nigh unimaginable for a college basketball fan to not have qualms with another college basketball fan’s interpretation and delivery of college basketball. And Joukovsky is a fan of college basketball; that shines through. Some thoughts:
- College basketball as we knew it then, in 2019, is dead. There is no mention of this tectonic shift, one which saw figures like Jay Wright and Tony Bennett quickly send themselves the way of the dodo. As is, this story is a nice requiem for a different era, both in basketball and politics.
- I found Jourkovsky’s decision to stylize the broadcast audio an interesting one. She seems to keep sixty to seventy percent of the play-by-play, cutting where needed and adding where… well, not. Here’s one example that jumped out, from the Purdue game: “A scramble in the backcourt! Little Kihei Clark has it, all of five foot ten! Virginia has a final chance here- Clark to Diakite- to win it - yes! No, to tie!” Our author wisely cuts down on a bit of mangled score tallying by Brian Anderson; it’s the Little Kihei Clark comment that irks me. There’s no time there to be listing off player heights. And it reads as if delivered by a radio announcer with a transatlantic accent. This happens a few times throughout, and I think Jourkovsky is working to make the basketball jargon digestible by a target audience which might not be able to differentiate a gather step from a travel.
- This isn’t a basketball qualm but tossing it in here since I just remembered it and don’t want to bother with finding a way to get it to flow up above. I now swing onto my middle class high horse, upon which I feel secure in casting stones in all directions. Phil, with his UVA degree, Beltway job, and combined household income of well over 200,000$ a year, is an everyman only in a very specific, very insulated, world. That might be part of the author’s point, now that I type this all out.
- There is no world in which Tony Bennett’s style of play is inherently “entertaining”. It led to some wild finishes, sure, but the road to the final minute and a half is inevitably filled with a half dozen shot clock violations, hapless offensive possessions, and clock-killing top-of-the-key handoffs. You can play team ball without being boring as hell. Just look at Villanova’s run in the same years covered by this book.
- Diakite’s shot to send home Carsen Edwards and Purdue was not MJ-esque. It was a stiff-limbed imitation of Laettner. Still incredible, but it lacked all the fluidity and majesty of MJ.
---
Last week I spoke again to Uncle Mike. He’s just finished McCarthy’s The Road and, having enjoyed it, will be on to the rest of those bleak sojourns through the western outs in due time.
Avoiding fiction - be it in general or just those titles written by people still capable of walking and talking and writing - is a bad idea. It is an especially bad idea for anyone who wishes to write for a living.
Whatever else I might remember about this book down the line, I hope it will mark a deviation in my reading habits, a setting aside, if not a ridding altogether, of the jealousies and insecurities which, up to this point, have kept stuck my reading in decades and centuries gone by. For that, I think, I will be grateful.
November 18, 2025
This was an easy and entertaining read. Phil is a relatable character and Cassandra is endearing. The book moves a good pace and kept my attention even though the basketball references and bracket talk was over my head. I laughed while reading and really enjoyed the simple flow of this book. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Read
April 6, 2026I am in...not so much a reading slump as a period of distraction from reading. Between the release of BTS' newest album, planning for an upcoming vacation, and a deep dive into the archives of a new-to-me podcast, reading hasn't been my top priority these past couple of weeks.
I read Medium Rare before this period of distraction began. I enjoyed it, but I also have a number of conflicting thoughts about it, and I just haven't had the desire or the mental energy to sit down and write a review. So instead of a traditional review, I'm going to post the rough-draft version of my thoughts in bullet-point format. I hesitate to do this because I suspect that if I were to take the time to sit down and articulate my ideas, as well as consider other points of view, I may come to very different conclusions about this book.
- I enjoyed this; it was a fun read.
- This is marketed as a book about a man who ends up with a perfect NCAA bracket, but Phil is actually a pretty boring character. I found the narrator Cassandra and Phil's wife Raleigh to be much more interesting (and I suspect the author does too).
- From reading Joukovsky's previous novel and her Substack, I know just enough about her to make some assumptions, which may or may not be true.
- I find her writing both impressive and pretentious. (Pretentious is a word that's going to keep coming up.) How much of this comes from envy of her intelligence?
- I do actually enjoy her writing. I don't mind at all that it forces me to really pay attention.
- I get the sense that she wants to be considered a literary writer. This is a "rich people behaving badly" story. The two are not mutually exclusive, but I'm asking myself if it's a clever and fun work of literary fiction or a pulpy story wrapped in the trappings of literary style.
- Why am I so hesitant to accept this as a work of literary merit when I've been itching for literary fiction that isn't dour and depressing?
- I did quite enjoy the way she played with the novel's title within the book.
- In both of her novels, Joukovsky writes pretentious, upper or upper-middle-class characters (or those striving to become so) who make lots of iykyk high-brow cultural references. They are endlessly posturing and performing. I have a hard time separating the author from her characters. It feels like she's poking fun from the familiarity within, and it also feels like there's something performative about her writing.
- I also realize that the fact I get some of her cultural references and allusions means that I am a part of, or at least adjacent to, that world myself. I don't really hate that. I am aware this sounds entirely hypocritical given that I've basically been criticizing the author for the same thing.
- I lived in the DC-area for a number of years, and although I wasn't part of the political scene, a lot of what Joukovsky wrote felt familiar.
- Numerous political references make this a very "of the moment" book. I'm not sure if that makes it more likely to be considered outdated in the future, or if it will be an interesting cultural artifact.
- President Donald Trump is a minor character in the novel, and Joukovsky does a pretty good job of imitating his speaking style. I bet she found it both painful and deliciously funny to write those scenes!
- I infinitely prefer the educated elite pretension of Joukovsky's style to the puerile and crass style of speech of our current president. (And yes, I did have to do some Googling to come up with the word puerile!)
I read Medium Rare before this period of distraction began. I enjoyed it, but I also have a number of conflicting thoughts about it, and I just haven't had the desire or the mental energy to sit down and write a review. So instead of a traditional review, I'm going to post the rough-draft version of my thoughts in bullet-point format. I hesitate to do this because I suspect that if I were to take the time to sit down and articulate my ideas, as well as consider other points of view, I may come to very different conclusions about this book.
- I enjoyed this; it was a fun read.
- This is marketed as a book about a man who ends up with a perfect NCAA bracket, but Phil is actually a pretty boring character. I found the narrator Cassandra and Phil's wife Raleigh to be much more interesting (and I suspect the author does too).
- From reading Joukovsky's previous novel and her Substack, I know just enough about her to make some assumptions, which may or may not be true.
- I find her writing both impressive and pretentious. (Pretentious is a word that's going to keep coming up.) How much of this comes from envy of her intelligence?
- I do actually enjoy her writing. I don't mind at all that it forces me to really pay attention.
- I get the sense that she wants to be considered a literary writer. This is a "rich people behaving badly" story. The two are not mutually exclusive, but I'm asking myself if it's a clever and fun work of literary fiction or a pulpy story wrapped in the trappings of literary style.
- Why am I so hesitant to accept this as a work of literary merit when I've been itching for literary fiction that isn't dour and depressing?
- I did quite enjoy the way she played with the novel's title within the book.
- In both of her novels, Joukovsky writes pretentious, upper or upper-middle-class characters (or those striving to become so) who make lots of iykyk high-brow cultural references. They are endlessly posturing and performing. I have a hard time separating the author from her characters. It feels like she's poking fun from the familiarity within, and it also feels like there's something performative about her writing.
- I also realize that the fact I get some of her cultural references and allusions means that I am a part of, or at least adjacent to, that world myself. I don't really hate that. I am aware this sounds entirely hypocritical given that I've basically been criticizing the author for the same thing.
- I lived in the DC-area for a number of years, and although I wasn't part of the political scene, a lot of what Joukovsky wrote felt familiar.
- Numerous political references make this a very "of the moment" book. I'm not sure if that makes it more likely to be considered outdated in the future, or if it will be an interesting cultural artifact.
- President Donald Trump is a minor character in the novel, and Joukovsky does a pretty good job of imitating his speaking style. I bet she found it both painful and deliciously funny to write those scenes!
- I infinitely prefer the educated elite pretension of Joukovsky's style to the puerile and crass style of speech of our current president. (And yes, I did have to do some Googling to come up with the word puerile!)
Read
March 4, 2026A.Natasha Joukovsky’s first novel, The Portrait of a Mirror, reimagined the myth of Narcissus as a modern novel of manners. Her new novel, Medium Rare, is even more ambitious, braiding together the myths of Icarus, Cassandra, and Phaeton with March Madness brackets, political ambition, and female friendship.
Led by an unreliable narrator named Cassandra, the book follows what happens when a friend stumbles into the perfect March Madness bracket—and the aftermath of his success. It’s a book that moves quickly between the NCAA tournament, Washington intrigue, and friendships made and betrayed, all summing up to a book somehow equally of the moment and timeless, and always, always fun to read.
Well worth reading!
We spoke on Zoom ahead of Medium Rare’s publication for Chicago Review of Books. Check it out here: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2026/03/...
Led by an unreliable narrator named Cassandra, the book follows what happens when a friend stumbles into the perfect March Madness bracket—and the aftermath of his success. It’s a book that moves quickly between the NCAA tournament, Washington intrigue, and friendships made and betrayed, all summing up to a book somehow equally of the moment and timeless, and always, always fun to read.
Well worth reading!
We spoke on Zoom ahead of Medium Rare’s publication for Chicago Review of Books. Check it out here: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2026/03/...
March 16, 2026
A phenomenal story about the perils of fate and receiving too much credit for successes you had nothing to do with. Knowing where things are going, both in terms of familiarity with the Icarus myth and the March 2019-2020 timeline, doesn’t ruin anything at all. In fact, it enhances the tension. The perfect book to read during March Madness, or any other time of the year for that matter.
March 14, 2026
Medium Rare is likely a book that a specific type of reader will enjoy. Unfortunately, I am not its intended audience.
I found the tone of this work to be aggravating, with so many stylistic choices that left absolutely nothing to interpretation. The asides in this felt exhausting, and came across less as a narrator with foresight and more as patronizing to the reader.
The plot is a bit of a mess - it’s never clear whether there’s some kind of magical gift system or not, and I found most thing predictable, slightly boring, and confusing with how much the story skipped over.
There was also nothing I wanted to do less than have to read a characterization of Donald Trump, US moderate politics, and Covid in a novel this year.
It’s an interesting concept that I thought had potential to be fun, but ended up just being a book that I just wanted to get to the end of.
Love the cover though.
Thank you to Melville House Publishing for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
I found the tone of this work to be aggravating, with so many stylistic choices that left absolutely nothing to interpretation. The asides in this felt exhausting, and came across less as a narrator with foresight and more as patronizing to the reader.
The plot is a bit of a mess - it’s never clear whether there’s some kind of magical gift system or not, and I found most thing predictable, slightly boring, and confusing with how much the story skipped over.
There was also nothing I wanted to do less than have to read a characterization of Donald Trump, US moderate politics, and Covid in a novel this year.
It’s an interesting concept that I thought had potential to be fun, but ended up just being a book that I just wanted to get to the end of.
Love the cover though.
Thank you to Melville House Publishing for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Did Not Finish
April 19, 2026i hated the narrator so much i couldn’t
May 7, 2026
My boyfriend is going to make a perfect bracket one of these years…
May 8, 2026
absolutely LOVED the narrator’s voice and perspective. so well paced and well written, i never felt bored or rushed and the last 100 pages were stellar
tbr-arc
October 21, 2025it had me at my steak preference and absurd comedy.
*thank you to Melville House for the ARC*
*thank you to Melville House for the ARC*
Read
December 15, 2025DNF - the numbers in the beginning are making my eyes glaze over
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
This was a very accomplished, entertaining read. It stands apart from much modern fiction in not being obsessed with the kinds of witty or memorable turns of phrase which are seemingly crafted for the inevitable social media pull quote post. Instead, this book assumes its readers are here for the story and are reading for the pure pleasure of doing so. As such, it succeeds in meeting the highest goal attainable, for any art: to be good.
Fans of Joukovsky’s previous novel The Portrait of a Mirror will find that this book moves at a quicker pace. It still exhibits the author’s intelligent and perceptive outlook on contemporary life. It has plenty of the pointed jabs at the world of glittering, rich, beautiful people making lowkey messes of their lives, but Medium Rare takes more of an outsider’s approach. We are allowed to see what happens when fame goes to the head of Phil Fayeton, an average middle-class striver—but we are not expected to desire anything that the hero wants. We are encouraged to look askance with a knowing chuckle at his faults, and his fall. But we aren’t thus admonished to resist the lure of fame—it was assumed we didn’t want it in the first place.
I said a moment ago that Phil Fayeton was the “hero”—but really, the only person in the novel who displays any kind of true heroism is Raleigh, his wife. She patiently grits her teeth and plays the role of the “supportive, loving spouse” that Phil’s public antics demand of her. Although she is dunked headlong into the world of high-rolling conspicuous consumption, her new social status doesn’t tarnish her character. As her husband’s machinations draw him ever along the path that, truth be told, we likely expected him to follow, Raleigh retreats into the private word of caring for her newborn child (was that a spoiler? Nah!) and cultivating a friendship with Cassandra, the narrator. Regular normal stuff, and maybe not technically “heroic” but she’s got her priorities figured out, and these days that quite a praiseworthy accomplishment.
About spoilers. The cover has a picture of Icarus on it so really, it’s rather predictable what happens to our friend, good old Phil. That being said, the journey towards his inevitable end is quite a splendid little roller coaster ride: quick, dizzying, thrilling, and a grand old time. Well worth checking out. Go buy a copy and read it.
Literary antecedents? This book reminds me more than anything of Wells’ Tono-Bungay: in the arc of its main character, in its wry commentary on middle-class social climbing, in its use of the semi-detached narrator who inhabits the thick of the action but is not mentally or emotionally engaged with what is happening to our hero. Dare I say that this means Medium Rare has much more than a passing resemblance to that other Icarus-esque novel of upward mobility: the one Fitzgerald wrote? There are echoes of both Gatsby and The Beautiful and Damned in Joukovsky’s new book; but hers shares none of the emotional pathos those books cultivate so keenly. I fully expect, though, that Joukovsky herself is on a Fitzgerald-like trajectory of literary greatness—without, though, all the nonsense and the parties and the crash / burn at the end of Fitzgerald’s career. She’s much too sensible for that.
This is turning into a meta-review of the author’s career and I didn’t want to do that. When you read Medium Rare be on the lookout for Joukovsky’s nifty, well-placed allusions to all kinds of books and texts from ages past. There are some references to her own previous novel which will give her fans a laugh. And who would have thought that calling Los Angeles “Sunny” would turn out to be such an exquisitely perfect pun? In this book, it is.
One little criticism: I wasn’t sure what was meant by the frequent allusions to Cassandra having predicted the course of the novel’s events. We never get to see what this prediction was. It was slightly distracting for me to have Cassandra often describe herself as a prophet and make mention of her prophetic gifts. Perhaps this is what the Goodreads synopsis means when it says the book is “A shrewd examination of credibility—why don’t we listen when prophetic women speak?” This book is nothing of the sort. It is most certainly not some kind of “problem” novel seeking to address the question of female prophets. Nope! It’s nothing more—nor less—than a good fun book. It’s well written and you’ll have a good time reading it.
Fans of Joukovsky’s previous novel The Portrait of a Mirror will find that this book moves at a quicker pace. It still exhibits the author’s intelligent and perceptive outlook on contemporary life. It has plenty of the pointed jabs at the world of glittering, rich, beautiful people making lowkey messes of their lives, but Medium Rare takes more of an outsider’s approach. We are allowed to see what happens when fame goes to the head of Phil Fayeton, an average middle-class striver—but we are not expected to desire anything that the hero wants. We are encouraged to look askance with a knowing chuckle at his faults, and his fall. But we aren’t thus admonished to resist the lure of fame—it was assumed we didn’t want it in the first place.
I said a moment ago that Phil Fayeton was the “hero”—but really, the only person in the novel who displays any kind of true heroism is Raleigh, his wife. She patiently grits her teeth and plays the role of the “supportive, loving spouse” that Phil’s public antics demand of her. Although she is dunked headlong into the world of high-rolling conspicuous consumption, her new social status doesn’t tarnish her character. As her husband’s machinations draw him ever along the path that, truth be told, we likely expected him to follow, Raleigh retreats into the private word of caring for her newborn child (was that a spoiler? Nah!) and cultivating a friendship with Cassandra, the narrator. Regular normal stuff, and maybe not technically “heroic” but she’s got her priorities figured out, and these days that quite a praiseworthy accomplishment.
About spoilers. The cover has a picture of Icarus on it so really, it’s rather predictable what happens to our friend, good old Phil. That being said, the journey towards his inevitable end is quite a splendid little roller coaster ride: quick, dizzying, thrilling, and a grand old time. Well worth checking out. Go buy a copy and read it.
Literary antecedents? This book reminds me more than anything of Wells’ Tono-Bungay: in the arc of its main character, in its wry commentary on middle-class social climbing, in its use of the semi-detached narrator who inhabits the thick of the action but is not mentally or emotionally engaged with what is happening to our hero. Dare I say that this means Medium Rare has much more than a passing resemblance to that other Icarus-esque novel of upward mobility: the one Fitzgerald wrote? There are echoes of both Gatsby and The Beautiful and Damned in Joukovsky’s new book; but hers shares none of the emotional pathos those books cultivate so keenly. I fully expect, though, that Joukovsky herself is on a Fitzgerald-like trajectory of literary greatness—without, though, all the nonsense and the parties and the crash / burn at the end of Fitzgerald’s career. She’s much too sensible for that.
This is turning into a meta-review of the author’s career and I didn’t want to do that. When you read Medium Rare be on the lookout for Joukovsky’s nifty, well-placed allusions to all kinds of books and texts from ages past. There are some references to her own previous novel which will give her fans a laugh. And who would have thought that calling Los Angeles “Sunny” would turn out to be such an exquisitely perfect pun? In this book, it is.
One little criticism: I wasn’t sure what was meant by the frequent allusions to Cassandra having predicted the course of the novel’s events. We never get to see what this prediction was. It was slightly distracting for me to have Cassandra often describe herself as a prophet and make mention of her prophetic gifts. Perhaps this is what the Goodreads synopsis means when it says the book is “A shrewd examination of credibility—why don’t we listen when prophetic women speak?” This book is nothing of the sort. It is most certainly not some kind of “problem” novel seeking to address the question of female prophets. Nope! It’s nothing more—nor less—than a good fun book. It’s well written and you’ll have a good time reading it.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Having read The Portrait of a Mirror and her Substack quite useless, I'm familiar with A. Natasha Joukovsky's style and preoccupations as a writer. If you've watched and enjoyed the White Lotus series or the film The Materialist, then you will probably enjoy Joukovsky's novels. She's the writer for you.
What does this mean exactly? Well, she maps contemporary class and status dynamics among America's professional managerial class (i.e. the PMC, aka the bourgeoisie, aka the upper middle class) as retellings of classical Greek myths. Unlike Greek myth, her characters have very legible modern psychological motivations, which she is loath to disguise, detailing them quite explicitly for readers. The less explicit skeleton key for the motivations of her characters is Girardian "mimetic desire," often resolved through some sort of individual achievement or distinction. Although Joukovsky appears to understand herself as loosely working within the literary lineages of Jane Austen, George Eliot, Edith Wharton, Henry James, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are aspects of her novels that are distinctly Randian and Nietzschean. In fact, she perhaps presents a more realistic version of what a Randian hero(ine) could actually look like. Her lead characters may not be able to stop the motor of the world, but they can make the scramble to the top of America's unforgiving meritocracy look effortless and self-fulfilling. Of course, there is still some vestigial (vaguely Christian) moral gravity, such that characters who strive with abandon and hedonistically seize the day do eventually pay some kind of price.
After exploring an overlapping love triangle as a satirical re-imagining of Narcissus and Echo, Medium Rare is Joukovsky's spin on Icarus, while inflected by her idiosyncratic interests in NCAA men's basketball, visual art, statistics, and real estate voyeurism. The novel is narrated by a character named Cassandra, modeled of course after the ignored prophet, who recounts the trajectory of a moderate Republican lobbyist named Phil from a mediocre everyman to rare medium, in the fortune-telling sense of the term. Phil miraculously completes a perfect NCAA March Madness bracket, wins a a billion dollars for it, and then launches an all-too-brief career in the public eye. Cassandra is embroiled in Phil's story, like a Nick Carraway figure, first as a college friend turned work acquaintance turned close friend of Phil's wife, Raleigh. Phil's ascent incidentally pulls Cassandra into Raleigh's world of domestic tranquility and Southern hospitality, and his rapid descent pushes her right back out.
The actual basketball in the novel faithfully follows the actual events of the 2019 tournament in which the UVA Cavaliers did indeed win after being embarrassingly upset as a 1-seed in the year prior, an inverse Icarus arc, if you will. The coverage of these games, even the March Madness scenes in general, are among the most electrifying portions of the novel and, unfortunately, comprise only its first half. Readers should also know that there is a fairly limited amount of actual statistics and bracketology talk so it really shouldn't dissuade or intimidate typical readers of contemporary fiction.
As alluded to above, I felt the latter half of the novel lost steam. It was a bit shapeless, which to some extent paralleled Phil's frantic efforts to maintain relevance after his fifteen minutes of fame. However, the climactic scenes that trigger and then complete Phil's downfall and the rupture between Cassandra and Raleigh are rushed, even a bit melodramatic, though omitting most of the actual drama.
Despite the weaknesses of the back half, Medium Rare felt like a progression for Joukovsky in terms of moving her character set from an earlier portion of young adulthood (the DINK life) to a more mature portion of adulthood (the parenting life). That said, parenting is not really a particularly compelling source of drama so it is mostly background to the characters, serving instead as a springboard to dramatize Millennial sociopolitical friction between men and women. Phil as a character is ostensibly a bit of a satirical jab at the much abused "mediocre white man" who somehow manages to stumble and bumble to the top of every social hierarchy and can't keep it in his pants. Contrastingly, Cassandra's periodic maternal ambivalence is asserted as a kind of female rebellion against social and biological expectations. I guess in reflection, Medium Rare is an implicit, generation- and class-defining cri de coeur for professional Millennial women, the novel’s unacknowledged Icarus figures.
I have a longer review titled "Millennial Ambition on the Shot Clock" on Substack
What does this mean exactly? Well, she maps contemporary class and status dynamics among America's professional managerial class (i.e. the PMC, aka the bourgeoisie, aka the upper middle class) as retellings of classical Greek myths. Unlike Greek myth, her characters have very legible modern psychological motivations, which she is loath to disguise, detailing them quite explicitly for readers. The less explicit skeleton key for the motivations of her characters is Girardian "mimetic desire," often resolved through some sort of individual achievement or distinction. Although Joukovsky appears to understand herself as loosely working within the literary lineages of Jane Austen, George Eliot, Edith Wharton, Henry James, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are aspects of her novels that are distinctly Randian and Nietzschean. In fact, she perhaps presents a more realistic version of what a Randian hero(ine) could actually look like. Her lead characters may not be able to stop the motor of the world, but they can make the scramble to the top of America's unforgiving meritocracy look effortless and self-fulfilling. Of course, there is still some vestigial (vaguely Christian) moral gravity, such that characters who strive with abandon and hedonistically seize the day do eventually pay some kind of price.
After exploring an overlapping love triangle as a satirical re-imagining of Narcissus and Echo, Medium Rare is Joukovsky's spin on Icarus, while inflected by her idiosyncratic interests in NCAA men's basketball, visual art, statistics, and real estate voyeurism. The novel is narrated by a character named Cassandra, modeled of course after the ignored prophet, who recounts the trajectory of a moderate Republican lobbyist named Phil from a mediocre everyman to rare medium, in the fortune-telling sense of the term. Phil miraculously completes a perfect NCAA March Madness bracket, wins a a billion dollars for it, and then launches an all-too-brief career in the public eye. Cassandra is embroiled in Phil's story, like a Nick Carraway figure, first as a college friend turned work acquaintance turned close friend of Phil's wife, Raleigh. Phil's ascent incidentally pulls Cassandra into Raleigh's world of domestic tranquility and Southern hospitality, and his rapid descent pushes her right back out.
The actual basketball in the novel faithfully follows the actual events of the 2019 tournament in which the UVA Cavaliers did indeed win after being embarrassingly upset as a 1-seed in the year prior, an inverse Icarus arc, if you will. The coverage of these games, even the March Madness scenes in general, are among the most electrifying portions of the novel and, unfortunately, comprise only its first half. Readers should also know that there is a fairly limited amount of actual statistics and bracketology talk so it really shouldn't dissuade or intimidate typical readers of contemporary fiction.
As alluded to above, I felt the latter half of the novel lost steam. It was a bit shapeless, which to some extent paralleled Phil's frantic efforts to maintain relevance after his fifteen minutes of fame. However, the climactic scenes that trigger and then complete Phil's downfall and the rupture between Cassandra and Raleigh are rushed, even a bit melodramatic, though omitting most of the actual drama.
Despite the weaknesses of the back half, Medium Rare felt like a progression for Joukovsky in terms of moving her character set from an earlier portion of young adulthood (the DINK life) to a more mature portion of adulthood (the parenting life). That said, parenting is not really a particularly compelling source of drama so it is mostly background to the characters, serving instead as a springboard to dramatize Millennial sociopolitical friction between men and women. Phil as a character is ostensibly a bit of a satirical jab at the much abused "mediocre white man" who somehow manages to stumble and bumble to the top of every social hierarchy and can't keep it in his pants. Contrastingly, Cassandra's periodic maternal ambivalence is asserted as a kind of female rebellion against social and biological expectations. I guess in reflection, Medium Rare is an implicit, generation- and class-defining cri de coeur for professional Millennial women, the novel’s unacknowledged Icarus figures.
I have a longer review titled "Millennial Ambition on the Shot Clock" on Substack
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
She DID IT AGAIN!!!! So grateful to have received an ARC of this book. Just finished it and have too many thoughts, so I’ll have to come back later. All I will say for now is the narrator, Cassandra, is an ICON, and that no one writes like Joukovsky - she’s brilliant and cutting and her sense of humor is unparalleled (also severely underrated because not enough people are talking about it as far as I’m concerned). I miss this book already
Ok:
Medium Rare is a first-class, grade A skewering of the average white American man. I’ve lived in south Florida, DC, Manhattan, LA, and now just outside of Raleigh (lol if you read the book), and nowhere - nowhere - is the average white American man more painfully average, white, or American than in our nation’s capital, making it the perfect setting for a transformation reimagining of the myth of Icarus.
(Disclaimer: if you are one of the very, very few men from the DC days who follow me on here - I am not talking about you🫶🏻)
I worked on the hill for four years and am unfortunately all too familiar with the Phils of the world. Everyone knows a Phil - a supremely unremarkable lobbyist who fills out the first perfect March Madness bracket in the history of the world, and, even though he chose one of the Final Four teams because he liked the mascot, is offended by the mere suggestion that luck, or literally anything other than skill and mastery of statistical analysis, had anything to do with it. He wins a billion dollars for this feat, thinks he earned it because he’s so smart and special, and THEN thinks he should very well be the next president of the United States (though he would settle for the Senate).
Phil is a beautiful modern-day Icarus: blind to the fact that there is nothing special about him (except that he convinced a woman out of his league to marry him, and even that’s not that special these days), he’s all too ready and willing to bet on himself, ignoring the counsel of those wiser, smarter, and more experienced than he.
Which brings us to the plight of Cassandra, our narrator and oracle. Cassandra plans and executes fundraising events; her gift is foresight, and her curse, of course, is that no one believes her. Cassandra’s character reminded me of a line from White Ivy by Susie Yang: “Never does a woman lie in a more cunning way than when she tells the truth to a man who doesn’t believe her.” Cassandra corrects Phil when he refers to the oracle at Delos: “that’s Delphi,” she tells him. What is Phil’s reply? “Where on earth do you get your confidence?”
Cassandra sort of ushers us onto the ride she herself is on, and the reader gets to be an observer for the ages as Phil flies higher and higher with his waxy wings, oblivious to nuance and insight. I looooove the details - there was a moment at Brown when I thought I would concentrate in the classics, and all of the allusions and references in Medium Rare are so well placed and at times so subtle (like I’m sure I did not catch them all), that the whole trip is just a delight. Cassandra’s twin boys, MEROPE, the DaedaDome (the arena proves the ultimate labyrinth for poor sweet Phil) - I couldn’t get enough.
Medium Rare is a familiar tragedy and comedy transformed: it’s dressed in diamonds and exuberant Versace, ready to co-chair the 2019 Met Gala, Camp: Notes on Fashion.
Ok:
Medium Rare is a first-class, grade A skewering of the average white American man. I’ve lived in south Florida, DC, Manhattan, LA, and now just outside of Raleigh (lol if you read the book), and nowhere - nowhere - is the average white American man more painfully average, white, or American than in our nation’s capital, making it the perfect setting for a transformation reimagining of the myth of Icarus.
(Disclaimer: if you are one of the very, very few men from the DC days who follow me on here - I am not talking about you🫶🏻)
I worked on the hill for four years and am unfortunately all too familiar with the Phils of the world. Everyone knows a Phil - a supremely unremarkable lobbyist who fills out the first perfect March Madness bracket in the history of the world, and, even though he chose one of the Final Four teams because he liked the mascot, is offended by the mere suggestion that luck, or literally anything other than skill and mastery of statistical analysis, had anything to do with it. He wins a billion dollars for this feat, thinks he earned it because he’s so smart and special, and THEN thinks he should very well be the next president of the United States (though he would settle for the Senate).
Phil is a beautiful modern-day Icarus: blind to the fact that there is nothing special about him (except that he convinced a woman out of his league to marry him, and even that’s not that special these days), he’s all too ready and willing to bet on himself, ignoring the counsel of those wiser, smarter, and more experienced than he.
Which brings us to the plight of Cassandra, our narrator and oracle. Cassandra plans and executes fundraising events; her gift is foresight, and her curse, of course, is that no one believes her. Cassandra’s character reminded me of a line from White Ivy by Susie Yang: “Never does a woman lie in a more cunning way than when she tells the truth to a man who doesn’t believe her.” Cassandra corrects Phil when he refers to the oracle at Delos: “that’s Delphi,” she tells him. What is Phil’s reply? “Where on earth do you get your confidence?”
Cassandra sort of ushers us onto the ride she herself is on, and the reader gets to be an observer for the ages as Phil flies higher and higher with his waxy wings, oblivious to nuance and insight. I looooove the details - there was a moment at Brown when I thought I would concentrate in the classics, and all of the allusions and references in Medium Rare are so well placed and at times so subtle (like I’m sure I did not catch them all), that the whole trip is just a delight. Cassandra’s twin boys, MEROPE, the DaedaDome (the arena proves the ultimate labyrinth for poor sweet Phil) - I couldn’t get enough.
Medium Rare is a familiar tragedy and comedy transformed: it’s dressed in diamonds and exuberant Versace, ready to co-chair the 2019 Met Gala, Camp: Notes on Fashion.
March 23, 2026
If you like basketball, I think you might like this book, maybe even more so than I did. If you don't like basketball, I can't imagine you liking this book, because there is A LOT of sports ball.
I'm a fan of basketball and I heard about — and read this — just in time for the NCAA March Madness. Perfect timing. That said, this book was out of my comfort zone. I'm glad I read it, though it fell a bit short for me.
This is said to be a modern tragicomedy that transforms the myth of Icarus, the Greek god who tragically fell after flying to close to the sun, despite repeated warnings. The book is told by a seemingly all-knowing narrator named Cassandra. She is a fundraiser for Capitol Hill lobbyists who went to the University of Virginia with a guy named Phil, who is a mediocre white guy who worked for Republicans on Capitol Hill and now works as a lobbyist for a small, meaningless trade organization.
Phil is elevated in the way that boring, unexceptional white men given tiny bits of power often are in the U.S. Then, he seems to have filled out a perfect bracket for March Madness, which gets attention after he correctly selects all of the winning teams in the first round. As the tournament continues, and Phil keeps choosing correctly, the sports world latches on to him. He lands interviews on the sports channels, gets attention on Capitol Hill, is invited to watch games from suites. To add to this, a billionaire has already announced he will give a billion dollars to anyone with a perfect bracket at the tourney's end. You have a higher probability of almost anything, including flying to the moon, than you do of filling out a perfect bracket.
Cassandra and her husband, Miles, become "friends" with Phil and his very pregnant wife, Raleigh. I say "friends" because it's challenging to see how or why they all like each other. The author writes a lot about how Raleigh and Cassandra become close friends, maybe even best friends, as Phil's reputation — and his ego and personal myth-making — soar.
But that's where I struggled with this book. I thought the writing and tone were clever, but the characters all seemed one note. Phil is meant to be, but I didn't warm to Cassandra or Raleigh either, and I never saw how or why they were meant to be best friends. I wonder if the author was so focused on her clever writing and new take on this Greek tale that she didn't create more in-depth female characters.
Back to the basketball. This book is set in 2019, when the University of Virginia — the characters' alma mater — is on a strong path to the win the title. All of the basketball outcomes and game descriptions are real, which was clever and something I appreciated. But again, you need to like basketball to enjoy it. I think there is too much basketball for non-fans to just skip over those sections.
I'm a fan of basketball and I heard about — and read this — just in time for the NCAA March Madness. Perfect timing. That said, this book was out of my comfort zone. I'm glad I read it, though it fell a bit short for me.
This is said to be a modern tragicomedy that transforms the myth of Icarus, the Greek god who tragically fell after flying to close to the sun, despite repeated warnings. The book is told by a seemingly all-knowing narrator named Cassandra. She is a fundraiser for Capitol Hill lobbyists who went to the University of Virginia with a guy named Phil, who is a mediocre white guy who worked for Republicans on Capitol Hill and now works as a lobbyist for a small, meaningless trade organization.
Phil is elevated in the way that boring, unexceptional white men given tiny bits of power often are in the U.S. Then, he seems to have filled out a perfect bracket for March Madness, which gets attention after he correctly selects all of the winning teams in the first round. As the tournament continues, and Phil keeps choosing correctly, the sports world latches on to him. He lands interviews on the sports channels, gets attention on Capitol Hill, is invited to watch games from suites. To add to this, a billionaire has already announced he will give a billion dollars to anyone with a perfect bracket at the tourney's end. You have a higher probability of almost anything, including flying to the moon, than you do of filling out a perfect bracket.
Cassandra and her husband, Miles, become "friends" with Phil and his very pregnant wife, Raleigh. I say "friends" because it's challenging to see how or why they all like each other. The author writes a lot about how Raleigh and Cassandra become close friends, maybe even best friends, as Phil's reputation — and his ego and personal myth-making — soar.
But that's where I struggled with this book. I thought the writing and tone were clever, but the characters all seemed one note. Phil is meant to be, but I didn't warm to Cassandra or Raleigh either, and I never saw how or why they were meant to be best friends. I wonder if the author was so focused on her clever writing and new take on this Greek tale that she didn't create more in-depth female characters.
Back to the basketball. This book is set in 2019, when the University of Virginia — the characters' alma mater — is on a strong path to the win the title. All of the basketball outcomes and game descriptions are real, which was clever and something I appreciated. But again, you need to like basketball to enjoy it. I think there is too much basketball for non-fans to just skip over those sections.
March 10, 2026
Read this if: you like modern retellings of Greek mythology, unpredictable plots, and stories that mix big cultural moments with something a little more literary
I really enjoyed this book! Medium Rare is a clever mix of current events and mythology, weaving the chaos of March Madness with the story of Cassandra and her prophecies. It’s an unusual pairing, but it works surprisingly well and keeps the story feeling fresh.
One of my favorite things about the book was the setting. I’m always a sucker for stories set in Washington, DC (my home!), and it was fun to see the city show up on the page. The basketball angle also added a lot for me personally since my husband is a huge March Madness fan, so I appreciated the behind-the-scenes feel of that world.
The plot kept me engaged because it wasn’t completely predictable. I had some ideas about where things might go, but I was never totally sure, which made it fun to keep reading and see how everything unfolded.
The reason this lands at about 4 stars for me instead of 5 is the writing style. There are some beautiful turns of phrase throughout the book, but at times the language felt a little overdone. I love lyrical writing as much as anyone, but occasionally I found myself rereading passages just to understand what was being said. Sometimes simpler would have been stronger.
Overall, though, this was a really enjoyable read with a unique premise and a plot that kept me curious the whole way through.
Thank you to Melville House Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this story in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this book! Medium Rare is a clever mix of current events and mythology, weaving the chaos of March Madness with the story of Cassandra and her prophecies. It’s an unusual pairing, but it works surprisingly well and keeps the story feeling fresh.
One of my favorite things about the book was the setting. I’m always a sucker for stories set in Washington, DC (my home!), and it was fun to see the city show up on the page. The basketball angle also added a lot for me personally since my husband is a huge March Madness fan, so I appreciated the behind-the-scenes feel of that world.
The plot kept me engaged because it wasn’t completely predictable. I had some ideas about where things might go, but I was never totally sure, which made it fun to keep reading and see how everything unfolded.
The reason this lands at about 4 stars for me instead of 5 is the writing style. There are some beautiful turns of phrase throughout the book, but at times the language felt a little overdone. I love lyrical writing as much as anyone, but occasionally I found myself rereading passages just to understand what was being said. Sometimes simpler would have been stronger.
Overall, though, this was a really enjoyable read with a unique premise and a plot that kept me curious the whole way through.
Thank you to Melville House Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this story in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
An Icarus myth retelling wherein an unremarkable lobbyist foretells the future by way of a perfect March Madness bracket, leading to a perilous ascension of wealth, power, and glory? I couldn't have hit the "request" button on NetGalley fast enough. Truly, I don't know what it says about me that I loved this completely wild and pretentious novel so much, but here I am: "Medium rare" is a complete and utter delight.
Did I understand all of the basketball? No. Did I catch all of the mythology references? Also no. What about the insider Beltway baseball? Actually... maybe? All in all, whatever I've gleaned from watching high school basketball games to support my daughter's cheer team wasn't quite enough to understand why a bracket even exists, but none of that mattered. I loved Cassandra's narrative voice, the pacing, and how smug I felt every time I got a classics reference.
As a political campaigner by trade who loves a smart retelling of the classics, this was really, absolutely my jam. I'd suggest this more for readers of "Glorious Exploits" than "Song of Achilles," but you know what? Maybe just pick it up and see what happens. Recommendations aren't prophecies, and it's not like we can really predict the future anyhow.
Many many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Did I understand all of the basketball? No. Did I catch all of the mythology references? Also no. What about the insider Beltway baseball? Actually... maybe? All in all, whatever I've gleaned from watching high school basketball games to support my daughter's cheer team wasn't quite enough to understand why a bracket even exists, but none of that mattered. I loved Cassandra's narrative voice, the pacing, and how smug I felt every time I got a classics reference.
As a political campaigner by trade who loves a smart retelling of the classics, this was really, absolutely my jam. I'd suggest this more for readers of "Glorious Exploits" than "Song of Achilles," but you know what? Maybe just pick it up and see what happens. Recommendations aren't prophecies, and it's not like we can really predict the future anyhow.
Many many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
All I knew going in was that this was a book about a man who filled out the perfect March Madness bracket, with odds of around 1 in 9.2 quintillion! Basically, impossible! As a massive college basketball fan and former player, that's all I needed to want to read this book. This remarkable novel transformed the myth of Icarus into a modern romp about college basketball, b-list fame, and politics.
The main character, Phil, is a supremely unremarkable lobbyist who fills out the first perfect March Madness bracket in the history of the world, and wins a billion dollar prize. Following his big win, he begins to think he's so smart and so special, and then it's all downhill from there.
The prose is sharp, insightful, highly original, and fun. I really enjoyed this one and felt like it could have a lot of potential coming to life on-screen, and teaching anyone not familiar with the Icarus story what it truly means "to fly too close to the sun." Thank you NetGalley for the early digital copy.
PS - As a big basketball fan, I absolutely loved all the bracketology and basketball references. It's rare to see a genuine sports story told in such a literary fashion.
The main character, Phil, is a supremely unremarkable lobbyist who fills out the first perfect March Madness bracket in the history of the world, and wins a billion dollar prize. Following his big win, he begins to think he's so smart and so special, and then it's all downhill from there.
The prose is sharp, insightful, highly original, and fun. I really enjoyed this one and felt like it could have a lot of potential coming to life on-screen, and teaching anyone not familiar with the Icarus story what it truly means "to fly too close to the sun." Thank you NetGalley for the early digital copy.
PS - As a big basketball fan, I absolutely loved all the bracketology and basketball references. It's rare to see a genuine sports story told in such a literary fashion.
March 8, 2026
Medium Rare by A. Natasha Joukovsky is a witty and layered literary novel that blends satire, social commentary, and classical mythology into a sharp modern tragicomedy.
The story follows Phil, a mid level Washington lobbyist whose life has settled into a predictable rhythm of mild professional success and quiet dissatisfaction. Everything changes during the 2019 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament when Phil begins making uncannily accurate predictions for the tournament’s famously chaotic bracket. As his streak continues, he suddenly finds himself at the center of attention with the possibility of achieving the seemingly impossible—a perfect bracket and a massive billion dollar prize.
Watching from the sidelines is Cassandra, a woman whose perspective adds both intrigue and complexity to the narrative. Once a university acquaintance of Phil’s, Cassandra initially views his rise as a fascinating story unfolding in real time one worthy of artistic interpretation. Yet as events progress, her focus shifts toward Phil’s wife, Raleigh, whose emotional experience adds a deeper human dimension to the spectacle surrounding Phil’s sudden fame.
Drawing inspiration from the myth of Icarus, Joukovsky crafts a narrative about ambition, attention, and the fragile nature of success. The novel explores how quickly ordinary lives can be transformed by public fascination, and how the pursuit of recognition often carries unexpected personal consequences.
At the same time, Medium Rare raises thoughtful questions about credibility and perception particularly around the role of Cassandra like figures whose warnings or insights often go unheard. Through humor, satire, and emotional nuance, the novel examines how society responds to prophecy, fame, and the thin line between brilliance and madness.
Overall, Medium Rare offers a clever and engaging reading experience. With its blend of cultural commentary, mythological inspiration, and sharp humor, A. Natasha Joukovsky delivers a novel that is both entertaining and thought provoking.
The story follows Phil, a mid level Washington lobbyist whose life has settled into a predictable rhythm of mild professional success and quiet dissatisfaction. Everything changes during the 2019 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament when Phil begins making uncannily accurate predictions for the tournament’s famously chaotic bracket. As his streak continues, he suddenly finds himself at the center of attention with the possibility of achieving the seemingly impossible—a perfect bracket and a massive billion dollar prize.
Watching from the sidelines is Cassandra, a woman whose perspective adds both intrigue and complexity to the narrative. Once a university acquaintance of Phil’s, Cassandra initially views his rise as a fascinating story unfolding in real time one worthy of artistic interpretation. Yet as events progress, her focus shifts toward Phil’s wife, Raleigh, whose emotional experience adds a deeper human dimension to the spectacle surrounding Phil’s sudden fame.
Drawing inspiration from the myth of Icarus, Joukovsky crafts a narrative about ambition, attention, and the fragile nature of success. The novel explores how quickly ordinary lives can be transformed by public fascination, and how the pursuit of recognition often carries unexpected personal consequences.
At the same time, Medium Rare raises thoughtful questions about credibility and perception particularly around the role of Cassandra like figures whose warnings or insights often go unheard. Through humor, satire, and emotional nuance, the novel examines how society responds to prophecy, fame, and the thin line between brilliance and madness.
Overall, Medium Rare offers a clever and engaging reading experience. With its blend of cultural commentary, mythological inspiration, and sharp humor, A. Natasha Joukovsky delivers a novel that is both entertaining and thought provoking.
March 3, 2026
The plot and tone of this Icarus retelling were great, unfortunately I just didn't love the writing style. I think I would have liked this better if it was 50-100 pages shorter, but take that with a grain of salt because I think that about nearly every book that I read. I think it is incredibly difficult to write sports scenes in a compelling way especially from the perspective of a spectator, so I appreciate the way that Joukovsky wrote those scenes, but I think they went on far too long.
For all the super minute detail in the first half, the second half suffers from the opposite problem. Outside of a handful of scenes, everything happens off page and is recapped to the reader through Cassandra's monologue. To make the narrative work, Cassandra needed to be a participant in Icarus's/Phil's downfall and for that to happen certain things needed to happen in their relationship. However, at no point did it feel like those changes in attitude appeared in the interactions between the characters.
Thank you to NetGalley and Melville House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
For all the super minute detail in the first half, the second half suffers from the opposite problem. Outside of a handful of scenes, everything happens off page and is recapped to the reader through Cassandra's monologue. To make the narrative work, Cassandra needed to be a participant in Icarus's/Phil's downfall and for that to happen certain things needed to happen in their relationship. However, at no point did it feel like those changes in attitude appeared in the interactions between the characters.
Thank you to NetGalley and Melville House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
April 7, 2026
One prophet (authentic but only acknowledged in intimate circles and taken for granted) documents another (publicly acknowledged but actually sightless). The same pleasures I found in Portrait of a Mirror happily reoccurred here, like a fractal: pleasingly unexpected pairing of adjectives and nouns, cutting psycho-social observations built on philosophical framing, thoughtful plotting, etc. The character the book forms its center of gravity around is neither of the prophets, however, it's Raleigh, and her friendship with the narrator. Is this a book about friendship? It's about a number of things, but if I had to pick one tag, friendship might be the choice. The second label would be it's about proxies, which is nicely articulated at pp. 187-188. Lucky/unlucky Phil is a dullard, which is pointed, but I wonder if the book might have benefited from making him slightly more interesting; I don't think it would have undermined the need to have him be a buffoon. But that's a small critique. Entertaining and sustaining work.
February 24, 2026
I’m a bit confused on what this book was supposed to be or mainly the narrator’s role I guess.. there were just many things that were mentioned that simply didn’t add up or were never mentioned again like the metaphor an Virginia’s foresight?? Like huh??
I understand this is supposed to be a modern retelling of the myth of Icarus which is simple enough to understand but really what is Cassandra’s role at times? I seriously felt like so confused by her narration or maybe I didn’t get it??
Maybe I’ll have to read it again a second time to get it. This book was honestly a 2.5 by the end of it and only worked its way back to 3 because of what happened to Phil in the end but yeah erm…
Also the prose was cool but simultaneously felt stunted and jostling…. Like the narrator just wanted us to know she knows big words .. which I guess makes sense since ppl consistently treat her like she doesn’t know shit… but yeah no this book kind of didn’t work for me the way it did for everyone else
UPDATE: yeah no that remains a 2.5 I think.
I understand this is supposed to be a modern retelling of the myth of Icarus which is simple enough to understand but really what is Cassandra’s role at times? I seriously felt like so confused by her narration or maybe I didn’t get it??
Maybe I’ll have to read it again a second time to get it. This book was honestly a 2.5 by the end of it and only worked its way back to 3 because of what happened to Phil in the end but yeah erm…
Also the prose was cool but simultaneously felt stunted and jostling…. Like the narrator just wanted us to know she knows big words .. which I guess makes sense since ppl consistently treat her like she doesn’t know shit… but yeah no this book kind of didn’t work for me the way it did for everyone else
UPDATE: yeah no that remains a 2.5 I think.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
https://openlettersreview.com/posts/m...
Arun Patil of Daedalus Industries has pledged a billion dollars to anyone who can accomplish a near statistical impossibility: correctly pick the winner of every game in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) “March Madness” men’s college basketball tournament. The best sixty-four college basketball programs in the country receive an invitation to “The Big Dance” each year and face off in a single elimination tournament. Sixty-four schools are reduced to thirty-two, to the “Sweet Sixteen”, “Elite Eight”, and “Final Four”, until a champion is crowned. Yes, those phrases are owned and copyrighted by the NCAA, games are all nationally televised and men plan vasectomies around the schedule so they can lie on the couch for days of guilt-free viewing.
You can care nothing for sports and Medium Rare will riotously entertain. It is a tragicomedy based on the myth of Icarus, using the famed basketball tournament, D.C. politics, and even Hollywood as a brilliant framework for a meteoric journey that highlights the absurdity of power and ambition in America.
Cassandra, a Washington D.C. fundraiser, narrates. Her omniscient first-person telling of the story is truly all-knowing, for she is a modern-day oracle. She’s not the only character in the story with incredible predictive ability, for Phil Fayeton, an ‘everyman’ if there ever was one, does indeed beat infinitesimal odds and selects the near-impossible ‘perfect bracket’. Our author highlights the improbability with smart wordplay:
The odds of filling out a perfect March Madness bracket are so infinitesimal statisticians disagree about just how infinitesimal they are. That’s two to the sixty-third power, mathematically speaking, Phil would explain rattling off each digit with memorial pride. After his first few public appearances, he googled a series of analogies to help contextualize a number of that size, as if to improve its marketability. Pick a grain of sand from anywhere in the world, he’d say, and you’d be twenty-three percent more likely to find it again at random than to fill out a perfect March Madness bracket.
Each round of the tournament serves as its own chapter for the first half of the novel, progressing with the tournament. We are with Phil as he watches the University of Virginia (his alma mater and selected winner) play each game and prose every bit as suspenseful as Laura Hillenbrand’s accounts of Seabiscuit sprinting against War Admiral grips the reader. At each stage, Phil’s correct selection of every game makes him more famous, for his is the rare medium in Medium Rare. By the time Phil is one of thirteen left in the country with all perfect picks, he’s gone from notable among friends and family, to doing podcasts and Skype interviews about basketball. He’s given a Buick, tickets to watch games in premier box seats and rapidly becomes a “personal interest story” for national television networks. Upon holding the only remaining perfect bracket, he’s a topic of water cooler talk across the nation. We gain insight into his mindset as he verbally spars with billionaire Patil, who only ever sought free publicity. Phil, and wife, Raleigh, watch a game together in the DaedaDome, one that has gone into overtime:
Arun barreled into the owner’s suite, “I will give you a million dollars right now to call off the bet. He regretted this offer the moment it escaped his lips. Phil, rising to his full height, smiled down at him, almost with a look of pity.
“I don’t think so, man,” said Phil.
“Phil,” said Raleigh, implicitly urging him to consider it.
“No, babe, Auburn’s gonna win.”
“There are other games left,” said Arun, appealing now more to Raleigh, and feeling the need, in having made the mistake, to convince himself it hadn’t been one by doubling down. “Ten million.”
“No,” said Phil, more emphatically this time, almost unthinkingly, as Auburn drove in for a layup.
Arun bided his time, until Kentucky again got within three. There were thirteen seconds left. “Offer stands,” he said quietly.
“Phil,” Raleigh whispered to him. Ten million dol—
But the game was over, Auburn had prevailed.
The second half of the novel spotlights Phil outshining senators he once couldn’t even get a meeting with, and chronicles how he handles and mishandles the incredible fame gained as a prognosticator. He soars as high as B-list stardom in Los Angeles, his journey a sensational one, capped off by a wonderfully crafted tailspin. Medium Rare features fresh pieces to the myth and feels original in flavor. The relationship between Phil’s pregnant wife from the Deep South, Raleigh, and narrator Cassandra, is especially poignant. Their friendship evolves from the side-plot to center stage with clever literary maneuvers as Phil stumbles from the summit. This is a book flawlessly placed in modern times.
Joukovsky’s previous novel, Portrait of A Mirror, used innovative flair to recount the myth of Narcissus, and she certainly has a knack for this type of storytelling. Medium Rare will appeal to sports and mythology lovers, while also interest readers who enjoy satirical politics and celebrity. You’ll have trouble not consuming the first half in a single sitting and, a trait increasingly uncommon in contemporary literature, enjoy experiencing characters grow and learn. Characters realize early judgments are misplaced, they are corrected in interesting ways, and we are rewarded with a slam dunk of a finale on a classic tale.
Thanks to Edelweiss+ and Melville House for a review copy.
Arun Patil of Daedalus Industries has pledged a billion dollars to anyone who can accomplish a near statistical impossibility: correctly pick the winner of every game in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) “March Madness” men’s college basketball tournament. The best sixty-four college basketball programs in the country receive an invitation to “The Big Dance” each year and face off in a single elimination tournament. Sixty-four schools are reduced to thirty-two, to the “Sweet Sixteen”, “Elite Eight”, and “Final Four”, until a champion is crowned. Yes, those phrases are owned and copyrighted by the NCAA, games are all nationally televised and men plan vasectomies around the schedule so they can lie on the couch for days of guilt-free viewing.
You can care nothing for sports and Medium Rare will riotously entertain. It is a tragicomedy based on the myth of Icarus, using the famed basketball tournament, D.C. politics, and even Hollywood as a brilliant framework for a meteoric journey that highlights the absurdity of power and ambition in America.
Cassandra, a Washington D.C. fundraiser, narrates. Her omniscient first-person telling of the story is truly all-knowing, for she is a modern-day oracle. She’s not the only character in the story with incredible predictive ability, for Phil Fayeton, an ‘everyman’ if there ever was one, does indeed beat infinitesimal odds and selects the near-impossible ‘perfect bracket’. Our author highlights the improbability with smart wordplay:
The odds of filling out a perfect March Madness bracket are so infinitesimal statisticians disagree about just how infinitesimal they are. That’s two to the sixty-third power, mathematically speaking, Phil would explain rattling off each digit with memorial pride. After his first few public appearances, he googled a series of analogies to help contextualize a number of that size, as if to improve its marketability. Pick a grain of sand from anywhere in the world, he’d say, and you’d be twenty-three percent more likely to find it again at random than to fill out a perfect March Madness bracket.
Each round of the tournament serves as its own chapter for the first half of the novel, progressing with the tournament. We are with Phil as he watches the University of Virginia (his alma mater and selected winner) play each game and prose every bit as suspenseful as Laura Hillenbrand’s accounts of Seabiscuit sprinting against War Admiral grips the reader. At each stage, Phil’s correct selection of every game makes him more famous, for his is the rare medium in Medium Rare. By the time Phil is one of thirteen left in the country with all perfect picks, he’s gone from notable among friends and family, to doing podcasts and Skype interviews about basketball. He’s given a Buick, tickets to watch games in premier box seats and rapidly becomes a “personal interest story” for national television networks. Upon holding the only remaining perfect bracket, he’s a topic of water cooler talk across the nation. We gain insight into his mindset as he verbally spars with billionaire Patil, who only ever sought free publicity. Phil, and wife, Raleigh, watch a game together in the DaedaDome, one that has gone into overtime:
Arun barreled into the owner’s suite, “I will give you a million dollars right now to call off the bet. He regretted this offer the moment it escaped his lips. Phil, rising to his full height, smiled down at him, almost with a look of pity.
“I don’t think so, man,” said Phil.
“Phil,” said Raleigh, implicitly urging him to consider it.
“No, babe, Auburn’s gonna win.”
“There are other games left,” said Arun, appealing now more to Raleigh, and feeling the need, in having made the mistake, to convince himself it hadn’t been one by doubling down. “Ten million.”
“No,” said Phil, more emphatically this time, almost unthinkingly, as Auburn drove in for a layup.
Arun bided his time, until Kentucky again got within three. There were thirteen seconds left. “Offer stands,” he said quietly.
“Phil,” Raleigh whispered to him. Ten million dol—
But the game was over, Auburn had prevailed.
The second half of the novel spotlights Phil outshining senators he once couldn’t even get a meeting with, and chronicles how he handles and mishandles the incredible fame gained as a prognosticator. He soars as high as B-list stardom in Los Angeles, his journey a sensational one, capped off by a wonderfully crafted tailspin. Medium Rare features fresh pieces to the myth and feels original in flavor. The relationship between Phil’s pregnant wife from the Deep South, Raleigh, and narrator Cassandra, is especially poignant. Their friendship evolves from the side-plot to center stage with clever literary maneuvers as Phil stumbles from the summit. This is a book flawlessly placed in modern times.
Joukovsky’s previous novel, Portrait of A Mirror, used innovative flair to recount the myth of Narcissus, and she certainly has a knack for this type of storytelling. Medium Rare will appeal to sports and mythology lovers, while also interest readers who enjoy satirical politics and celebrity. You’ll have trouble not consuming the first half in a single sitting and, a trait increasingly uncommon in contemporary literature, enjoy experiencing characters grow and learn. Characters realize early judgments are misplaced, they are corrected in interesting ways, and we are rewarded with a slam dunk of a finale on a classic tale.
Thanks to Edelweiss+ and Melville House for a review copy.
February 23, 2026
As a college basketball fan, when I heard that March Madness plays a part in this book, I was hyped! For the readers who are not college basketball fans, don’t count this one out - it’s not about basketball - it’s about people. Their relationships and jobs and their luck (or is it their genius?!) their rise to the top and ultimately their fall to the bottom.
The story kept me entertained from start to finish with witty writing and a vague sense that I wasn’t quite sure what was really going on. I love a book that keeps me on my toes and is different from any book I’ve read before and Medium Rare is those things and more!
Thank you to Melville House Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.
The story kept me entertained from start to finish with witty writing and a vague sense that I wasn’t quite sure what was really going on. I love a book that keeps me on my toes and is different from any book I’ve read before and Medium Rare is those things and more!
Thank you to Melville House Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.
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