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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
About the author
A. Natasha Joukovsky
2 books270 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 94 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.
June 6, 2026
It is so so hard to pull off a DC book and to pull off a current events book. But I was cackling at every page of this one, reading off little snippets to whoever was in the room at the time like “look at how incisively damning” this is. And the author does such a good job with all of the little winks and nudges. And the little Kevin Wilson shoutout! The subtext of Nothing to See Here being the absolute best book for Cassandra to recommend to Raleigh!
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 28, 2026
so clever so fun so different so basketball
June 11, 2026
4.5. Not perfect, but a lot of fun. I loved the skewering of Capitol Hill culture. If you like basketball and/or Greek mythology, think you’ll enjoy.
June 14, 2026
rounded up from 3.5 stars. didn’t enjoy the basketball in the first half, but the second half did it for me. took me too long to realize this was a reimagining of a greek myth
June 21, 2026
Narration style was quirky, usually not in a bad way. Who knew Icarus was such a tool
Did Not Finish
July 4, 2026I genuinely could not this was ass on a stick
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
May 24, 2026
4.5/5 I can’t tell if this book is fantastic or if it’s just tailor made for me but who cares
June 17, 2026
3.5ish?? lowkey got into it about halfway through but legit so unserious
Did Not Finish
July 3, 2026Another one I’ll have to come back to when my brain can handle print or when it’s available in audiobook format
May 4, 2026
2.5 - vague sense of annoyance throughout the entire reading experience. better off just watching basketball.
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.
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