Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover

by Mila Jaroniec

Through flashbacks, photographs, confessions and letters, we discover our narrator—as queer sex store worker, suicide survivor, isolated lover, immigrant’s daughter, deliberate alcoholic and artistic failure. She cycles through images, obsessions and memories, as she tries to glue together the unhinged parts of herself, both in the physical world and the one in her mind. She recalls Sloan, the girlfriend-who-got-away; Mischa, her heartbroken best friend and co-conspirator; and her elusive older brother whose absence continues to shape her life.
​
With razor-sharp imagery, the fractured story of our narrator comes to life: A young woman at an emotional crossroads embarking on a journey to her future. Or is she falling into her past?

In New York’s City’s bars, bedrooms, and elsewhere, Jaroniec evokes the lives of queer underground angels, their deep friendships, their passions and their struggles.
​

Advance Praise for Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover:

"A lovely, gritty whirlwind tour of New York City’s queer woman scene, perfectly painted as I remember it. Mila’s writing is so colorful and beautifully present, dancing through an addiction memoir that is anything but preachy. Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover is about being young and stupid and also too smart for your own good. It’s about the undying friendship between queer women, a much-needed addition to the young people writing about being young genre, and above all, it’s about living through this, as Courtney Love would say."
--Gaby Dunn, creator of YouTube's Just Between Us

"In Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover, Mila Jaroniec writes with a seer's wisdom and a poet's touch. Emotions are evoked in language both lovely and dangerous. I love the honesty and the beauty."
--Darcey Steinke, author of Sister Golden Hair
​
"This is a book that wasn't just typed, but carved into a mirror with a razor blade. An adventure of errors through a maze where the walls move and the floor does too, Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover pulses with vivid neon light; if Joan Didion and Courtney Love had to band together to save the world from itself on a Saturday night. Mila Jaroniec is part leader of a punk rock cult, part soothsayer of substance abuse, part art slick angel, all genius."
--Bud Smith, author of I'm From Electric Peak
​
"Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover is a razor-sharp meditation on loneliness in sex, under capitalism, in the face of mortality, even in the arms of those we claim to love. Not literature, philosophy, alcohol, or commodities fill the hole, and Jaroniec's triumph is that she doesn't cop to any easy solutions. This isn't a book for the winners of the world, but one that celebrates the Worst Of list, the losers, the 'kindhearted satanists and drug addicts who are not sorry.' Those who accept the world as-is with all its fucked up characters, each more gloriously doomed than the last."
--Sarah Gerard, author of Binary Star

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Literature, LGBT

142 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2016

About the author

Mila Jaroniec is the author of Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover and the creator and editor of Black Lipstick. Her work has appeared in Allure, Playgirl, Playboy, Joyland, Ninth Letter, PANK, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Southwest Review, The Millions, NYLON and Teen Vogue, among others. She earned her MFA from The New School and is represented by Annie DeWitt at Enliven Endeavors.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A relief to read about NYC exploits that don't involve men.

[Amanda Miska · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with this narrator's dark humor and snapped this book up in a hurry. Every time I read it, I'm struck by something new. I could be biased, but I think this novel, the first by the up-and-coming Split Lip Press, is one of my favorite small press reads of 2016. But again, I may be biased.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up
Not much plot, pacing gave me whiplash and whoever edited this deserves jail time but I loved her stream of consciousness.

[Blue · Rating 4 out of 5]

A queer deep-dive into NYC with a strong female voice. Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover is quintessentially NYC: it's got immigrants fluent in far away languages and weighed heavy (and rendered critic of all else) with far away memories, poetry readings, Polish dudes passed out in the park, accounts of attempted suicides, an unhealthy oscillation between nihilistic and optimistic outlooks, sex in dirty bathrooms, sex in rooftops, mouths full of cum, drugs, Pride, and more! Though there is a seeming lack of plot, the novel does get under the skin and linger for a long time.

My only complaint is the sections written entirely in italics, which as an editor made me cringe and as a reader made it hard to read (getting old...) I understand these were more like letters or diary entries and the italics was supposed to imitate handwriting, but it was hard to read regardless. (Interestingly, I had been thinking about how to include diary entries in the book I'm writing, and well, now I know what not to do!)

Recommended for those who like airports, fast food, and vodka.

[Angie Dutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book though felt that a lot of the description is laboured and seemed to overstress how punk and grotty the character or their surroundings are, though I felt this was perhaps purposeful because it's written in first person, and maybe that says something about the character, even so it felt slightly overplayed.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

For fans of Ali Liebegott, Michelle Tea, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha — this is a brilliant, unique and unforgettable novel on queer love, friendship and misadventure.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book I wish I'd written! One of the best things I've read all year, for sure.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in one day, in airports and on planes--which seemed fitting. Jaroniec's writing consumed me.

[Kendall Tubbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

i’m literally begging for an editor

3.5

[Lillie Connors · Rating 3 out of 5]

really loved parts of this but I fear I shouldn’t have been as confused as I was after some passages. begging for any chapter markings or clear time jumps

[Ebony Earwig · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give this a 3.5. It's approaching something great but never quite makes it there (for me anyway). Strange to say that I actually felt like it was a bit too short, and that I'd have liked to have spent more time with it, and some of the time is wasted with too much describing of easily imaginable grot. I think this is a matter of taste, but I think if it got more to the point faster then there'd be more room for other events, it seems to be a book that wants to pack a punch so think that would make it more effective.

[Gwen Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

The chapters aren't numbered or titled, which makes it seem, somehow, more like a loosely entangled mess of memories. At its best, it feels good, like you're swinging on a trapeze and at the peak, in the moment between backward and forward, you're caught by the grabbing hands of someone, Mila, who swings you chapter to chapter. At its worst, the page breaks hiccup in the chaotic headspace of a stranger.

The prose is tight; the structure is frustrating.

FULL REVIEW SOON AT HEAVY FEATHER

[Allison Renner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful meandering journey that begins as literal, in an airport, and then rewinds through the narrator’s life to explore the people she’s known, the relationships she had with them, and how that affected her. I underlined so many sections that shared powerful truths in such beautiful and approachable language.

Disclaimer: I am the Publicity & Reviews Manager for Split/Lip Press.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mila is a lyrical prodigy and I could drink up her brilliant voice all day.

[Charlene Elsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the language and the content; beautiful thoughts beautifully expressed.

[Sarah Tollok · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover read like a rope swing that kept flying back and forth between free-wheeling, deliriously drunk and cheek-pressed-against-the-cold-tile-of-the-bathroom-floor hungover. The main character is looking for love, truth, beauty, and for herself. She looks for these in books, movies, other people's beds, and at the bottom of vodka bottles. (The parts describing books were some of my favorites. I wished the author leaned into those bits even more.) Sometimes, oddly enough, she finds what she's looking for. She finds moments of connection and she witnesses touching vignettes among the people she spies from her perch on a bar stool or who pass her on the street as she is waiting for her laundry to be done. She chases the love of her life, taking an impulsive flight across the country. I was frustrated by never knowing the conclusion of that voyage, but it did somehow fit with the rest of the nonlinear storytelling the author used. The reunion then always hovers in the unknown future, Schrodinger's love story. The bottle of vodka with the lime floating in it is either half empty or half full, and the reader must decide.

[Toilet Sweat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I wouldn’t kick the author out of bed. No, I’d roll her up inside a sleeping bag and shart on her schnozzola until she admits that Live Through This is the worst Nirvana album. Maybe worse than Incesticide. That’s why Courtney killed Kurt. And she killed Kristen Pfaff because Kristen was the hottest babe anywhere near the band, even though she looks like my mom. But why did she spare Billy Corgan. It’s no mystery. Celebrity Skin is her biggest hit. She just wants to love herself, after all. Here’s hoping the author hires Billy to write her second book.

[Alisa]

There are some beautiful passages woven through an anti-narrative that has no resolution. If there is any character development over the different time frames, overarching present frame, and italicized flashbacks addressing a brother about whom we never find out what happened, I missed it entirely. A pretty self indulgent tale with good descriptions of drugs and sex.

[Josh Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compacted within is a pressure of earned life. Lingers in your mind like the tingling of a vodka shot. And there are many lined up on this grimy bar top of a novel. An exercise in narrative and intense empathy. Get an Uber, stay safe.

[Anne McGrath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a great title!

[Split Lip Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blurbed by Bud Smith, Sarah Gerard, Gaby Dunn, and Darcey Steinke, "Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover" is the fractured story of a young woman at an emotional crossroads. Through flashbacks, photographs, confessions, and letters, we discover our narrator—as queer sex store worker, suicide survivor, isolated lover, immigrant’s daughter, deliberate alcoholic, and artistic failure. She cycles through images, obsessions, and memories, as she tries to glue together the unhinged parts of herself, both in the physical world and the one in her mind. A one-of-a-kind meditation on the queer underground angels of New York, "if Joan Didion and Courtney Love had to band together to save the world from itself on a Saturday night." (Bud Smith)