Run Catch Kiss

by Amy Sohn

I was only twenty-two and already I was infamous... So begins Amy Sohn's hilarious and wise debut novel, Run Catch Kiss.
When the saucy Ariel Steiner returns home to New York City to be an actress, she is buoyed by daydreams of becoming Hollywood's hottest ingenue. Nothing can stand in her way -- nothing, that is, but her freshman-fifteen pounds, a senile talent agent, and the fact that she's living back home with her parents in Brooklyn.
While waiting for the ever-elusive big break, Ariel discovers a hidden talent for channeling her erotic fantasies and becomes a sex columnist at New York's hottest downtown weekly. Soon, art and life are imitating one another, and the junkies, commitmentphobes, and other subjects of Ariel's columns are wreaking havoc on her life. But when she finally falls in love, the real Ariel must stand up. Is she a nice Jewish girl who wants to settle down or a brazen sex kitten who'd rather meet a deadline than the man of her dreams?
Sharp, savvy, and irresistible, Run Catch Kiss is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on that dangerous turn-of-the-century the single girl who wants it all.

Genres: Fiction, Chick Lit, Romance, Novels

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 6, 1999

About the author

Amy Sohn is the author of the upcoming novel The Actress, which will be published by Simon & Schuster in July 2014. Her other novels are Motherland, Prospect Park West, My Old Man, and Run Catch Kiss. She has been a columnist at New York magazine, New York Press, the New York Post and Grazia (UK). She has also written for The New York Times, The Nation, and Harper's Bazaar. She has written pilots for ABC, Fox, HBO, and Lifetime. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family.

Reviews

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novelist Amy Sohn's protagonist, Ariel Steiner, writes a sex column for an East Village weekly. Amy Sohn, at the time the novel was published, had been writing a sex column for a New York newspaper for three years. Ariel and Amy are both Jewish, both Ivy-League educated, and the same age. Ariel ends up embellishing or fabricating several of her column adventures. At least one of these escapades is with a woman, called "Beat Writer" in the novel's column. Amy Sohn's actual column also contained a same-sex adventure with a woman called "Beat Writer."

Amy Sohn is playing with our ideas about what creative nonfiction should be. Do concepts of journalistic integrity have any application to sensationalist sex writing? Centuries ago novel writers routinely claimed their novels were actually true stories. Now memoirists must do the same. If someone like the author of JT Leroy's books writes false memoir and falsely autobiographical fiction that are so good they win nation-wide acclaim, why does it matter whether the writer's persona is fabricated?

In "Run Catch Kiss," Ariel and her boyfriend trade false stories of infidelity, she to make him jealous and fall in love with her, and he to maintain his power in the relationship. When they finally confess to the deceptions, they wonder if they can believe each other's confessions, or trust each other at all. I think Amy Sohn is playing a game of meta-fiction, telling her readers (both of her column and of her novel) that essentially they'll never know which elements of her stories are true or false, and that they'll just have to judge them on how well they're written, or at least on how well they entertain.

[Meri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good enough read, but I couldn't get it out of my mind as I was reading that it felt like I was reading the book version of Hannah from the show "Girls." This book might be several years old, but it felt contemporary as far as womens' sexuality and the way it feels to be a single or attached girl.

[Mauoijenn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why?
I should have known.
This book was no good for the start.
But I did make it through a lot of it.
Not really my thing.
I have stepped away from the chick books.
But if you like chick lit books this might be what you are looking for.

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written and sleazy.

[Saundra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chick lit with sleezy porn. Felt bad for Ariel, a single, 22-year old Jewish girl, who was looking for love, thought she was living the life of a dating columnist, but found that she was writing and lying about her dating life using porn, and figured out she wasn't happy. There were a few laughs, but it carries an underlying sadness.

[youcan_callmej · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first DNF. I didn’t hate it but I wasn’t excited to finish it. It was too much like sex and the city expect it was a twenty three year old girl who thought she was hot but just sounds complainy and had no idea what she was talking about. She was so awkward in all departments. I really wanted to like it!

[Katherine Solomon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very racy!

[Toño Piñeiro]

Sex & the city al plato sin Sex & city.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some funny lines in this breezy, sleezy jaunt through sex-in-the-city NYC, the city so full of blasé decadence that Islamic extremists felt like flying planes into it. I felt a low key loathing for everyone, writers, friends, readers, editors, parents and co-workers described in this “novel.”

[Ciara · Rating 2 out of 5]

wait, why did i read this? i don't know. i saw it at a thirft store & it caught my eye, & later i saw it at the library & was like, okay, why not? it's the tale of a sex columnist whose sex column ends up wreaking some serious havoc on her dating life. she tries to write only about true sexual things she has done, but as her readership expands, it naturally demands more depravity than she is really comfortable with, & she has her dad trying to hide the column from his lecherous co-workers in mid-town manhattan, & she meets a nice guy that she might actually want to date, but he won't let her write about him for the column, so she resorts to making stuff up, & it all blows up in her face as these scenarios are wont to do. it's like "i love lucy" for the "sex & the city" set or something, i don't know. i guess i wanted to read it because i am intrigued by sex columnists, & advice colunists in general. i think i would make a GREAT advice columnist. especially when it comes to relationship crap. books like this do nothing to disabuse me of this notion. i think the author was going for salaciousness though (it gets pretty explicit at times), which smacked of trying too hard. i really dislike reading anything in fiction about what people find kinky or whatever. all i can think is that this is what the AUTHOR really does find kinky, & it weirds me out.

[okyrhoe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this under the duress of insomnia, almost in one go... and finished the last pages the next afternoon when I woke up again.
Not much to say except it's readable.
Better than SATC, for sure; although I don't think a comparison is fair to RCK. If pressed, I'd say that Amy Sohn's prose is closer to the style of Ariel Levy and Elizabeth Wurtzel. RCK reads like something they would likely have penned if they had been asked to write chick-lit fiction.
Sohn can write, and is very good with narrative structures, eg. pacing, elision, as well as being able to maintain an intelligent tone of irony and sarcasm throughout the story.
But there's the rub... The author can't separate herself from the point-of-view of the protagonist. Ariel the first-person narrator is a recent college graduate, who's still got some learning to do, from the real knocks-of-life type of education. But right from the start she's already got her smartypants attitude & voice.
Whatever she's got she has it already from the book's opening. There's no discernible evolution in her character or narrative tone. And so the ending of the book isn't climactic or particularly satisfying for the reader.

[Tania · Rating 1 out of 5]

I barely finished this book, and I was extremely disappointed. I was looking forward to reading the novel, as I'm a huge fan of the TV show Sex in the City, and I'm a fan of the "20/30 something female looking for love" genre. But this book fell flat.

Some of the events were mildly amusing, but not funny enough to warrant the length of the book. The foul language seemed as though it was there more to shock the reader than anything. The sex scenes were boring. And, worst of all, there was no character development at all. Even some of the flimsiest novels I've read paid some attention to giving the characters a bit of depth. Ariel was absolutely one of the most annoying characters I've ever read about. None of her relationships rang true. I just didn't care what happened to her. I really wouldn't reccommend this book to anyone.

[Jen B · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was one of the first chick lit books I ever read, right after my college graduation, in the jobless days I spent lounging on my parents' sofa. It seemed like such a perfect read for me - a single, newly graduated heroine, ready to take on the big city. I really wanted to like it. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it in the least. I am not a prude, but I couldn't get past the vulgarity; it's a little...um, frank, I guess you could say, about the main character's sexual exploits. Reading about a little sex can be entertaining; reading about a girl who is trying to do it with half of New York is just over-the-top. I wanted to take a shower after I finished reading it.

[Michael Alan Grapin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ariel Steiner returns to New York after completing her Ivy League education and embarks on a career in acting. Unfortunately her agent seems unable to deliver and Ariel winds up writing a trashy column for a weekly paper and working as a temp. Her exploits in sex and dating affect her relationships while providing comic fodder until it's discovered that she may have fabricated and/or exaggerated some of her escapades. Raunchy and not for the faint of heart I found it titillating and amusing.

[Jennie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is what Sex and the City (the series, not the book) would be if instead of a fabulous 30something with great friends, Carrie were a slovenly, mostly friendless 20something with little or no self-esteem who constantly let men degrade her so that she could have material for her column. At first it's kind of funny how appalling her behavior is (and even then you're laughing at her, not with her), but it quickly becomes merely tedious and gross.

[Janelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book caught my eye at the library, and I checked it out because the description sounded really good... a struggling actress turned writer... I thought I could relate to that. But, I hated this book. The main character was putting herself in situations where she was allowing herself to be sexually abused. It made me sick and I didn't even finish this book because I couldn't stand how depressed it was making me.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending was very rushed and then abrupt. Normally I don't like the "unfinished" endings where you can decipher whether or not it's good, but this seemed slightly more uplifting than others.
The book was really a tale about how hard it is to be a woman - both in love and in life (career, friends, self-image, etc.) There definitely were moments I connected with but other times it just seemed too unrealistic.

[Meredith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book years ago and according to the 4 stars I gave it then, I apparently liked it. Maybe I've become a prude in my older years, but I did not enjoy it much at all this time around. Too crude for my liking!

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've seen this called a guilty pleasure. I feel guilty for having read it, but I got no pleasure from the experience. This was part of the early chick-lit boom. It should have stayed in the slush pile. Irritating tripe, poorly executed.

[Biwi · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like sex and the city, you will enjoy the printed version. It's been a while since I've read it, but I remember there being parts where I really liked the main character, and other times where I really hated her. It was a good balance though.

[Stacie (BTR) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the very first chick-lit book I ever read. Since then, I have realized that there are many, many, many books just like this one. One quality that I found unique and enjoyable about this story is the author's frank writing style.

[Jaime Hudson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to put this book down, but yet again I really wanted to like this book. I kept trudging along through the filth, bore, and occasional giggles. I didn't hate it, but I didn't really like it either.

[Jolie Longstocking · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time faves read it when on the occasional need of a fun read... Lots of sexy lingo crazy NYC realness
Bars all over manhattan and Bob Dylan.... Lots of mention of my favorite Dylan album Nashville Skyline!

Great fun beach read!!

[Kathleen Meacham · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book in 1999, but would NEVER read it now (2015) because my life has changed considerably, and the premise of this book is "unsavory". That said, even back in 1999, I still did not like it.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

damn good for chick lit. I don't usually like this kind of book, but this one was entertaining

[Crystal Ledger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Amy Sohn is a great writer.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't really call this chick lit. It's too deliciously raunchy and honest. Call it Sex in the City with way bigger balls.

[nw · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very cool book. Lots of humor to the narrator's voice--that sarcastic funny that I love. This got me through my first New England summer back in 2000.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

also read Catch by the same author tho i cant seem to locate it on this website :(

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book very much, but not everyone agrees with me. The main character can be very unlikeable at times, but, in my opinion, still relatable. It is a little graphic with sexual scenes.