Status Updates From April May June July

I’m sorry last one I promise but literally even in the epilogue July’s chapter is more about some ham fisted political analysis of the Obama administration’s inheritance of Reagan’s dismemberment of the Middle East than any personal growth he had. Why is this, I hear no one asking. Because July didn’t have any growth because he was barely a character in this book!

For July, Nate played by Owen Thiele and July played by whatever white boy of the month it is. Fingers crossed for Josh O’Connor

For June, a better goddamn wife

For May, also death

New game, I am passing divine judgement. For April, death

Unfortunately for this book July is probably my favorite character and it’s because he’s the only one the plot is happening through. This book makes no sense it’s so confusing I’m so irritated. Like genuinely I don’t understand why July is even in the book but at the same time I kinda think he’d better off in his own novel like he’s in a completely different movie

What’s even the point of this. I mean it. The dad was dead the whole time, they’ve taken this insane vacation to Iraq, pontificating the whole time about the folly of the American war machine, about the Cold War, the Contras, the lack of international response to the Assad regime, and what? Their father was facilitating it? I think we’ve established the only innocents are the dead. So what was the point?

Feeling sort of inspired to get a plane to Iraq just to see how easy it is

And we all do remember that I knew Ross was a bitch and they discovered the affair we all remember this. Would be really funny if they all die in Iraq sometime in the last quarter of this book. Would bump up the review at least half a star. July is in a different fucking movie from his shitty sisters. They’re all acting out Long Day’s Journey Into Night and he’s trying to convince them to do Billy Elliot

Not to be an enabler but it’s clear that the people she’s surrounded by are not actually that accomplished at reading June’s moods and responses to the point where they’ve allowed her to spiral to this degree but also like can you call it alcoholism when she has like one drink with dinner and it isn’t particularly affecting her life? She’s holding down the job and planning the wedding like lock me up but

I’m sorry there’s something cunt about illegally traveling to Iraq under a false visa alone in 2005. Also I can’t think of a liquid this book has aged like but every page is so obvious 2014 you read this book and you go “this reminds me of 2014”. And every one of these girls has been such a bitch to their mother and their mother is just like can the three of you be adults while I finish raising your brother

Babygirl (2024)

Owen Thiele would play Nate in the movie. This book would make an okay movie, maybe. I think k unfortunately July is the best character if for no other reason than his motivations are actually validated by the text. His sisters’ plots are intermingling with each other and not his, so every time he’s like, “they hate me and I feel disconnected from them” it’s like, yeah buddy you’ve got it that’s right

Okay the thinly veiled political statements are so stale. It’s like writing a book supporting the Korean War but critiquing MacArthur’s strategy. Fucking stupid. Also the business about the alcoholism is stupid. Enough of this gray area nonsense either it’s a problem or it isn’t stop riding the line

I must remind myself that 2014 was like peak tackiness. Lord, forgive us our tackiness, as we forgive those who are tacky against us. Lead us not into tackiness but deliver us from evil. Amen

Also Ross definitely knows about the affair so everybody jot that down

I’m sorry this is fucking stupid. It’s 2014 and she’s getting these fucking voicemails from the goddamn cia on her blackberry at the fucking mall don’t piss me off. Also Ross you sackless wonder get a life you seem awful. Ross seems like the kind of guy who would initiate divorce proceedings in 2016 because he found out his wife caucused for Bernie. Grow up Ross you asshole

Babygirl (2024)

I’d say the biggest problem this book has is tone. It would do well with an edgier tilt. Make it a thriller, or in the very least something darker. As it is it’s been marketed more as, forgive me, chick lit, which frankly it doesn’t even seem interested in pursuing. If one’s an alcoholic, another one is an amateur war correspondent, the other one is fucking in the parking lot, all the pieces are there already

Why do these three women hate each other so much. Their disdain for their brother is obvious and somewhat easier to quantify, and the narrative at least seems nominally interested in mapping it, but their ambivalence to one another appears ungrounded

I’m sorry I really don’t give a fuck she’s having this weird ass affair in a hotel basement girl you’ve got a twelve year old let’s work with her maybe huh

If we’re gonna have a discussion about George bush you better have a radical fucking take for 2014

How long were they in fucking Europe

I’m sorry the spontaneous trip to Dubrovnik where you saw the apparition of your deceased father and then got dressed down by your sister that hates you is stupid. It’s stupid

There’s no reason this book couldn’t have been about two neighbors and a dog