Problems

PART ONE Only today 30 June 2020 I discovered that Jade Sharma died nearly a year ago, on 24 July 2019 and this was a shock, first because she died at age 39, second because it took me a year to find out – why was that? It seems it wasn’t very widely noticed, this death, and I still can’t find any k......more

3.5 stars Addicted to heroin, unsatisfying relationships with men, and her own torturous life in New York City, our protagonist Maya has more than a couple of problems. Though quite intelligent and observant about the little details in life, she struggles to break free from a cycle of self-destructio......more

I'm getting in trouble (again, forever) elsewhere for disparaging pompous white men and the pompous white books they pompously write, so I guess I'd better say some things about this one, which is written by a non-pompous non-white non-man. Guess what, haters? I didn't really like this that much eit......more

Partway through reading Problems I started sketching out a review that talked about how it was part of the first wave of Fucked-Up Millennial Woman novels – a trend which has since seen a swift, arguably more sophisticated renaissance, with ever-more irreverent and abstract permutations, so that a s......more

Jesus fucking Christ this book hurt almost as much as it made me cackle. Sometimes it did both at the same time.......more