complete mind fuck and total literary whiplash

This was very entertaining and can be read in a single sitting

So that I don't forget, this is a description of the book from a NY Times Review

Mona is a rising star on the Latin American literary scene, scornful of the international establishment that exploits her for her identity (“being a ‘woman of color,’ in the vade mecum of American racism, began to confer a chic sort of cultural capital”) but dependent on its academic appointments, publishing contracts and monetary awards. When we meet her, she is en route from Stanford to Sweden for the presentation of the lucrative Basske-Wortz — “the most important literary award in Europe,” for which she and 13 others have been nominated. Mona is brilliant, superficial, mysteriously bruised, exhibitionistic, insecure, vain and impossibly glamorous. Needless to say, she is adept at social media. Once in Sweden, Mona finds herself surrounded by preening jackasses of many lands. There’s the swaggering Colombian Marxist Marco; Hava, the combative Israeli feminist; the frequently naked local classicist Akto. Preceding the award ceremony is a four-day conference: punishing rounds of talks, panels, group meals, petty intellectual one-upmanship, casual misogyny and lackadaisical love affairs. To blunt the experience — as well as the repressed memory of the obscure hurt that haunts her mind and body — Mona spends most of her time on various drugs, or in a porn-glazed reverie. As for the recurring fox and the sinister phalanx of silent men who seem occasionally to trail her — are they a manifestation of inner demons, or something real and menacing?

CW: Sexual assault

My opinion: Mona was... disturbing, scary, and intriguing. Most of the story I was like WTF is going on, this is really really weird, Mona is a hot mess and all the people at this conference are caricatures. The story opens with Mona hazily remembering waking up bruised, bloody and generally fucked up from what we realize is a sexual assault, although we don't learn until the end that it was colleague who violently beat her and raped her on a date. She is so high and drunk that I can't fathom how she's able to get through an airport to get to the conference in Sweden. I'm not a part of academic and/or literary circles, but from folks I know who are, some of the self aggrandizing, naval gazing and general eccentricities of the other writers seems on brand, but I was uncomfortable sometimes with how they were reduced down to stereotypes -- although I took note of where Mona reflected that the writers made conscious choices to become a brand in order to sell themselves. I think in the end, this book is about trauma and how it shapes your relationship to self and to others. I read in other reviews some folks weren't pleased about the ending, and felt that it was sort of disjointed, but I rather liked the idea of these wild ass pretentious people being swept into the sea by a great magical earthly force. I haven't read anything so surreal in a long time, so I'm grappling a bit with the stream of consciousness and magical realism (the latter of which I thought I hated for a long time, but I might now anymore).

This book is smarter than I’ll ever be and fully understand

yes the narrator is absolutely unreliable and insufferable.

i don't like the way the author has explored the theme of rape and violence,
it has been built up to an unnecessary and unsatisfactory crescendo and seems a
haphazard, insincere attempt at most.

i can understand the ending, but the added theme of supernatural suspense was
absolutely inessential.

i can see that she's letting the entire truth of what happened consume her entirely
and she's killing off the narcissistic, unloving, selfish people who call themselves
writers. people who are supposed to inspire love aren't very lovely themselves.

but this could all be happening in her mind, and we will never know.

needless to say i did not enjoy this book. it's a very different genre to what i usually
read. but i would not like to read another book by this author if all of them follow the
same pattern.

there are some good quotes and food for thought and ideas that the book provokes.
the writing feels like the author was thinking this is very clever but didn't manage to
give us any actual substance.

This just wasn't it for me, the first 20 pages I enjoyed but after that I didn't feel dragged into Mona's life or cared at all about any of the messiness she was getting into. I didn't really like any of the characters but never got to know any of them deep enough to care about their flaws or struggles? I know it's a satire of the writing industry, and at first thought it all funny, but after 20ish pages it felt like a bit that was going on too long.

3,5