Well. It least it was a quick read. It is truly hard to fathom how such a boring, uninteresting book like this ever got published.
The story takes place in NYC between a hot summer and hurricane Sandy not that it mattered and neither event has any baring on the story, but the book is about 3 terribly stereotypical, boring, self absorbed people.
Kate is visiting from England, staying at a friend of her mothers place while the friend is doing her mid life crisis Eat, Pray, Love world trip- the author's words not mine, (I know how cliche). Apparently Kate is taking a break from earning her Ph.d in whatever and taking a break from her needy boring boyfriend. This is quite surprising because Kate is hands down the most boring main character I have read about in years. She is so confused about life, overly self conscious to the point of tragedy, and completely lacking any life experiences or personality.
Inez is a completely screwed up, sexually confused, 19 year old, who works at a coffee shop, has a reputation for offering horrible customer service- again a detail that has no bearing on the story, and is also a part time prescription drug dealer in the park, and has decided to answer Craigslist personal ads and provide kink sexual services- none of which are interesting, erotic, or worth reading about. She spends most waking hours drunk or high and goes barefoot everywhere.
Inez's father-William is a burned out author famous for writing 1 book, that everyone read, and has done nothing since, but be a drunk who blacks outs and passes out, and qualify for being the worst parent of the year, repeatedly.
Guess what happens.
Kate meets Inez.
Kate separately meets William
Neither William nor Inez, say the others name to Kate
Kate's sort of falls for William
Inez finds out
And
NOTHING!!! The book ends.
The only reason the book gets 2 stars is I like the author's writing, she just needs a story next time that doesn't fit on a cocktail napkin, and is about people who are actually interesting, which I would not think would be that hard considering she lives in New York City, and is from England- wow what a coincidence. ( )

Another reviewer on LT wrote "I love a good New York story". So do I, and that's probably why I 'randomly' chose this book from the library shelf. Unfortunately, although it is indeed a 21st century New York story, I did not find it to be a good one. The characters were uninteresting to me, and were shallowly presented. Their lives and their thoughts were of little interest to me. The writing itself was nothing special. I did get an impression of New York City, but I expect (actually, I'm sure) others have done that much better. ( )

A fancy title doesn’t guarantee a good book. Not even if the setting is New York. I don’t think I’ve ever felt disgusted by a novel before, but I suppose we live and learn, right? I can’t begin to tell you how much I wanted to love this work, I was already positively pre-occupied with it. It had an interesting blurb, a striking cover, a Londoner deciding to live in New York. What could go wrong? Well, as far as I am concerned, everything went wrong…

First of all, what’s wrong with Billy bookcases? Does the writer know how many beautifully, wonderfully clattered readers have found their lives’ solution in pretty Billy? Get off your high horse, please, and yes, that was rude!

So, the story is that Kate, a London girl, decides to stay in the Big Apple temporarily, leaving George, her boyfriend, behind. In New York, she meets Bill and his daughter, Inez. And if you haven’t guessed already, the book continues to show how each one’s life is changed by these magnanimous encounters. Yes, it is a story that places human relationships in its centre and tries to develop itself around the issue of living in a culture that is quite different form your own. This would make for a great read. Except it quickly turns into something else. What I felt- and this is my strictly personal opinion, mind you- was that I was reading an excuse for porn and swearing. And it goes without saying that I don't read this kind of ‘’books’’, sorry.

Where to begin? The characters were so bad I feel I’m lacking all the proper adjectives to describe them. Kate is as interesting as an undecorated white wall and then some. She is meek, docile. I mean, picture this: she supposedly has the courage to start a life in a new country, but not the determination to interact with people, acting like a frightened mouse and finding solace in smoking. And Skype. She tries out a new hair-cut as a revolutionary act, except it’s a hairstyle previously demanded by her controlling boyfriend.

Bill wasn’t a person, but a cardboard figure. Gross and indifferent. His daughter, the nineteen year old Inez, was a much different case. Yes, she had potential, I'll grant you that. I am all for expressing yourself and I’d like to believe that I am open-minded, but her ‘’look at me, I’m a bad girl’’ attitude doesn’t make for an interesting character without some skill. She is drug-crazed and sex-crazed, and excuse me, by my personal standards, this is not literature.

Mediocre writing, mediocre prose, horrible dialogue, indifferent descriptions. It’s the first time I read a book set in New York and I didn’t feel transported to the city. The writer failed to do that, in my opinion. I found that some effort has been made with elements taken from other urban contemporary novels but they weren’t used well. There was too much unnecessary emphasis on sex, too much swearing. I don’t understand what was the point of it, it made the novel utterly tasteless, almost pornographic in nature. If you want to shock- although this is very difficult in our times, because we have read and done everything- if you want to break the system, you need to have the chops as a writer to make it work. I am sorry, but in this case, I didn’t see that.

There’s so much good material in the Contemporary genre, so many excellent efforts and debuts that books like this one make me think that they have nothing to offer. Yes, my standards are high, my tastes particular and I am used to a different quality of language and themes. There were too many times when I seriously thought I should abandon it. It’s supposed to be a novel about immigration, running free from what keeps you chained on the ground and finding yourself. I failed to notice whether any of these happened throughout the course of the story. What I did find were miserable, empty people and a kind of language I’d usually hear in a basketball derby between Panathinaikos and Olympiacos (If you are a basketball fan, like yours truly, you’ll know what I’m talking about.) I’m far from a prude, nor do I shy away from controversial material. This isn’t controversial, though. I doubt whether it’s even a ‘’material’’. Don’t try to pass mediocre writing and constant swearing and porn as innovative or daring. It has been done before with dubious results.

I am never one to say ‘’oh, there’s one star, I’ll never read this book.’’ I don’t like this behaviour. It is hypocritical and presumptuous. I urge you to give every book a try, even the ones that I considered a disaster because your chances may be better. In this case, however, and honest to God, I have difficulty to do so now. I don’t think that vulgarity without any purpose is a token of a book that wants to be taken seriously. Possibly the worst book I’ve managed to finish this year…And if there was any underlying deep piece of wisdom about life, I failed to notice.

Many thanks to Catapult and Edelweiss for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.



( )

I enjoyed this even though it didn't really go anywhere to speak of. I like a good New York story—especially a good downtown New York story—and Hoby carries the book with a super sharp observational voice. Not a lot of plot, and only one character actually makes any kind of inner progress—and not very much at that. But as a slightly acid-tongued travelogue, it was fun. Hoby has a good sense of looking around and taking in the city, and for that alone it was a worthwhile read (though if you're not amused by tales of wayward downtown New Yorkers, then skip it—I myself love them deep in my little dark heart, having been one myself many moons ago). ( )

Read my full review here: https://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot.com/2018/01/neon-in-daylight.html

Neon in daylight is a
Great pleasure
(Frank O’Hara)

Kate arrived in New York from England to the apartment of her mother’s friend during the extremely hot summer of 2012. Ostensibly Kate is there to take care of the friend’s cat, but more purposefully (or not) to find herself. She is in the midst of finishing her PhD and may be trying to get away from a disappointing relationship. Her mother’s friend had said to her, “Oh, my god, your mom and I had such adventures when we were your age. Because you gotta travel! You gotta live, you know?”

“And Kate didn’t know. Didn’t know what live meant, in this context.”

Inez, a teenager who has just graduated from high school meets Kate in the unlikeliest of places, a bodega in the neighborhood. Inez is also at loose ends. Her divorced parents want her to go to college, but she can’t see herself there. She has picked a couple of highly unlikely ways to earn money—selling Aderall on the street and satisfying men’s sexual fantasies. Inez becomes Kate’s summer friend by inviting her to the frantic and frenetic activities of New York’s teenage scene.

Bill plays the pivotal role in the unfolding drama. As a young man, Bill wrote a coming-of-age novel—a kind of Catcher in the Rye—and he has lived off the proceeds of the novel and the ensuing movie into middle age. He teaches creative writing, is a purposeless drunk, and is also Inez’s father.

The plot, such as it is, focuses on these three and the intersection of their lives. Because of the skillfully drawn narrative, the reader doesn’t question the logic about how these three find each other in the midst of America’s largest city. Kate doesn’t realize that Inez is Bill’s daughter until late in the book, but she never mentions to Inez that she is having an affair with an older man. Inez never mentions her father’s name to Kate, and Bill never mentions to his daughter that he has met a young woman named Kate. There is a constant state of ennui that engulfs all the characters.

Meanwhile, the city of New York chugs on and on. It is alive and vibrant in ways that the characters are not. My favorite scene happens when Kate follows a man lugging a grand piano into Washington Square Park, where he sits down and begins to play Rachmaninoff. The city is so skillfully drawn that it becomes a major player in the story, as is the heat of the summer of 2012. As the narrative ends, Hurricane Sandy is drawing nigh at the same time there is some resolution in the relationships between the three main characters. As the city gears up for the rapidly-approaching hurricane, the book ends—the only triumph being the triumphant city. The New York Times reviewer says, “We can see what these characters cannot. Their lives seem so particular, so painful and noisy to them. But under the city’s “merciless” skyline, in the wake of a hurricane, how similar they suddenly are, how small, how human.”

One reviewer says “that sentiment—the way unlikelihood fosters a sense of inevitability—is the book’s engine.” None of the characters are particularly likeable, but that is not the author’s purpose. Both the reviews in the New York Times and the LA Review of Books praise Hoby’s talent, her observational ability, and her gift of language. It is a brilliant first novel. ( )